3 Data Automations to Work Smarter and Make More Money

What is critical data for home services businesses? 

The top 3 critical data points for service businesses are:

1. Customer data

2. Employee data

3. Operational data

Customer data 

Companies typically collect this information in two categories: 

• Geographical—location-enriched data based on target segmentation, climate, and more.

• Marketing—personalized data based on a specific customer base, such as:

  • New home sales

  • ZIP codes with strong sales 

  • Location and property data

  • Home equipment age

  • Income

  • Age demographics

  • Average ticket

  • Average spend  

“All of this is really, really important data that we gather on our customers every single day,” Church says. 

Employee data

Home service companies can gather employee information by tracking:

• Close rate

• Average ticket

• Skill level

• Technician production and sales

• Idle time

• Revenue per hour 

• Opportunity job average

• Lead generation

• Recalls and warranties

“We have KPIs for customer service reps, such as booking rate, cancellation rate, opportunities booked, memberships sold, and a ton of other really critical KPIs,” Church adds.

With ServiceTitan’s field reporting software, including the Technician Scorecard, you can build customized reports and dashboards to track all of the above, including:

• Estimate conversion rate 

• Average ticket size

• Customer satisfaction 

• Memberships sold

• Leads generated

• Billable hours

• Tasks per call

Operational data

This is critical data inside of our organization that helps us function efficiently as a business. 

“This could be drive time, fuel costs, material costs, equipment availability, call volume, and many others,” Church says. “Operational data is critically important to the function of our business.”

Set a target, then achieve it

Once you know your critical data points on a consistent basis, then you can leverage them and take action. It’s important to set targets, rather than goals, Vena advises, because “target” means you absolutely must achieve it.

“And if we don't know what our data is, we do not know how to achieve a target. We don't even know how to set a target because we don't know where we are,” Vena says. “If there's no data, there's no data tracking, and you're flying blind. 

“How can you make critical decisions that move your business forward if you don't know where you are today and you don't know what targets to set?” she asks.

You also need to be realistic about where your numbers or KPIs are, so you know what target to set and how to drive that target. For instance, you can’t walk in and simply demand everyone meet an 85% conversion rate if your current numbers show only a 30% conversion rate.

“We've got to set some realistic targets that will allow people to walk a journey of motivation, of momentum,” Vena says. “To increase people's productivity and move people toward their targets, we need to understand our employees. Not only what their numbers are, but we need to understand where they are.

“Not every service expert, not every CSR, not every dispatcher, is created equal. Everybody is different. So we need to understand the differences in our people to be able to translate, motivate, and achieve our targets,” she says.

Not everyone is motivated by money or time off, Vena says, but we’ll never know what motivates our employees—unless we ask:

• What's your why? 

• Why do you come to work every day? 

• Why do you want to do a really incredible job? 

• What does it mean to you to achieve a target? 

• What would motivate you to hit your targets? 

• What do you need on a day-to-day basis to feel incredible about the service you're providing? 

• How do you know you're delivering “wow” service on every single phone call, in every single home, and in every single conversation? 

“See what responses you get back,” Vena says. “Ask somebody, ‘where do you feel like you exceed all expectations? Where do you feel like you are wowing a customer?’ Ask them what their challenges are, and, more importantly, ask them what they need from you. Most people are absolutely paralyzed by the fact they’re not delivering on a key performance indicator.”

Every “why” is different. Every motivator is different.

“That's why it's really important to understand in the service industry the difference between training and coaching,” Vena says.

• Training is to train on a skill set. It's to show you that A plus B equals C. 

• Coaching is the motivator that gets you to deliver the skill I just taught you in training. 

“You need both to have a successful and motivated employee who delivers,” she adds.

How to use automation to increase your team’s productivity

Automation for customers

There’s always room for improvement when it comes to customer communication. Just take a look at any negative review and you’re likely to find it involves some miscommunication. But what if we could leverage automation to bridge the gap between your dispatchers, your service experts, and your customers?

Digital tools, like ServiceTitan’s home and commercial service software, helps your team connect with customers quickly and efficiently, even when they’re not in the office—all through automation features, such as:

• Auto responders for after-hours messages

• Online scheduling to allow customers to book completely online, 24/7 

• Appointment confirmations and reminders sent via SMS text or email

• Booking notifications

• Dispatch notifications

“This is communication that's going to happen between you and your customers without you ever having to lift a finger,” Church explains.

