Tersh Blissett might have one of the best seats in America for comparing the capabilities of software solutions for the trades.
He’s host of Service Business Mastery, a podcast that seeks to help business owners in the trades get the most out of their company.
He knows service company management software solutions well. A company in Savannah, Ga., where he worked from 2010 to 2017—and remains an ownership partner—used FieldEdge, a home services software that promises low cost.
And he knows ServiceTitan, having been introduced to the company at a conference in 2017.
“It was a great product,” Tersh says. “We did not sign up for ServiceTitan then, (and) I regretted it every day.”
In 2018, when Tersh started his own HVAC company, Service Emperor, in nearby Pooler, Ga., he had to choose a software solution for his fledgling business.
He chose ServiceTitan.
“We started out fresh,” Tersh says. “I knew from Day 1 that I wanted to use ServiceTitan. So, that was something that I committed to, and I never turned back. I have had no reason to turn back.
“I love ServiceTitan.”
Tersh had head-to-head comparison in real time. And he says there’s no comparison.
“It was between ServiceTitan and FieldEdge at Tri-Star, and we pulled the trigger with FieldEdge,” Tersh says. “I was never satisfied. It was never what they said it was going to be.”
And although Tersh is in ownership at both companies, they are competitors, albeit with slightly different business models. Service Emperor goes after high-margin, low volume jobs, where Tri-Star is more of a low-margin, high-volume company.
Tersh saw growth at Tri-Star, but the reporting he wanted using the FieldEdge software took a lot of extra work.
"I had to do a lot of keeping spreadsheets on my own,” he says. “The daily tracking and stuff like that just wasn't there. The metrics that I wanted to know, I was having to do that manually.”
That pushed Tersh to ServiceTitan for his new company. And his podcast listeners get an extra benefit.
“The people at TriStar were used to FieldEdge, and they didn't want to learn a new program,” Tersh says. “I was perfectly fine with that, because now I can compare and contrast the two programs with each other and give people my honest opinion and feedback on the two programs.”
And ServiceTitan, he says, is clearly better—including on price.
“FieldEdge and (other trade software solutions) say that they do all the same things that ServiceTitan does,” he says. “But what they don't mention is that they do have the capabilities of doing things ServiceTitan does, but through third party apps, so you still have to buy additional programs.”
That, Tersh says, kills those companies’ “half the price” argument. But it’s not the only differentiator.
Comparing ServiceTitan software to FieldEdge
Some of the things Tersh says are superior in ServiceTitan software include:
The design of ServiceTitan is intuitive. With FieldEdge, Tersh says, that’s not always the case. “One of the biggest things that's just a royal pain to me, is how many steps you have to take to get anywhere with FieldEdge, and when you back out of the program, it backs you all the way to the beginning of that process,” he says. “It makes things very difficult and tedious.”
The ServiceTitan dashboard is easy to use. “When somebody sees ServiceTitan, they're like, ‘Ease of use, yeah right. This is so much information, it's analysis paralysis.’ But … once you get to the (key performance indicators) you want to know, then you set up on your dashboard and you go with it.”
Data can be retrieved quickly. Compared to software that forced him to create his own spreadsheets to get the data he wanted, Tersh says ServiceTitan is far superior. “Every Sunday, I get all of these reports that detail the technician's time, their sold hours, their efficiency on jobs, the labor percentages. If there's a report that I'm looking for that’s not in ServiceTitan, it's so simple just to create one. … I'd have to hire more office staff to do what is automatically done through ServiceTitan.”
The onboarding process is superior. ServiceTitan’s onboarding process is overwhelming, Tersh says, but it’s better than nothing—which is what he says FieldEdge offered. But the complexity of ServiceTitan offers a challenge in itself. “When you start onboarding with ServiceTitan, you're like, ‘there's way more to this program that I ever thought was possible.’ So, it's one of those things where, if you don't take it seriously and you don't have somebody that's full-time in the office dedicated to learning ServiceTitan, you won't use it to its full capabilities.”
Automation of key functions through geofencing. When a technician is on the way to an appointment, for instance, the customer automatically gets an alert. “It makes a huge difference,” Tersh says. “I don't have to send out reminder text messages and things like that. And after the service techs leave the house, as soon as they've left that geofence, it sends out a text message and email asking for reviews. That's just not something that I had with FieldEdge.”
Partnerships such as credit and payment integration. Consumer financing partner GreenSky is a seamless part of the ServiceTitan platform. “Our guys don't even realize that GreenSky's a different program, because it's so streamlined into ServiceTitan,” Tersh says. “They do the whole process in the snap of a finger. They don't realize that it's a third party integration. That's crazy great to me.”
Technical superiority of in-app photography. Photos taken by technicians using FieldEdge are compressed to the point that they are unusable by office staff. “You can't read model and serial numbers,” Tersh says. “That's just a useless feature. You shouldn't even have photos as an option if you can't see it once it's in the office.”
ServiceTitan’s training capacity. Between the ServiceTitan Academy, group chats, forums and Q&A’s, a presence in related Facebook groups and an onboarding manager, education and problem-solving are fast and plentiful. “They're really helpful in every aspect,” Tersh says.
ServiceTitan’s responsiveness to customer needs. Feedback creates action with ServiceTitan, Tersh says. “If there's anything that's not automated, if it's something that makes sense they'll put it on their list of things to add to the next update,” he says.
ServiceTitan’s automation saves money, too, Tersh says. With Service Emperor designed as a 100 percent remote and 100 percent paperless company, the software means fewer full-time staff.
“If I did not have ServiceTitan, I totally would have to have at least two more office staff doing what we're doing currently,” Tersh says. “I think that's kind of a game changer.”
"Everyone in our industry over-promises and under-delivers. ServiceTitan is the exact opposite. They under-promise and over-deliver on so many things."
Cost for ServiceTitan vs. FieldEdge
After working with both ServiceTitan and FieldEdge, Tersh says there’s no question which one he’d recommend, and it’s ServiceTitan.
Why?
“I couldn't say just one reason, honestly,” Tersh says. “Everyone in our industry over-promises and under-delivers, and ServiceTitan is the exact opposite. They under-promise and over-deliver on so many things, almost to a fault.
“There's so much stuff that people have no idea ServiceTitan is capable of doing, and it's a differentiator within the industry.”
And that bit about price?
“(Other software companies) will say, ‘We're half the price.’” Tersh says. “But if you add all those apps together, the additional apps plus the FieldEdge, then it winds up costing the same as it does for ServiceTitan. It irritates me whenever people tell me that they pay half the price.”
Tersh explains it the same way he describes it to leadership at Tri-Star.
“People were saying, ‘Yeah, but FieldEdge only charges $175 a person or something like that,’” Tersh says. “I was like, OK, so let's compare apples to apples. At the end of the month, I have X number of employees at this company, I have X number employees at this company.
“And I'm paying the same amount for (FieldEdge and the add-ons) as I am for ServiceTitan."
“They're like, ‘Well, that doesn't make sense.’ I was like, ‘Yes, I agree.’ Especially if FieldEdge is telling you that they're half the price of ServiceTitan, you know?”
Tersh has convinced Tri-Star, too. In 2020, that company joined Service Emperor on ServiceTitan.
When you know, you know.
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