AI Voice vs. Human CSRs: The Future of Home Service Calls with Nate Keller from Free-2-Grow

WEBVTT
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Do you think that a service company could even survive in the future without
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this tool, could even be profitable and make it?
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You can be a sizable company and maybe have two, three, four people behind the
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scenes that you're escalating things up to. AI is taking everything else.
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I think that's kind of the near future, to be honest. Everything else that's
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coming out, obviously, it's just going to be getting better.
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The integrations are going to continue to get better.
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The knowledge base behind and how nimble it's becoming is pretty cool.
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Welcome to the Home Service Hacks podcast, the show for contractors who refuse to settle for average.
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Hosted by Bill Brown, licensed HVAC contractor, AI and automation expert,
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and founder of Service Titan Hacks Community.
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Each episode features real conversations with contractors,
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tech founders, and innovators who are reshaping the trades from AI and automation
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to pricing, marketing, and management, if it's working in the field,
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you'll hear about it here. Let's get into it.
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Welcome back to Service Titan Hacks Podcast. This is the show where we talk
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about the tools and ideas that help you win in the home service space.
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I'm your host, Bill Brown, and today we're talking about something that's really
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changing the game, the growing gap between shops that use AI and those that
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are still doing everything by hand.
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Our guest today is an expert in the stuff.
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Nate Keller is the chief sales officer at Free2Grow, and they're a sponsor of our Facebook group.
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They use AI to help home service companies answer every call and book more jobs 24-7.
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And they give the smaller guys the kind of tools that just weren't possible
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a few years ago and at a price they can afford.
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So today, we're getting into the good, the bad, and the scary parts of using AI.
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Is this a tool that helps everyone, or will it crush companies that don't keep
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up? And what does it mean for your business?
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Nate, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Bill.
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Awesome, man. So first off, can you just tell us about Free2Grow and the main
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problem that you guys solve for contractors? Absolutely.
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Yeah. So Free2Grow, we're coming up to our sixth year in business.
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My partner, Charlie Felger, and I started this. We're based in St.
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Louis, Missouri. We started this, he had a couple of small contracting businesses
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that he was in the middle of selling.
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I was always in technology on the sales and operations side for large companies
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that worked at Oracle for a number of years and then kind of made my way to smaller businesses.
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Really liked working with smaller businesses because you can see the impact
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very quickly when you're getting stuff done.
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But I come from a family of entrepreneurs. I had that edge.
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It was like, I kind of want to do something. And the timing was right that he
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and I just got together and we started free growing.
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Essentially, we were a white glove overflow or replacement call center with
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humans, right? We had agents.
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Started off locally in St. Louis working with basically anybody home service related.
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So this was right around COVID, all these home service businesses were booming
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because everybody was at home and they understood they needed to have stuff done.
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And they were outside looking at their trees or their house or whatever.
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And they started calling these guys and all of these companies really took off.
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So our company really kind of did well in that time.
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So we got up to about 10 agents in the St. Louis area, started working outside of the St.
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Louis area because, you know, obviously we weren't tied to any sort of location.
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And our folks wanted to go remote as we were looking for bigger office space. So we went remote.
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As we went remote, we also said, hey, this gives us a bigger pool when we do
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need to hire because there were a lot of folks out there that had this type
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of experience, wanted to be remote, wanted to work at home.
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And, and at the time we were also starting to get pretty heavy into the trades.
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So, you know, the plumbing, electrical, and, and, and HVAC world.
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And there were a lot of, a lot of candidates out there from that agent side
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of things that had that type of experience from a CSR side of things.
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They knew the systems, they knew the service titans and the house called pros and everything else.
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And, and it was just a good fit on that side. Fast forward, as we grew,
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we got up to about 26 agents across the country.
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We were building out some AI tools, uh, fair. I don't want to say fairly early
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or kind of early on where our agents, as opposed to having to pull up an SOP or look up in a, you know,
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or look up in a sheet or something like that to figure out a service area or
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dispatch fee or something like that.
