Commercial Success with ServiceTitan: Account Managers, Service Agreements, and the Field Mobile App

As a commercial building envelope solutions provider, PIERCE Property Services is not your typical ServiceTitan user. 

“We're hanging from the sides of buildings, power-washing the facades,” says Kyle Urquhart, Director of Account Management at the Boston-based company. “We do restoration, re-pointing, re-caulking, window glazing, and window cleaning. We kind of do it all when it comes to the full building envelope.”

Live from Pantheon 2024, Urquhart joins the Mastering ServiceTitan podcast—where we get expert advice from power users—to discuss how he designed an account management team from the ground up, share tips for using service agreements for commercial services, and preview how the soon-to-be-released ServiceTitan Field Mobile App changes the game for his field technicians.

Urquhart shares key insights on:

• How to structure ServiceTitan for commercial account management

• Using service agreements to better manage commercial clients and enhance the customer experience

• Testing the beta version of ServiceTitan Field Mobile App with his team

>>Listen to the full podcast on ServiceTitan commercial account management now on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.

Using ServiceTitan for Commercial Account Management

Urquhart explained how he was initially hired by PIERCE to build their account management team from scratch. At the time, the commercial property services company relied on a single employee to handle hundreds of accounts. But as the company scaled, leadership identified the need for account managers.  

“We essentially had one guy, Gerard, who was our scheduling manager. He did everything, from sending out maintenance agreements to customers, to scheduling them, to handling all of the permits with the city, to assigning the crews and the technicians,” Urquhart says.

Urquhart mentioned how in the building envelope services industry, businesses provide recurring maintenance needs on a monthly and annual basis and typically enter into multi-year contracts lasting three years or more. Put simply, they service the same clients repeatedly and there’s the potential to form long-term relationships and take customer service to the next level. 

“Residential service companies usually don’t have account managers because they work with so many different customers,” Host Josh Lu says. “But with your customers, it’s a longer-term relationship for these bigger projects, so it makes a lot of sense to have the account manager role.”

Urquhart says PIERCE already used ServiceTitan for other areas of the business and he knew he wanted his account managers to work in the software. However, it wasn't structured for the account manager role. 

“Being a full building envelope, facade, and restoration company, ServiceTitan wasn't necessarily built for us,” Urquhart says. “So, we had to identify how to leverage ServiceTitan to our benefit and make it work for us.”

Urquhart explained how there was no field in ServiceTitan at the customer level where he could connect an account manager to a specific account. He also needed to figure out a way for his technicians to be able to identify the account manager, and if necessary, reach out directly to the account manager while in the field.

“Our workaround was to add location tags,” Urquhart says. “They’re super simple, they're color coded, and it's just an “M” which stands for account manager and a dash with the account manager's initials. When our tech is out at a job site and there's an issue, instead of having the tech go back and forth with the customer, they can reach out to the account manager directly.”

Now, Urquhart says each account manager has a dedicated list of customers that live within ServiceTitan, and they only handle those customers.

“It’s great because now I can run a revenue report and filter it by location tags and say, ‘Okay, great. Gerard's portfolio contributes to this percentage of our yearly budget,’” Urquhart says. “I can also build KPIs for Gerard and my other account managers and pull the data to see granular details when it comes to their contribution to the business.

“Having the ability to pull all that detail out puts us in a better position to grow the business and allows us to really leverage the customer side and the customer experience within ServiceTitan to give them the best experience possible,” he adds. 

Tips for Using ServiceTitan for Account Management

Lu asked Urquhart to describe best practices he’s learned since using ServiceTitan for account management. 

“I can't stress enough the importance of putting notes in the system,” Urquhart says. “My account managers put notes that are relevant to them. For example, ‘This customer has requested these technicians only, or this location requires X, Y, and Z city permits.’”

Urquhart also recommends using the attachments feature to connect key documents to each account. 

