Ty Wickstrom’s introduction to the home-service industry is not unlike that of many young people. His dad started a plumbing and HVAC company in 1992. Wickstrom was off at college but was pulled home to Boise, Idaho, to go into the family business.
That’s a common scenario. Unfortunately, Wickstrom’s situation was more dire than usual.
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“My mom got breast cancer,” he says. “My dad had to completely leave the business to take care of her. I had to step in and go to work full time running the company.”
Wickstrom had been studying accounting. He was good with numbers and financials, but he’d never run a business. His industry field knowledge of plumbing was passable, but his expertise in HVAC was lacking.
In the name of family, he persevered. Wickstrom spent days and nights watching YouTube videos about HVAC. And he stepped into the leadership role even though he was just 26.
“I’m managing eight people, but they’re all twice my age,” Wickstrom recalls. “They’re all thinking, ‘This is the owner's son, this kid coming in from college. What’s he going to know about anything?’ It was a struggle, at first.”
Wickstrom proved his mettle, though, and soon enough the numbers started to pick up.
It’s no coincidence that one of the first things Wickstrom did when he started managing the company was to look into changing the software platform.
Today, backed by ServiceTitan, Wickstrom Plumbing-Heating-Cooling has more than quadrupled to $2.8 million in annual sales and added a second location.
The Ease of Onboarding
Companies usually grit their teeth and prepare for a bumpy ride during a new software onboarding process.
Surprisingly and happily, Wickstrom says, his team found relatively calm waters.
“I think it's what really separated us with our experience—from what I've heard—is everyone in the office and everyone in the field was gung-ho,” he says. “We were all on the same page. We knew there would be changes by the day and by the hour. Every phone call that came in would mean a process was going to change.”
It’s not that enacting change was easy, Wickstrom says, but his team was prepared for a challenge. Everyone rallied.
“We were pushing every day,” he says. “And then Titan Score came out, and that was something to look forward to. That has been fun.”
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An off-the-charts Titan Score
Titan Score provides a holistic view of ServiceTitan. It catalogs all the recommended key features and new products available and which of those features you’re leveraging. Titan Score then gives you a score from 1 to 100, giving you a birds-eye view of how much of the software you’re using to run your business.
To help boost his Titan Score, Wickstrom uses TitanAdvisor, a tool that gives you the sections and items in the software that ServiceTitan thinks you should be using to be successful.
“TitanAdvisor is literally the best thing out there,” Wickstrom says. “It’s so awesome. It’s like a game to be a better company, but at the same time your life gets easier. You make more money. The employees are happier because there's less chaos.”
He says that day after day, he and his team focus on two or three things at a time and then proceed to knock them off their to-do list.
What’s made the biggest impact?
“I can’t really say one thing—because there’s been so many of them,” Wickstrom says. “But turning communications on has been huge. Also, the recurring service follow-ups have been just an awesome addition.”
He says moving from pen-and-paper systems to automation has been a game changer.
“If you think about it, you have hundreds of pieces of paper you pass around the office, call people about, put checks on, right notes on,” Wickstrom says. “Now we can just go into one place, set follow-ups and everything is taken care of. It’s saved us so many hours a month.”
Wickstrom’s company is literally a Titan Score titan. This year, revenues have increased 30 percent, and the team has soared to an astronomical Titan Score of 193. That ranks the company in the top 1 percent of all ServiceTitan users.
Staying on top
The plan to stay on the top of the Titan Score leaderboard is to constantly monitor TitanAdvisor.
“I have an office manager, who is also a CSR (customer service representative) right now, helping me monitor it,” Wickstrom says. “We have daily meetings and then we have a weekly one.”
He says everyone in the company has tasks that are monitored.
“We check in on their progress throughout the week—that’s how we structured it,” Wickstrom says. “My CSR talks to the guys about the technical side, and I do, too, but I mostly go through the price book with them, getting them familiar with the workflow.”
ServiceTitan’s Pricebook Pro has also been a huge help, Wickstrom adds.
“We had a price book before this, but that was archaic,” he says. “It was updated and printed twice a year—but by the second day it was printed it was already too old and out of date. Pricebook Pro has just been such a launch point for building our own price. One-sided obviously, but it’s an amazing start to a price book.”
Wickstrom says customers are taking notice. He believes that using the software to communicate as a team has helped the company communicate with the public.
“With task management and the communications package and service side, everything is tight and it’s better service to the customers,” he says. “My dispatcher is always telling me people are so happy they can just text us to talk about a job or to book it.”
With operations running smoothly, Wickstrom says the sky is the limit.
“We’re all geared up for expansion,” he says. “We’re thinking 100 employees—hopefully. We want to take this to as many Southern Idaho towns as we can.”
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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.
