Property data can increase sales by making home services companies better at marketing, more efficient in dispatching and better able to predict business trends in real time. An integration of that data on the ServiceTitan booking and dispatch screens and on mobile will make all that easier.
Integration of property data with ServiceTitan’s cloud-based software for home and commercial services industries is just the first step of a data journey for the company, with more third-party data utilization in the future. With more data-centric information built into the software, trade companies can make better decisions and more money, sharpen targeted marketing and enrich their businesses, and the trades as a whole.
By launching a property data integration, leveraging the overlap of data sets from across the country with its user data, ServiceTitan is uncovering key trends and winning strategies in the trades.
And that could help everyone.
“When I started my business in 2009, this wasn’t even thought of,” says Chris Hunter, ServiceTitan’s Director of Customer relations, founder of Hunter Super Techs and co-founder of the GoTime Success Group. “If we wanted to get property data, we would have to go to the county assessor website. It wasn’t very user-friendly, and it wasn’t easy to access.”
ServiceTitan is changing that, launching a property data popup on the booking screen that will provide the information every trade company needs to optimize decision making.
“The fact that ServiceTitan is putting it on the call screen and making it integrated, it will save a tremendous amount of time,” Hunter says. "It’s going to be a lot faster on the incoming call to get the data we need.”
That’s the kind of efficiency modern home and commercial services companies need, and they kind they can leverage with integrated, third-party data..
“With the evolution of data and it becoming more available, it’s almost a staple,” Hunter says. “It is so critical, not only from an operations standpoint but also a marketing and targeting standpoint. We clearly see there are trends with certain types of property, or home age.”
And this is just the beginning. ServiceTitan will continue to enrich its data with data from more third-party sources, to benefit users of its software.
The data is based on ServiceTitan customer jobs in 2019, which includes more than 7 million job records. Some areas are not included in the data because ServiceTitan customers didn’t perform any jobs in those areas in 2019.
But the findings are instructive. Key takeaways come in five areas:
Property age
Square footage
Number of bedrooms
Number of bathrooms
New homeowners
Some findings even surprised Hunter, a veteran of the trade industry. A good example came from the electrical industry, where data shows homeowners spend the most during their first year of home ownership—much of that in the first three months.
“When I saw that about the electrical, that was the ‘aha’ moment for me,” Hunter says. “If I’m spending marketing dollars, I should refocus my strategy toward that. If that’s where consumers are, if that’s when and where they’re spending their money, that’s where I want to be.”
With more integrated third-party data, that kind of targeting and efficiency could become the norm.
“When ServiceTitan starts arming companies with data for predictive marketing and targeting, oh my gosh,” he says. “If I see that the data has told me that we’ve been replacing high-dollar air-conditioners in homes of this size and this age in this geographic spot, and here’s the exact match—specific homes with that same characteristics—that we can target with marketing dollars, It’ll help us streamline the dollars spent for our ROI.”
Some of the key takeaways, by area:
Property Age
Nearly half (approximately 48 percent) of customer revenue was generated on property built in the 25-year span between 1985 and 2010. Only approximately 39 percent of American residences were built in that time period.
The five-year period with the largest portion of revenue (approximately 12 percent) was 2000-2005. This validates other industry statistics that indicate home equipment tends to require major service or replacement when it is about 15 years old.
Square Footage
The median square footage for properties ServiceTitan customers serve is 1,976 square feet.
The biggest portion of revenue, approximately 24 percent, is generated with homes between 1,500 and 2,000 square feet.
The average ticket increases by about 4.5 percent for each additional 500 square feet a property has.
“From an HVAC perspective, knowing the age of the home, the size of the home, that will tell us in a snapshot if this is a potential opportunity,” Hunter says. “We’ll know how to send the right person to that job. It helps identifying opportunities and dispatching for profits.
“I know a lot with the HVAC sales process is based on square footage, age of the home, things like that, in determining the load. This is kind of like a shortcut, cheat sheet to get the data we need before we even arrive.”
Hunter even has a practical example of the benefit of property age and square footage data. He just moved, and he needed pest control service at his new home. Data eased that process when he called the exterminator.
“You know how they quoted me? They looked at the data, they knew the age and the square footage, and that’s how they priced my service, right then,” he said. “They didn’t have to waste a trip, I was busy, so with them being very efficient on the front end we did a deal and we’re off to the races.”
Number of Bedrooms
While about 57 percent of ServiceTitan customers’ revenue is generated on properties with up to three bedrooms, tenants actually under-index in this area, as about 73 percent of residences in the United States have three bedrooms or less.
ServiceTitan customers over-index for buildings with four bedrooms or more.
ServiceTitan customers over-index for residences with four-plus bedrooms. For each bedroom over three, there is an average increase of approximately 8 to 10 percent in median job value.
Number of Bathrooms
When limited to single-family residences, ServiceTitan customers are most successful in homes with two bathrooms, accounting for approximately 42 percent of revenue.
ServiceTitan customers significantly over-index on properties with three or more bathrooms, with approximately 47 percent of their revenue coming from the 28 percent of jobs booked that fall in that category.
Median job value tends to increase with the number of bathrooms, with each additional bathroom above two increasing median job value by approximately 7 to 10 percent.
“Think about plumbing,” Hunter says. “I know if a home has five bathrooms and I dispatch the right technician to do a complete inspection, there is no way I’m going to come away from five bathrooms and not help the customer either save money or correct a problem that was going to create property damage, or improve water quality.
“The odds of success go up dramatically.”
New Homeowners
On recently sold properties, most revenue is generated within the first year of home ownership.
The revenue generated declines for properties sold longer than a year ago, with a small resurgence around the 15-year mark.
A closer look at the first 12 months after a home was sold reveals that the distribution is heavily skewed toward the first three months (approximately 17 percent in the first month, 11 percent in the second and 10 percent in the third).
Electrical work seems to be the most immediate need new homeowners have. Close to 20 percent of revenue for electrical shops (vs. around 13 percent for other industries) is generated on houses that were sold within a year.
The Bottom Line
ServiceTitan customer data can be useful for informing contractors on a variety of issues that will make their businesses more profitable. But as much as the data tell contractors what they should do, it can also be useful for the opposite, Hunter says.
“Not every customer is a target,” Hunter says. “Just by being able to identify property data and trends on calls that aren’t very successful or don’t have a good outcome can help us be more selective.”
“Since we have such a limited labor force—and it’s only going to get worse—contractors who are successful are going to have to really zero in.
“You can really boost your profits without doing any more work just by leveraging the data.”
And as ServiceTitan adds more third-party data, layered with what the software gathers, that leverage increases.
“Right now, every week is a new week for us,” Hunter says. “We can make all these great plans, but unfortunately with the HVAC business, weather is a big driver. Same with pools, pest control, plumbing—if it’s a cool, wet season, it can affect whether they can come and do their work.
“Take the property data, plus the historical job data from ServiceTitan and the average job data, then layer it with weather data and trends and we start to see what happens when, for instance, we have a May that’s relatively wet and cooler in temps.” Hunter said.
“What does that mean for tickets and sales? And then if they layer on the AHRI shipment data …
“The more things they layer on and the more intelligent this system becomes in helping us be more predictive and strategic instead of just hoping for the best.”
Instead, contractors can lean on the marriage of ServiceTitan and third-party data, of all sorts.
“It’s really going to change the game of contracting,” Hunter says.
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