“ServiceTitan has this great feature where you can add attachments to the location or the customer record,” he says. “When it comes to the location, instead of putting, ‘The work plan is X, Y, and Z’ in the notes, we just attach the work plan from the last job we did for them. That way any person moving forward can just go down to the attachments, open the work plan, and see what we did last time and restructure it for the next time.” 

Managing Commercial Clients with Service Agreements

Today, Urquhart leverages the recently launched service agreement feature through ServiceTitan for all of his clients, but he says he previously used three different tools. It was a clunky process, and he lacked any type of reporting or insights.

When PIERCE first launched ServiceTitan, the Service Agreement feature was still in beta and Urquhart used the recurring events feature to book all of their maintenance jobs.

“Last year when I attended Pantheon, they talked about Service Agreements and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can finally get my team to just live in ServiceTitan and make their lives easier,’” he says. “The moment I learned about it, I went to my COO and said, ‘I want to launch it as soon as we can. I'm going to get in on the beta.’”

Urquhart says he worked with his ServiceTitan account manager to join the beta group and launch Service Agreements for his team.

“It has been a game-changer for our account managers,” Urquhart says. “When they send out proposals for yearly maintenance work, they do it all through Service Agreements. Now when we go to send out 2025 pricing, all we do is just hit “renew service agreement,” increase the price for 2025, and then send it out.”

Urquhart says Service Agreements also simplified his booking process by automating steps and reducing manual processes.

“Service Agreements made it 10 times easier,” he says. “You go into workspaces and the service agreements you need to book your visit for are right there. You click “book job” and it automatically takes you to the booking page, fills out all the information for you, puts in all the job notes for the technician, and you're done.” 

Using Service Agreements to Stand Out

Prior to launching the feature in ServiceTitan, Urquhart says his service agreements looked generic. Now, he’s able to customize each agreement.

“It's awesome because we want to be the best-looking proposal or estimate the customer gets,” he says. “The best thing about Service Agreements is you get to create it and do whatever you want with it. I’m able to add my own images and our branding to make sure we elevate our agreement above everybody else.”

Urquhart also enhances the customer experience by using ServiceTitan to provide customers with daily job updates. 

“If we have a five-day job, the customer doesn’t want to wait until day six to receive their update,” he explains. “I launched a form aspect for my account managers within each job for updates and closeouts. For every job they manage, they go to the form, update the notes from that day's work, and email it to the customer. 

“ServiceTitan created this great element of forms,” he adds. “You can either utilize the standard form element and build it out within ServiceTitan, or you can make a writable PDF with your branding, upload it to the form section, hit publish, and now it's your customized, special form that stands out above everybody else.”

Previewing the New Field Mobile App

Urquhart describes himself as an overly persistent person. When he wants something, he springs into action. So when he first caught wind of the new ServiceTitan Field Mobile App, currently in beta testing and slated for release in early 2025, he immediately asked to join the test group. 

“A lot of people might think, ‘I already have the app. We use it on our iPads,’” Lu says. “I want to underscore how that app is not really optimized for a mobile experience. The Field Mobile App is built for the cellphone.”

Urquhart says the mobile-first functionality is much needed for his line of work. 

“Our biggest issue with the old app was that it wasn’t really mobile-friendly, it was more built for a tablet,” he says. “When you’re dangling in the air, it’s better to have your phone attached to you than a giant iPad.”

Urquhart says his techs now use the field mobile app throughout the day, beginning when they first clock in. 

“They open the app and see all of their jobs for the day,” Urquhart says. “They hit “dispatch” to dispatch them to the job. Then they hit “arrive” when they get to the job. It's really taken the experience for the technician to the next level.”

Urquhart says the best part about the mobile app is it works in both English and Spanish, as a majority of his techs speak Spanish.

“The app goes off whatever language is set up in their Android or iPhone. If their primary language in the phone is Spanish, when they open the app, everything's in Spanish. It has been a game-changer for us across the board,” he says.

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.

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