ServiceTitan Delivers on Promise for Canadian Company, From The Start

‘ServiceTitan was decidedly top-shelf’

Acclaimed!’s journey to ServiceTitan started in November of 2019. Lackey said the company wanted to upgrade from a software that too often crashed and had severe limitations for growth  Acclaimed! brought in representatives of three companies for extensive interviews, including Jobber, a Canadian company Lackey said would have resulted in too much of a lateral move. Early in 2020, Acclaimed! decided on ServiceTitan.

“ServiceTitan was decidedly top-shelf,” she said, “but also top shelf price, comparatively.”

There was a bit of trepidation, which happens with any software change. In this case, it also involved taking a little deeper dive on the cost in hopes of gaining on the revenue—and taking that dive with an American company instead of a Canadian one.

“There's been some early morning wake ups and late night fall asleeps,” she said. “The unexpected thing with ServiceTitan is the community that we have found in terms of support (from other users).

“If I would have known that that was the value in a software company, I mean, it would have helped, maybe. 

“But I'm also super-skeptical. I would not have believed that people would free-will give support. But I have found a tremendous community of support within ServiceTitan.”

That came through ServiceTitan’s Masterminds Group, a private group on Facebook for ServiceTitan customers only, as well as the Spark Sessions, a ServiceTitan training program, and the Torch Network, a group of evangelistic customers who are always ready to help. 

“If you're willing to step into those spaces, the return on your time is incredible,” she said.

Lackey and ServiceTitan would both come to understand that a U.S. software company has challenges doing business in Canada.

There is a different tax system and currency. The United States uses zip codes; Canada has postal codes (Acclaimed!’s is T5P OT6). 

There is also an element of skepticism and distrust because Canada has too often heard U.S. companies make what Lackey called “grandioso” promises, then fail to live up to them.

Lackey said ServiceTitan worked through the challenges patiently, directly and honestly. There still are a few elements that don’t work perfectly in Canada, but there are continual movements for improvements.  Service Titan listens and is moving the dial.  

“I would just say that people shouldn't be biased between Canadian and American,” she said. “There are some huge things and exciting things I see happening with ServiceTitan.” 

‘We’re all in the same boat’

To hear Lackey, Canadian and American really aren’t that different.

“Sometimes a lot of Canadian companies would say U.S. businesses don't know our market, they don't know what we're talking about, it's different here, we have different battles than the Americans do,” she said. “And I would say, no, we all have the same battles.

“People I've talked to in Florida would have different weather complexities than we have in Canada, where I am. Which is you have plus 40 and we have minus 40, Celsius that is.

“I would say that we're all in the same boat, but just in different ways.”

The busy season in Canada is the winter, when heating needs increase. In the United States, business usually picks up in late spring and summer, when the temperature increases. When Acclaimed! added ServiceTitan in August, it was heading right into the teeth of the Canadian winter.

Lackey was pleased to see how easily her techs adjusted.

“We have a plethora of skillsets and agents in our field team, and their adaptability to ServiceTitan has been really, really quite impressive,” she said.

‘Continual push for growth’

Acclaimed! started 25 years ago when Lackey’s husband, Keven, took a job at a duct cleaning company because There were no positions available in his  field: urban and regional planning. 

Two days into duct cleaning, he came home and suggested to Tami that they start their own company really focusing on client relationships and transparency—because not all the companies in their area were built that way. 

Eighteen months later, Acclaimed! opened—“Me with my cell phone, pushing a child on a swing, booking appointments,” Lackey said.

That would fall under the heading, do what needs to be done.

The business expanded from duct cleaning to furnace and air conditioning in 2010. Twenty-five years later the couple has 6 children, two of whom are part of three generations in the office. Keven is the owner and GM, and employees include the Lackeys soon-to-be daughter-in-law and her 76-year-old father, who started out representing Acclaimed! at trade shows, gratis.

He was such a natural that Acclaimed! offered him a job selling HVAC units; the next day he gave notice at his transport company. 

“He’s the epitome of what everybody wants in an employee,” she said.

Lackey described her husband as “the visionary” of the pair when it comes to the business. He pushes the envelope for what they can do with the company; she’s the conservative “nervous Nelly.”

Both, through different lenses and visions, see the benefits of partnering with their new software.

“What I see with ServiceTitan is a continual push for growth,” she said. “(It’s) not as stagnant. If anything, I think it's actually in my optics of it catapulting even more growth.”