ServiceTitan’s integration and partnership with Google’s Local Service Ads has led to growth and increased efficiency for companies who have taken the plunge.
Owners cite increased opportunities, a high retention rate, and a lower cost via instant mobile booking as key factors in making the integration beneficial.
“With GLSA customers you don’t have a shopper,” Shane Jaeger of Ben Franklin Plumbing in Dallas said on a recent ServiceTitan webinar. “It’s someone serious about getting the work done. If you treat them right and give them a fair price, you should get the work.”
GLSA is a product of the Google powerhouse made more powerful for those in the trades by the integration with ServiceTitan. It’s an advertising platform that turns search into a way to quickly put a business’s name in front of customers.
The integration with ServiceTitan is especially easy and useful for mobile; potential customers can find and book a job in one or two minutes.
In the webinar, Jaeger used this example: If a customer who needs a water heater types “plumber near me,” the first businesses listed—above Paid Search ads and organic listings—are GLSA customers. The Google/ServiceTitan integration then allows customers to book with ease, and even schedule a time and date for the work.
» READ MORE: GLSA Best Practices for ServiceTitan Integration
Here’s how ServiceTitan customers say the GLSA integration has helped them:
Customers converted at a higher rate: Jesse Furr, CEO of F.H. Furr (Manassas, Va.) said his company has seen an 80% conversion rate on leads booked with GLSA and ServiceTitan
More new customers found. Travis Piercefield, Marketing Manager of CoolRay (Marietta, Ga.) said that 75% of instant booking leads have come from new customers. Furr has done even better, with 93% of the leads coming from new customers
Lower cost per lead: Jaeger said Ben Franklin has generated 76 bookings from GLSA in the last six months. On average, they cost 50 percent less than other lead-generation platforms.
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Jaeger grew up with the trades—or as he said, he grew up “sorting pipe and cutting pipe and threading and all the fun stuff.” He initially worked as a stockbroker, but when his father needed someone to take over the plumbing company, he moved to Dallas (his wife was also in residency there) and eventually found his way to Ben Franklin.
The company has been growing, he said, with $23 million in sales in 2020, the year of the pandemic.
Ben Franklin set up GLSA in July of 2020, and said it took maybe a week for full integration. It now is a regular feature. Or as he said in his understated way: “It’s coming in pretty good.”
Jaeger offered several tips and ideas for the best practices in using GLSA with ServiceTitan’s integration. Among them:
Setup is not complex
One of ServiceTitan’s strengths is making these kinds of setups and decisions smooth and easy to grasp. Jaeger said simply to type GLSA in the knowledge base, then go from the gear icon to Integrations to Marketing Integrations to Google Local Service and edit.
From there the setup means making basic decisions on how to market via Google—the message displayed, the dispatch fee, etc.
“It’s not a really extensive setup,” Jaeger said.
Benefits of ServiceTitan’s ACP
Jaeger was positively positive about Adjustable Capacity Planning (ACP) offered by ServiceTitan. He said that allows flexibility to the customer in terms of job type and team availability. A customer who needs a drain clean or maintenance can see the fee to come out for an estimate, then choose the time for the tech to visit. Times that are booked do not show on the schedule.
“That was the biggest selling point of ACP for me where the customer can see the schedule and we know it’s available,” Jaeger said. “It avoids the uncomfortable issue of booking into a full schedule and calling the customer to change it. This gets to the heart of what’s available.”
“The fact that instant bookings doesn’t take time away from our CSRs or operations team has had a big impact on optimizing our office’s efficiency,” Furr said.
Benefits of mobile
Booking into ServiceTitan through Google on mobile devices is through a simple interface that points the customer to the company with the one-click option to book for an assessment, with the price for the visit clearly shown.
Google and ServiceTitan provide a smart form that allows customers to select service type, date and time available and to schedule the appointment.
Cost
Fees are not per click, and ads have the benefit of the Google Guarantee, a clear sign to any customer that the company can be trusted and is quality. (Qualification for the Google Guarantee is required for GLSA.) The simple interface removes some of the steps required with a phone call to the office.
Jaeger said his budget can range between $2,500 and $5,000 per month for GLSA, a figure that varies because the company spends less when booking availability decreases. Ben Franklin has hired a third party to maximize Google spots.
Reviews
The better you do the job, the more positive reviews. The more positive reviews, the better the company looks on GLSA. Because every GLSA ad includes past customers’ ratings and reviews. “Google reviews are very important to us,” Jaeger said. ”Then I can also do all kinds of crazy reports based on tags. It gives us a lot flexibility. GLSA should be set up as a campaign, if you’re using it. That way you can track it.“
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