Zapier in Action: Automation Tips for ServiceTitan

Using Zapier definitely makes business operations happier at AirWorks Solutions, says Process Manager Jessica Woodruff Smith.

“It's really like an alert system on steroids. Things don't fall through the cracks,” Woodruff Smith says. “We use Zaps to tell us what's happening so we can act on things quickly.”

As the HVAC company’s ServiceTitan Certified Administrator, Woodruff Smith utilizes much of ServiceTitan’s software functionality and automated features, but she also creates her own automations (Zaps) to fill in the gaps through Zapier’s integration with ServiceTitan.

“What Zapier does is, it uses the API to pull information from one place and put it somewhere else without having to know how to use the API,” Woodruff Smith says. “We're using it in a couple of ways. Some of that is inside ServiceTitan, some is outside.”

In our next episode of Mastering ServiceTitan podcast—where we get expert advice from power users—host Josh Lu talks to Woodruff Smith about how she uses the Zapier integration with ServiceTitan to prevent tasks from getting overlooked, whether by automating alerts, managing tasks, or keeping the team informed through Google Chat.

>>Listen to the full podcast on Zapier automation now on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.

Better task management with Zapier

At AirWorks Solutions, Woodruff Smith uses Zapier to create tasks and alerts in the company’s Google Chat space to prevent numerous ServiceTitan email alerts from getting buried in employees’ inboxes. These tasks and alerts work inside ServiceTitan.

“For example, if a job closes below the sold threshold, that pops into our Google Chat immediately, so leadership can act on it, talk to the tech, figure out what happened, see if we can salvage it,” she says. “If a job cancels, we can pop that into a Google Chat and the dispatcher can call back and try to save it. 

“When a job's booked with the urgency list tag, that pops into a chat so we can get on it right away and try to move it up before they book with someone else,” Woodruff Smith adds. “When a job is completed with a balanced due, it creates a task in task management so we can follow the customer and keep track of it until we're paid.”

Outside of ServiceTitan, if an AirWorks employee needs a timesheet correction, they must fill out a Google form and Zapier adds the form response to the Google Chat. If an employee submits a time-off request in Paylocity, Zapier adds that request to Google Chat. 

“Zapier talks to Google Chat so we can push everything there and then somebody can jump on it,” Woodruff Smith says. “So we can stay on top of things and not let anything slip through.” 

As a business grows, Zapier is particularly helpful in maintaining streamlined and efficient operations, Lu says.

“So many things will just start slipping through,” Lu says. “And that's money you're leaving on the table, things you're forgetting about, or loose ends that you can't tie up.”

Essentially, Zapier adds an automation bridge to connect platforms together so you can streamline your business processes, reduce manual work, and ultimately boost efficiency.

In addition to Google Chat, Zapier also talks to or connects with Gmail, Slack, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Facebook groups, Facebook pages, Facebook Ads, DialPad, and thousands more. According to this Blue Collar Nerd video, some other examples of Zaps available through the ServiceTitan integration include:

• Receive an email in Gmail, Zapier triggers uploading the email to ServiceTitan

• Tech leaves a job within ServiceTitan, Zapier triggers sending an alert to Slack

• Tag gets added to a job in ServiceTitan, Zapier triggers creating a task in ServiceTitan

• Tech closes a job in a certain business unit and with a ticket of greater than $5,000, Zapier triggers sending an alert to Google Chat

• When a job gets scheduled within certain zip codes, Zapier triggers creating a task to pull the permit

As a regular Zap creator, Woodruff Smith says her favorite Zap captures any chat or text that comes in after hours, sends an alert to her email, then triggers the automatic uploading of that message into Google Chat.

“It used to be that nobody would see these messages until Monday morning if it came in on the weekends,” Woodruff Smith explains. “One day, we had an installation canceled on a Sunday night by text message. And we didn't even know it until the guys were already on the way to the job on Monday morning.

“So I set up an alert inside ServiceTitan for any time the after-hours chat responder happens. So now, we're not wasting time going to a job that we're not supposed to go to,” she adds.

>>Learn how to set up ServiceTitan integration with Zapier.

Getting started with Zapier 

Woodruff Smith learned to master Zapier’s integration with ServiceTitan as one of the first beta users during the early days of the global pandemic. 

“It was one of my favorite COVID activities, learning how to use Zapier and creating Zaps that would make things easier,” she says.

At AirWorks, Woodruff Smith quietly created a few Zaps on her own, started seeing some results, then showed the value of the automation platform to gain company buy-in. Now, she’s getting tons of requests to create new Zaps for different areas of the business.

“The canceled job Zap is actually pretty new. It's gotten real hot in Southern California. We just had our first busy few days this week. And we're just trying to find ways to keep dispatch on top of things without having to look at every single thing that happens,” Woodruff Smith says.

For contractors just getting started with Zapier, the master Zapper recommends starting with Zaps that don’t require a large number of steps.

“In Zapier, you can create Zaps that have different steps,” she explains. “It can get as complicated as a job closes and then you search for the customer related to that job. And then you search for the technician who was on the job, and you can go down a rabbit hole.

“I'd start with something like, if you just want to know that a job completed with a specific tag,” she adds. “That's just a couple of steps.”

The Zap might be that you have a job scheduled with an urgency list tag, then the job completes, and the system triggers an alert to your Google Chat.

“Something needs to happen to trigger a Zap. In ServiceTitan's case, it's often a job-changing status,” Woodruff Smith says, such as a job scheduled, dispatched, completed, or canceled. “Some specific event needs to happen to trigger it. Then once it triggers, it'll go through all the steps.

“It's really like an advanced search to get all the information you want to take from that moment in time (when the job completes) to tell somebody to do something with it,” she adds.

To get Zapier set up, Woodruff Smith recommends watching this Blue Collar Nerd video or joining the ServiceTitan Facebook Masterminds group to ask questions. 

“There's definitely a learning curve. You have to trial and error some things,” she says.

Zapier offers a free version to allow users to learn how it works, but Woodruff Smith recommends purchasing the paid versions if you plan to use it on a regular cadence. The paid plans include different tiers based on the number of Zaps you create and how many times those Zaps trigger.

“It's not cost prohibitive,” Woodruff says. “Think about how much money you'd lose if you never called back any of those canceled jobs. Or if you lost those jobs on the urgency list because you couldn't get there fast enough. Or even if you didn't train that tech who keeps having jobs closed below threshold. Or if you were paying a human to follow all these things.

“It costs less than a human and you're saving a lot of revenue because you're acting on things quickly,” she adds.

You can find this interview and many more by subscribing to Mastering ServiceTitan on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or our website, or search for Mastering ServiceTitan in your favorite podcast player.