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They could just type it in. You know, they could type it into Slack.
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It would draw from a knowledge base. It would give them the right answer and
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they would be able to kind of solve.
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Call resolution was trimming down quite a bit.
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So as we were building out those tools, the developer we were working with,
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I was asking about AI voice. AI voice at the time, this is going back two and
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a half, three years ago now, said it wasn't quite there yet.
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There's definitely some stuff out there from an answering perspective, but not really robust.
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But just said, hey, keep your eyes open, right? After about six months of looking,
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I actually came across an AI voice company based in San Francisco called Archer.
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It was developed by a guy named Jerry Yee, UPenn kid, moved out to San Francisco,
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started a business, just a builder of technology, right?
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He is just, he's just an absolute wits, but he was doing the marketing,
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the sales, everything else on his own. So I reached out to him direct.
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We had a couple of phone calls and we just said, Hey, with what you do with
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your platform, you know, can we start looking at integrations and what that
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looks like and that sort of thing.
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And within about, you know, a month or two, we had, we had an agreement in place
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to essentially merge our two businesses. We had, we acquired his business.
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He's a partner of ours. Now he's our CTO. We were kind of going back and forth.
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Is the AI going to be supplemental or is it going to be across the board or what have you?
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And this is getting to where it helped our business and how we knew it was going to help others.
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Every summer as a human-based business, we would grow,
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We would take on more accounts. We have CSRs that even though they're at home
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and their pajamas working, they would have a hangout and they can't type, whatever, right?
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Any excuse under the sun, we've heard.
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And people don't show up. And all of a sudden, we're missing calls and we're
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not feeling what we said we were going to do. And we would rightfully get fired.
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And we just said, you know what? Let's put our chips on the table here.
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Let's push them all in and just say, let's go all AI voice across the board.
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At the time, big risk, right? Big, big risk.
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Yeah. It was a fringe technology, but with the progressions that we were seeing with the AI,
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between what Jerry was building out, what we're built on top of,
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and what our team's been capable of doing with the integration side,
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we just said, you know what, this looks like it might be the future here from
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that third-party call center side of things. So, yeah.
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And from there, we just said, you know, we're solving this problem for ourselves.
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We now have a new business model. We changed from a service business to a technology
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business in about 90 days.
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And we went AI voice across the board and really started going after that third-party
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call center, you know, where someone calls in after hours or even overflow and
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they're on hold for too long or whatever that might be, saying, we can fix this problem.
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We can get to these customers fast. That's awesome.
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I didn't know that you guys came from specifically the call center space and
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had a bunch of CSRs or agents at the call center.
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And that what I found when looking at AI companies is they tech,
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they usually have a very technical guy that knows how to interact with an AI,
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knows how to prompt it, program it really, really good.
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But what they're missing is that very specific domain knowledge of exactly how
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to test it and make sure that it meets the expectations of the end user, the customer.
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And with your guys' call center background, you know exactly what a good call
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looks like, you know what to say, how to answer questions.
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And so I'd imagine that with you and Jerry working together,
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you were able to have this feedback loop and say, no, let's change this,
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let's do that, and basically copy the best CSR.
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And I've seen that in other companies.
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In a lot of ways, that's exactly what it was. It's like we had...
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Yeah, I had listened to tens of thousands. I can't even tell you how many live
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human calls, good, bad, and otherwise, right?
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It's like, yeah, we know good ones and we can train off that model, right? Yeah, for sure.
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And when I first started messing with AI and ChatGPT a couple of years ago,
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it was pretty expensive to use, especially in high volume.
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When did it get cheap enough that you could bring that technology to home service
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businesses, even ones that were a little on the smaller side at a reasonable price? Yeah.
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So when we first acquired Jerry's
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company called Archer, and that's the platform that we're built on.
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So our customers, they have access to this platform where they can see the dashboard
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and calls coming in and everything like that.
