The team at Chesterfield Service arrived at Pantheon 2023 seeking the answer to a pressing question.
The commercial and residential plumbing, HVAC and electrical shop in St. Louis, Missouri, was coming off a slow summer by their standards. Normally, their growth rate is 30%-40%. But at the time, it was sitting closer to 20%.
“So we wondered, ‘How do we stay in front of (obstacles and tasks) while simultaneously remaining hands-on and knowing what's going on in the business as a whole?’” said Jessica Kralemann, the marketing director at Chesterfield Service.
At Pantheon, they were hoping to find out.
Kralemann, along with co-owner Travis Seeger and Office Manager Kim Rahn, each attended different sessions centered on artificial intelligence. And in one of those talks, Rahn was certain she had found the answer.
She shared it with her team days later at the airport, when they finally had a chance to debrief and talk about what they had learned.
“Dispatch Pro,” she said to the group.
She detailed how the dispatching AI solution could streamline dispatching, allowing them to handle more jobs and use their dispatcher’s time more efficiently.
Kralemann and Seeger were intrigued, but they weren’t as passionate about the idea. That’s because they, too, thought they had found the solution at Pantheon.
“Marketing Pro,” Kralemann said, who gave her pitch as to why it was absolutely necessary for their shop.
“Fleet Pro,” Seeger said when it was his turn.
The three of them looked at each other, each favoring their own option. So Seeger put them all to a task:
“Justify it,” he said.
Finding the right balance
Seeger calls himself a “lifer” of the trades. His dad started Chesterfield Service back in 1976, and Seeger and his brother have worn every hat in the business.
In 2009, the brothers bought the company from their father, who became burnt out from running the shop.
“(After we) bought the business from him, we (told ourselves) that we were going to change this up. We're going to have some work-life balance,” Seeger said. “We're going to figure out how to make it profitable enough that we can have home time and work time, and then convey that to our people, too.”
Chesterfield Service went live with ServiceTitan back in 2019, when the company had about 25 employees and offered two trades. Now, they’re at 75 employees and five trades.
But to keep true with work-life balance, Seeger and his brother knew that artificial intelligence was a way to simplify things and make everyone’s life a little easier.
That was the basis of each Pro product pitch.
Kralemann explained how Marketing Pro could send automated targeted emails and direct mail to customers, and tackle unsold estimates.
Seeger stressed that Fleet Pro’s front- and back-facing dashcam video could protect against liabilities and mitigate unsafe driving, and how GPS tracking could keep their techs honest.
Rahn showed how Dispatch Pro would allow them to handle more jobs, and downsize their amount of dispatchers and shift them to different roles.
“We were all pretty gung-ho on wanting each of our Pro products,” Rahn said. “I was not letting it go. If we were only going with one, it was going to be Dispatch Pro.”
Seeger and his brother deliberated, and decided that one wouldn’t be enough.
Instead, they got all three.
Like a pro
Since then, Chesterfield Service has seen wins across the board attributed to these Pro products.
For example…
They’ve had a Marketing Pro postcard campaign that has led to a 664% return on investment for the year.
They relied on Fleet Pro to review an accident that involved one of their trucks.
They’ve seen their appliance department’s average ticket increase to $50 thanks to the right job, right tech and route optimization of Dispatch Pro.
Chesterfield Service even recently went live with Scheduling Pro to streamline bookings and capture more new customers during the day, at night, and on weekends.
And after spending a year slowing things down, rebuilding internal processes, and going live with four new Pro products, the company has seen its numbers go right back to normal: 30% growth and pacing at $14 million in revenue on the year.
With a continued emphasis on work-life balance.
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.
