Revamp Your Scheduling: ServiceTitan Insights for CSRs

CSRs do so much more than answer the phones for your business. In fact, one of the most common misconceptions about CSRs is that they only serve as a voice for your company. It’s a myth Angie Snow, Principal Industry Advisor at ServiceTitan, wants to dispel for the trades.

“It's so much more than that,” Snow says. “It's about gathering the information you need so you can make the best decisions. Booking the right technician. Showing empathy and compassion toward the customer so they feel like they can trust you. And organizing and prioritizing the calls so your company can take advantage of and maximize those opportunities.

“I was just talking to a contractor yesterday and she calls her call center ‘the heartbeat of her company,’” she adds. “They’re the ones pumping out the jobs and really capturing those. I love that.”

In our next episode of Mastering ServiceTitan podcast—where we get expert advice from power users—host Josh Lu asks Snow to share her dynamic strategies for training CSRs, tips and tricks for mastering call management, and expert advice on setting up the system to boost performance and bookings.

>>Listen to the full podcast on ServiceTitan Insights for CSRs now on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.

Understanding the CSR job booking page

CSRs spend much of their time on the ServiceTitan job booking page, which is the little suitcase icon on your main dashboard. They see job bookings listed as:

• Phone calls

• Online channels and other integrations

• Chats

• Second-chance leads (Phones Pro users)

In the little red bubble next to each, CSRs can see how many of these job bookings are open in any channel at any given time. At Snow’s company, Western Heating & Air, she says job bookings are one of the first things she checks to monitor CSR job performance.

“How are we doing? Are we caught up on chats? How are the calls coming in? And do I have any second-chance leads I need to follow up on?” Snow says. “A second-chance lead is when your CSR may not have booked a call that could have been booked. So, pay attention to that.”

Match calls to marketing campaigns accurately

To match phone calls to marketing campaigns accurately, CSRs must know where the customer found your company’s phone number. With ServiceTitan, you can set up different marketing campaigns tied to specific phone numbers and when the call comes in, the CSR can immediately see which campaign matches up with that phone number.  

In the past, Snow says, CSRs were trained to ask the customer, “How did you find our number?” Today, they no longer need to do that in ServiceTitan since the system automatically tracks whether the customer found your number on a magnet, on your website, or simply had your number saved in their phone. Even so, some CSRs may try to change it.

“It's important to not change that marketing campaign,” Snow advises. “Whatever number the  customer uses to call in… Keep that, because as a marketing team, as an owner, we need those insights to know where customers are finding the phone number.”

Optimize CSR workflows with multiple screens

Snow also advises setting up your CSRs with a desktop computer or laptop, plus two or three extra monitors so they can view multiple screens at once. On one screen, the CSR might have the dispatch board open. On another, the job booking page, and on a third, the global search page to look for names, addresses, job numbers, etc.

“It gets difficult when you're having to flip back and forth between multiple tabs,” Snow says. “But to move those tabs onto different screens just gives your CSR such a better picture of what's going on.”

Classify every call

In ServiceTitan, CSRs must click the green bubble when a call comes in to view the customer’s information. After the call is complete, CSRs must immediately classify the call before moving on to the next one. If they don’t classify the call, it automatically gets moved into an “abandoned call bucket.”

 “It creates a mess, because your data is off and you're just not organized,” Snow says. “Maybe it wasn't a bookable call, but you need to classify it to show why you didn’t book the call.”

CSR managers should set up a list of all of your classification reasons for not booking a call and give CSRs easy access to the list. 

For instance, CSRs will often classify calls as non-bookable when a customer calls to ask about pricing. Snow says those calls are actual leads, and should not be classified as non-bookable.

“In your call reasons, you need to make sure that stays true. This is a lead, and your CSRs are trained to still convert that,” she advises. “There are so many different ways to help price shoppers see the value, to feel connected to your company.

“Just because it says price shopping, don't excuse that. That’s a very bookable call,” she adds.