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As soon as we acquired it, the technology prices started dropping,
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I would say almost a year ago.
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We started really contemplating. We're like, okay, what do we do with our model here?
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Because we started off with the old school pricing approach of an allocation
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of minutes and an overage and everything like that.
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And let's be honest, nobody likes to, even if they're busy, even if it means
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they're booking more calls and making money, dealing with overages sucks, right? It really does.
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Remember when we had to do that? Are you old enough to remember when we had
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to do that with cell phones and you had to only do nights and weekends?
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God, that was such a pain. And then you got a surprise $500 bill and they said, tough.
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Yeah, we hate minutes and overages. and not to cut you off or whatever,
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but I know that like a lot of contractors don't even know how many minutes they use.
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That's just like not, they know how many jobs, but how does that translate to
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minutes? They have no idea. Yeah, they have no idea.
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Yeah, right. And typically, you know, that model of the pricing on an allocation
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on a per minute side of it, it's, I don't want to say it's intentionally confusing,
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but it can get confusing, right?
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It's like, OK, I paid for this at the beginning of the month and now I'm paying
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for, you know, my next allocation and then my overages are in it.
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And it's a lot of them make their bills.
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I think it's really easy to understand how AI can save money by answering the phone.
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Right. Because you're not going to use as much human labor, which is pricey. And so.
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Can you give me like a real story about how it helped a company make more money?
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Like were there any types of jobs or types of calls that they were missing that
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AI now was able to handle those questions and start booking those jobs? Yeah, a lot.
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So a lot of our customers, it's a competitive industry. Everybody knows that, right?
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There's a new AI voice company that pops up and then goes away the next month,
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right? It's there's a lot out there.
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But a lot of our business still comes from that traditional call center side
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where those companies are taking messages and passing them on and hopefully
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someone's able to get back to them before they call someone else and get it
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booked or whatever that might be, right?
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Our system is built out to take that call, qualify that call and book that call, right?
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It's that speed and saying, you know, hey, Marissa, some of our clients have
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digital assistance or some of them don't.
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I'm able to answer your questions or get you on the calendar within 90 seconds, right?
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Knowing that something's going to come out of that call is productive,
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right? That customer is going to feel like they're getting taken care of right now.
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You know, typically when someone calls a call center and it's kind of,
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you know, it's becoming a lot better with AI, but some still understand that it is AI.
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But, you know, when you call the call centers, the same thing happens,
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right? You're calling after hours and those folks know that something's probably
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not going to happen with that call.
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A lot of times a message is getting taken and sent on, right?
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We want to have our customers onboarded in a manner where we don't have to,
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we'll send messages on for emergency cases, for billing questions, for stuff like that.
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Anything that if someone wants to make a payment, you know, I mean,
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it's really no one wants to give their credit card to AI yet.
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But at the same time, if someone's calling for, you know, their AC is out and
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it's emergency call and they need to get on right now, hey, we're going to look
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to make sure there's a technician available. We're going to notify that technician.
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We're going to put them on the schedule. That's awesome, man. That's something that,
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just wasn't possible, you know, a few years ago, right?
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It's awesome. So let's say you, you get free to grow AI voice set up in your system.
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And, you know, everything today, when it comes to operating a business,
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we like to put it in a quantitative, you know, like to measure it by numbers, right?
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So what numbers should you be looking for on your CSR dashboard and service
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Titan to know that it's actually working? What kind of changes should you expect as an operator?
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Yeah. So in, in our dashboard, well, one, it's going to show up in,
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in service site and right as, as an agent. So 3D Grow is going to show up as an agent.
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You're going to be looking at, at, you know, how it's, how it's booking and
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compared to your, you know, your, your, either your normal agents that are on
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during the day, it's going to be booking comparable to that.
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And then from an after hours perspective, we're, we're shooting for that 75
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to 85% range, right? That's where our customers are seeing success.
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75 to 85%, You know, you do that over a thousand calls in a month.