• Also, GPS tracking

“GPS tracking is an amazing way to communicate with your customers on a live and automated basis,” Church says. “Maybe they want to make sure their pets are situated. Maybe they want to throw all the kids’ toys haphazardly in the spare bedroom, and then pray the service expert doesn't need to go in there. It really gives your customers the ability to prepare for that appointment and get their home settled in whatever way they need to. 

“Also, it's just an open line of communication,” she adds. “There's nothing better than being able to track who's coming to your house and know exactly when they're going to arrive.”

Just don’t let technology and automation replace the human touch, Vena advises. Service companies need to get to know their customers and ask them critical questions, then communicate with them in the way they prefer.

“We want to ask, ‘How would you like to be communicated with? How would you like to receive your invoices? How would you like to know when your service expert is 20 minutes away from your house? How would you like to be notified? Is a text message okay? Is an email okay? Or, would you like to talk to somebody?’” Vena says. “Your customers’ needs are always changing. They're always evolving. We've got to continuously be asking those questions and making sure we are providing the appropriate level of service and care to our customers.”

Automation for Employees

“On the employee level, the goal here is to improve efficiency within a business,” Church says. “We want to take the load off of everyday tasks, and we want to help your staff become more efficient as often as we can.”

Employee scorecards

ServiceTitan’s field reporting software, including the technician scorecard, allows you to build customized reports and dashboards to drill into technician KPIs, including conversion rate, average ticket size, customer satisfaction, memberships sold, generated leads, billable hours, billable efficiency, tasks per call, and other key metrics. 

“You can use employee scorecards off of the dashboard to quickly visualize service expert KPIs or CSR KPIs, and then you can use that information to train and coach your employees. And they're updating on an automatic and a live basis,” Church says.

Scheduled reports

With ServiceTitan, you can schedule reports to send employee scorecard data to your leadership and management team, service experts, CSRs, and even dispatchers on an automated basis.

“Automatically sending reports to key managers, instead of generating them every single day, every single week, and manually emailing them out, can really save time for all of these different departments,” Church says.

If you find employees falling a bit short on the KPI front, that’s when you implement training and coaching, Vena says. Just be sure to deliver consistent messaging to employees and create an actionable plan together.

“We don't want people to feel defeated. We want people to feel informed and empowered,” Vena explains. “What do you need and what are you not getting?”

Ask more questions, then act with a sense of urgency. Once the actions begin to occur, follow up. 

“It's not, ‘set it and forget it,’” Vena says. “We've got to revisit that. ‘Hey, how are things going? I do see the numbers improving, or I see they aren't. Where are you experiencing some challenges? Are you understanding exactly what I laid out or do we need some further coaching, training, and explanation?’”

Automation for Operations

Custom data tags and forms in ServiceTitan can also be automated to trigger certain steps throughout a service job, Church says. 

“Let's say we have a form that a service expert fills out for permits. We can automatically add a ‘permit needed’ tag to the job. And then, once it's been automated and once the tag appears every time that form is completed, we can generate a scheduled report based on jobs that look for that tag,” she says.

Another example might be automating certain tags in your pricebook, such as tracking service provided through club memberships at a property with multiple units. You can tie a tag to that task in the pricebook that automatically generates a tag onto the customer's location.

“When your CSRs or dispatchers are booking those membership visits, they see this bright yellow tag that the customer has multiple units,” Church says. “So, when they book that job, they're booking it in the most efficient way possible because they know, ‘Hey, I need to check this equipment. I need to see what's involved here, because I've got this bright yellow tag.’ Then on the other side of that, you can build custom reports that filter by those tags.”

ServiceTitan’s modular dashboard feature also provides a really great snapshot of performance, she adds. The dashboard houses all customer service metrics, such as top performers for call booking rates, and you can view this data on a live, automated basis to quickly identify trends in your business.

Leverage data in ServiceTitan to grow your business

Church says ServiceTitan is learning how to leverage data to create new tools every day to help service businesses become more efficient and achieve set targets. But we never want to use technology just for the sake of using it, though.

“It's important to keep in mind that with all of the software and automation possibilities, we're not using automation to replace people and to replace human interaction,” the automation specialist says. “Technology should serve a purpose in our business, and it should enhance our business, but we really want to make sure we're keeping humans, real people, in mind every single step of the way.”