Another common classification reason for not booking a call is schedule availability. If it’s a hot summer with a busy schedule and you’re booked several days out, it’s unrealistic to expect CSRs to achieve a 100% booking rate. That’s an acceptable reason for not booking the call.

“But it still has to be classified, so we can understand the data. Do we need to hire more people? Are we really turning away this many leads because of the schedule?” Snow says.

If the CSR skips the step of classifying each call and they end up in the abandoned call bucket, your company may be missing revenue-generating opportunities. Some companies say they skip this step because their phones are too busy and they don’t want the next customer to wait too long. Snow advises classifying every call to keep your data clean.

“Classifying calls is something that CSRs should be trained to do,” Snow says. “This is not something the call center manager cleans up at the end of the day. CSRs should be responsible for classifying their own calls.”

Snow shared additional tips for setting CSRs up for success, including:

• Adjustable capacity planning — When you turn on ACP, a core ServiceTitan feature, your CSRs can see exactly how many time slots you have available for different types of jobs, with no need to check the dispatch board.

• Tags — Use tags to link to different job types so CSRs know which jobs represent lead conversion opportunities, such as an older unit in need of replacement. 

• Job summary field — Set up automated questions inside the job summary field based on the job type so CSRs know what specific questions to ask the customer and capture all relevant information.

Understanding the CSR manager dashboard

To gain better insight into your call center performance, Snow suggests clicking on the default CSR manager dashboard in ServiceTitan, then customizing it to see key metrics that matter most to your business, such as:

• Leads received 

• Leads booked

• Booking percentage

• Abandoned calls

• Individual CSR scorecards

You can view company metrics based on today’s activities or easily navigate to one week, one month, or one year ago. 

“It's really nice data to help you get an overall picture. How is my team performing today? How many calls is each CSR answering? Why did this CSR answer 25 calls and this CSR only answered two calls? What's going on today? It really gives you some insights,” Snow says.

>>Learn more call center management tips at our ToolBox Live Event: Call Center Edition in January.

Review number of excused calls

When Snow reviews her CSRs’ data, she expects CSRs to have at least an 80% booking rate and a lower number of “excused calls,” or unbookable leads. 

“Are those all really excusable calls?” Snow ponders. “So I might click into that data and start going through and looking at the call reasons selected for excusing those calls. Why did she classify them as not a bookable lead? Because that might be a training opportunity for me.”

Examples of legitimately excused calls include:

• Customer calling about a bill or service they already received

• Telemarketing calls

• Techs mistakenly calling main line 

“At ServiceTitan and through other channels, we've noticed about 30 percent of the calls that come in are typically bookable leads, whereas 70 percent are not,” Snow says. “Your excused ratio to actual lead ratio should be about 30 to 70.”

Train CSRs to classify calls

Snow also advises CSR managers or admins to get familiar with the CSR manager dashboard and start listening to recordings of abandoned calls. Then you can train your CSR team to classify calls accurately. 

“The No. 1 thing companies can do to improve their booking rates is to start listening to your calls,” Snow says. “Listen to your calls and it will give you a lot of insight.”

And if your company metrics show low-performing CSRs, try to address the issue as soon as possible.

“Don't wait until your meeting next week. Don't wait until you're one-on-one. Talk about it now. Address it quickly with your CSRs, because they want to do a good job,” she adds.

>>Find additional CSR training tips in our Training Hub

Utilize Titan Advisor

To ensure you’re using the full functionality of ServiceTitan, click on the TitanAdvisor rocket ship icon to check your TitanScore.

“The more you utilize, the higher the score goes up,” Snow says. 

If you click on job booking and dispatching, a color coding of green tells you you’re doing great, yellow shows you a few areas you’re not utilizing well, and red means you’re not using it at all.

“It’s a great little tool to help us know, ‘Hey, did you know you could do this and it could save you time or help you increase your capacity there?’” Snow says. “It's right in our product and it walks us through it and teaches us how to use it better.”

>>Check out Mastering ServiceTitan, Episode 3: Harnessing TitanAdvisor: Expert Tips for Advancing Your Business 

You can find this interview and many more by subscribing to Mastering ServiceTitan on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or here. 

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