There are times when the hand fits right into the glove, the clothes hang just right, and the software meshes with the company.
Such is the case with Champion AC, an air conditioning repair and installation company of almost 60 employees in San Antonio that uses ServiceTitan, the cloud-based software solution for the trades.
“From the bottom of our hearts, I speak from everybody here,” said Matty Marshall, Champion AC’s Assistant General Manager and Marketing Director, “thank y’all.”
Aw, shucks.
Praise aside, the mesh between business and software can be explained with some numbers, because there is truth in numbers. Before ServiceTitan, Champion did $8 million in business. Two-and-a-half years after adding ServiceTitan, Champion is at $17.5 million—an increase of 118%.
“There is no way that we could have done that without ServiceTitan,” Marshall said. “People had a lot to do with that. Our branding efforts had a lot to do with that. Our marketing approach, wink, wink, had a lot to do with that. But ServiceTitan had a lot to do with it as well.”
First, some basics.
Champion AC employs three senior techs, four maintenance and five service technicians. It has five comfort advisers and 10 installation crews—with an office staff of between 55 and 60 employees.
It is proud to employ veterans, offers energy-efficient solutions to save customers money and calls itself a Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned-Small Business. In addition to air conditioning, it also offers lighting installation and solutions.
Marshall has been working in the service industry since he was 17, his first job as a dishwasher and delivery driver. He worked his way into fine dining, then worked hospitality at the well-known Hotel Emma on San Antonio’s Riverwalk. Meanwhile, his wife worked in a digital marketing agency, and the president of the agency also owned Champion.
“We had known each other awhile,” Marshall said. “He was like, ‘You have customer experience in your blood. You love to do it. Come work with me.’”
Marshall joined April 14, 2016, and initially handled the call center, reputation management, outreach and sales coordination. “Crafting a message,” he said. “That’s what I enjoy doing.”
Champion used a software that Marshall said was archaic and outdated. The company quickly turned to ServiceTItan, and Marshall became the in-house ServiceTitan guru. He locked himself in a room—well, not literally—for three months and learned everything he could. In the midst of it, ServiceTitan released version 2.0, which meant more learning. Marshall dived right back in.
“That’s why I tell people, even to this day, you get out what you put in,” Marshall said.
He emphasizes the wisdom of companies deciding on one man or woman to be the ServiceTitan expert. He said that streamlines learning, and expands utilization because the guru knows the software so well.
“It's instant, right?” he said. ”You upload your software, you're going to be able to see really quickly your average job. You're going to be able to see really quickly your revenue month over month, year over year. But having somebody read that and know how to determine that and say, ‘Hey, that number is not right,’ and be able to go back and fix it, I think is key.
“So just be receptive. And maybe look outside of somebody that you have already in your office or (consider) somebody you would have never expected. Probably somebody young, hungry, who just wants to get after it.”
Marshall now seems to almost live and breathe ServiceTitan. He highlighted many positives from the software, including the recently released modular dashboard.
“It’s eye-opening,” he said, “to say the least.”
In the past, Marshall used a massive spreadsheet that required regular input and study. Now, he said, it’s all right in front of him.
“We use the Daily Huddle report, my favorite report, and just kind of do month-over-month trends,” he said. “But now just being able to hover over, say, October, and know that we were up 12%. ... It's instantaneous.
“But one of the coolest features that I actually saw for the first time last week is on the marketing scorecard. The percent sold and the percent of inbound books is incredible.”
As an example, Marshall can go to his salespeople and point out the company is booking calls at 90%, but selling at 30.
“That just being in front of their face and our call center’s face,” he said. “They perk up a little bit.”
Among the other positives for Marshall and Champion:
The heat map.
This recent rollout has saved Champion AC immense time. The company used to track ZIP codes and revenues within them weekly. “It's now right there, right in front of my face at all times,” he said. “It’s incredible.”
Tag types.
Marshall said in-office folks taking calls can input a ZIP code and instantly see the status of a job. “That has saved so much time and so much dead air on a call,” he said. “I think the proposal templates and the estimate templates are two of the most game-changing things when we came over.”
Reputation management.
In the past, Marshall would find information from other online sites, like Angie’s List or Google. Now he can show the technician directly.
Support.
ServiceTitan resolves issues quickly, and the support available via Facebook groups or ServiceTitan webinars is significant, Marshall said. To know that other companies face some of the issues he does is “a breath of fresh air.”
“Your webinar series, bringing in everybody who are power users, I think that's great,” he said. “Because coming from me is one thing, but to be able to send it to my president or our GM, our co-owner, like, ‘Hey, listen, they're saying the same things that we're trying to tell you.’ I mean, that's key.”
Ease of use.
With direct mail, Marshall feels he can “maximize every single dollar.” He called reputation the company’s lifeblood, but said it’s key to show technicians that while they are doing well, there may have been three customers in the past week who had critical remarks. Finally, the reports the software can generate with sales, call-logging, pricing and/or dispatch provides information that benefits the company’s performance, and profit.
“Thank you, ServiceTitan,’ Marshall said. “Your team, every single person over there.”
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive HVAC business software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and achieve growth. Our award-winning, cloud-based platform is trusted by more than 100,000+ contractors across the country.
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