When Lori Swanson thinks about her father’s new-construction, commercial and residential roofing shop, she recalls a constant noise: a phone ringing.
That’s because there always seemed to be customers calling in to the long-standing, successful roofing business. But when Lori and her husband, Matt, started their own residential shop, Guardian Roofing, in 2005, their phones were noticeably quiet.
“(In that first year), we literally were sitting and staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring,” Lori said.
During one precarious stretch, when the couple was living in a small rented house, they sat together during a heavy rainstorm and discussed how concerned they were about the lack of work and leads.
“And literally right at that second, the roof in the place that we rented started leaking on my desk,” Matt said. “And we called the landlord and we were like, ‘Hey, you need a roof repair.’ And he's like, ‘OK.’”
Over time, things turned out just fine for Guardian Roofing. Today, it’s one of the largest residential roofing shops in the country with a 2023 revenue just shy of $30 million. The company has tripled in size since 2015.
That’s thanks in part to ServiceTitan. Since 2017, the software built for the trades has helped Guardian eliminate the use of paper and provide everyone with real-time information. As for keeping the phone ringing?
Guardian Roofing enlists the help of Marketing Pro.
Stay in touch
Guardian has a “Customer for Life” motto. That means the company doesn’t just replace your roof. It will also repair and maintain, with no job too big or small.
Marketing Pro allows Guardian to reach out and stay in touch with its existing clients via email campaigns and direct mail.
Hyper-target your audience: Create audiences based on customer information that you already have in ServiceTitan—like unsold estimates, aging equipment, and memberships that are expiring. This information automatically updates in real-time so you can truly “set and forget” your email campaigns.
Guardian sends follow-up emails to its customers after they’ve completed a roof to offer annual maintenance. They’ll also do nurture campaigns to advertise Guardian’s other services to its customers.
“When we started our gutter division, we re-marketed it to our roofing clients and let them know about our other services,” Lori said. “That really helps with cross-selling and creating more opportunities for our sales team.”
Another benefit? Guardian can easily see which campaigns are working, and which ones aren’t.
Know exactly how your emails and postcards are performing: Go beyond just knowing which emails are being opened. With Marketing Pro, you can see exactly which emails or postcards are driving revenue to your business. Track real ROI with both email performance and revenue attribution.
“(Marketing Pro) gives us a really good visual on a lot of our metrics as far as what their performance is and what our return on investment is,” Lori said. “It's really helpful to know where we're going to spend those marketing dollars.”
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The real competition
When it comes to competition, Matt doesn’t like to compare Guardian to other roofing companies.
“Because the (roofing) competition isn't necessarily what your customer expects,” Matt said. “You need to compare yourself to companies that are really automated like Domino's, like your dentist. All you have to do is hit a few buttons and a pizza shows up at your door. That's what people expect.”
ServiceTitan allows Guardian to remind customers they’re on the way and send/receive SMS texts. And Marketing Pro’s reputation feature allows Guardian to…
Get alerts and respond quickly to every positive and negative review
Generate more quality reviews through automated review requests
Match reviews to technicians, customers and jobs
“If you look at how the industry has changed, everything revolves around technology,” Matt said. “Take marketing (for example). The fact that you're getting reviews back every day, the fact that you better be monitoring every customer and how they feel about you. We have systems that do that, that send us text messages if someone is unhappy. That's what we're doing just to keep up, just to try to stay ahead of the competition.
“Without all those things, I don't see us being here. And I think it's going to get really hard for companies that don't embrace (technology).”
Guardian has come a long way since the days of willing the phone to ring and stressing about leads. And it’s found its technology of choice to prepare for the future.
“If I was going to use one word to describe ServiceTitan, I would say dynamic. And that's simply because there are so many things that we can do with it from start to finish,” Matt said. “From making the phone ring with Marketing Pro, all the way to the project being done and making sure that our customer is happy.”
