CHAPTER 3
During the job
Welcome to ServiceTitan’s Commercial Playbook—an aggregation of best practices from across the industry, written purposely for your Commercial business. In this playbook, you’ll learn all the key tips and tricks (what we call “best practices”) needed to take your business to the next level.
SECTION 2 OF 3
Forms
For most contractors, getting the staff to fill out any sort of form properly can be challenging. In most cases, the technicians take the path of least resistance and simply don’t fill out the form at all.
In most cases, a process that mandates that forms are filled out correctly is the only solution. This may be a standard practice that only allows a technician to receive the parts they need if a proper part order form is filled out.
Still, unless your software requires a form to be filled out before the technician can proceed, the process is close to impossible to enforce.
ServiceTitan solves this problem via “Smart Forms,” which are typically triggered at the beginning or end of a technician’s visit and are usually tied to a specific Job Type.
For instance, a business owner or GM can choose to have a warranty form filled out on every warranty job. Just set up the form, tie it to your warranty Job Types, and create a trigger that forces this form to be filled out anytime a tech is dispatched to a warranty job.
“As soon as they pick a particular task, it triggers the appropriate form,” Gonzales said. “Say they're using refrigerants, they trigger a form that they have to complete. Then it's attached to the job, and it can be sent directly to your asset manager, inventory, whoever's responsible for that.”
After that, every time a warranty job is dispatched, a technician is unable to close out the job until the form is filled out with the proper information, ensuring a true system of record.
“We've used it for our permitting process, so that as soon as that permit form is filled out by the technician or the comfort advisor, it’s automatically emailed to our permits person,” Gonzales said.
“That starts the process of actually getting the permit, adding the permit number into ServiceTitan. We know whether it's approved or we're waiting for inspection, all of those kinds of things. That is without a phone call, without an email, without a text message. It's just automatic.”
The best part about forms is their configurability. There are tons of fields that can be used to create the perfect form for each job type. As the business owner, you can make fields required, optional, or not appear at all.
Albuquerque Plumbing doesn’t have a lot of forms implemented for commercial yet, but that’s changing.
“We are implementing more and more as we see the need for it,” Gonzales said. “Some of the most popular things are just a checklist for the technician or even for the dispatcher, just to make sure that they did everything and they didn't forget a small, simple thing. I would say standard forms that we have on our commercial side is probably no more than five to 10 at the most.”
Based on the data from thousands of ServiceTitan customers, we’ve aggregated the most useful and most popular forms used by Commercial companies and included them below. These forms can be input into your instance of ServiceTitan and tied to any job types you wish!
All forms in ServiceTitan can be modified within your account to best suit your business needs.
Best Practice Forms for Commercial Businesses
Dozens of forms can be found in Titan Exchange (an easy way to source and share in-app content) and downloaded. Access TitanExchange via Settings > Titan Exchange > Networks > ServiceTitan Commercial Best Practices.
Making those forms digital, within ServiceTitan, increases efficiency.
“We don't have to have printers in the vehicles anymore,” she said. “We had little printers, just so the guys didn't have to come back to the office to get sign-off for places like Walmart, Sam's Club, all those kinds of things.”
How did Gonzales decide which forms to implement? She has a simple answer.
“I would like to say there was this really sophisticated process and then the analysis, but it wasn't,” she said. “It was, what do we have on paper that we can convert to digital, and what can convert to a fillable PDF? That was the first step we took because I know everybody out there has had the issue where a technician loses paperwork. We're humans, we make mistakes or we forget.
“And we don't really want a tech driving 45 minutes to pick up a piece of paper to drive 45 minutes back. That's 90 minutes wasted that he could have been on a job.”
Albuquerque Plumbing even has forms for things that might have fallen through the cracks before.
“We started tracking our vehicle inspections for our service trucks in ServiceTitan,” she said. “We've added all of our vehicles, all of our technicians, so that way you can assign technicians to a job site, which would be their service truck.
“We can track it and we can track mileage, we can track oil changes—all of it.”
Some popular forms available within ServiceTitan include:
AC Service Call Checklist (Condensed): Used on an AC service call, this form gathers basic information from the AC unit without requiring a technician to put gauges on the system. Recommended for companies that want to collect general information on every AC Service Call.
Arrival Checklist (Commercial): Ensures the technician does things such as check in with the responsible party. We recommend this for all commercial jobs where the decision maker or responsible party is not the one who answers the door.
Comprehensive AC Evaluation: Like the AC Service Call Checklist (Condensed) but it collects more information. It is recommended for service calls such as a real estate evaluation, which requires a more in-depth analysis.
Electrical System Report Card: Allows an electrical contractor to verify that certain items in a building are inspected before the technician leaves the property, and helps ensure that pictures are taken as well.
HVAC Estimate Process Checklist Commercial: Ensures that the estimator gets certain information on every job walk, reducing the chances they will have to return to check something.
Job Completion Checklist Commercial: Helps remind the technician of tasks such as ensuring all materials were added to the job when the job is complete, that the job site is cleaned, etc.
New System Start-Up Form: This HVAC form ensures that pictures are taken at the end of an install job and that certain tasks, such as a proper vacuum taken on the system, were completed.
Part Order Form: Used in commercial companies that are not using truck replenishment, or for a special part that has to be ordered.
Sewer Scope Report: Used by plumbers to demonstrate the value of a sewer inspection to a customer, and potentially help sell a sewer replacement.
Warranty Form: Can be triggered any time a warranty call is created to ensure that part numbers are obtained on every warranty call.
Water Heater Check-up Checklist Commercial: Created to give instructions to a plumber on what to do and what to inspect when they go out on a water heater call.
For more information on form creation and triggers, see the knowledge base articles listed below.