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That's a, that's a lot of calls it's adding, right?
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Yeah. What do you usually see as far as the range of booking rates from humans?
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So third-party call centers, I think they, they typically claim to be in that
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60% range, but when you really start digging into numbers, they're probably in 50 or less.
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It's not, it's not high, right? There's a lot of kind of number fudging and
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you'd have to go through every single one of them on there. So.
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Yeah. So that's a that's a pretty big, significant increase as far as booking
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those calls go, which we all know as operators how expensive it is just to get that phone to ring.
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It's way more expensive than we'd like it. You know, one of the big concerns
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with AI is really customer happiness.
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So, you know, your callers happiness.
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And it's pretty easy to tell if the person on the phone is making a customer mad.
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That sentiment's pretty, pretty easy. So one of the big important parts of this
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is customer caller happiness. And it's really easy to tell if a person on the
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phone is making a customer mad.
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But how do you know if the AI is doing a good job or frustrating people?
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Yeah. So our AI is looking at those calls and we are looking at sentiment in
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the background and that sort of thing.
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But the biggest thing we're looking at is completed calls, right?
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All the way through that it was customer, that it was recognized,
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that it was booked or completed or answered or whatever that might be, right?
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Completed just means that it was taken from start to finish.
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One of the things that we built out in there too is we, at any given point in
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time, we can live transfer calls over to a person, right?
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Especially in that overflow side of things or whatever that might be, right?
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Because no matter what, if it's AI or if it's a third-party call center,
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if it's recognized as a third-party call center, a lot of times someone's going
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to say, can't you just transfer me over to a manager?
00:15:10.603 --> 00:15:14.363
You don't have any information. I need to talk to someone that knows what they're
00:15:14.363 --> 00:15:18.743
talking about, whatever that might be, right? So as soon as we build out trigger
00:15:18.743 --> 00:15:22.043
words in there, if we're hearing these, hey, let's get them over to someone
00:15:22.043 --> 00:15:24.863
that can handle this issue.
00:15:25.445 --> 00:15:30.945
Sure. Sure. That makes sense. So still having that human that can take over
00:15:30.945 --> 00:15:36.785
so you don't just leave a customer upset and they, they abandon the call and
00:15:36.785 --> 00:15:38.325
call someone else, you know? Right.
00:15:38.525 --> 00:15:42.385
And we're transferring in to people that are within the organization, right?
00:15:42.985 --> 00:15:48.005
I don't think there's anything worse than if you take a call and you're transferring
00:15:48.005 --> 00:15:49.285
that to another call center.
00:15:51.025 --> 00:15:54.485
You want to give that to someone that actually knows they can fix the issue
00:15:54.485 --> 00:15:58.005
of whatever it might be at college college. Yeah, for sure.
00:15:58.365 --> 00:16:03.985
So, you know, I talked to a lot of people online and I know a lot of owners
00:16:03.985 --> 00:16:07.825
want to implement AI, but they're really nervous about it. Right.
00:16:08.345 --> 00:16:15.385
And their fear is obviously the customer service in the organization going down from where it is.
00:16:15.545 --> 00:16:21.645
Right. And so besides the fear of, you know, having an AI sound like a robot,
00:16:21.905 --> 00:16:26.445
what other fears do you hear from these contractors?
00:16:26.825 --> 00:16:32.045
We hear a lot of, hey, I have an older customer base. I don't know how they're going to like this.
00:16:32.465 --> 00:16:38.525
I can say with 100% certainty, older customers, a lot of times they don't know that it's AI.
00:16:39.165 --> 00:16:42.365
You know, you do have, everybody's going to have a customer.
00:16:42.505 --> 00:16:46.365
No one has 100% happy customers, right? You're going to have a customer that's upset.
00:16:46.545 --> 00:16:50.385
They're going to call in, whether it's AI or a CSR picking up, that's upset.
00:16:50.705 --> 00:16:54.905
You know, we do a lot of demo calls with prospects beforehand and I tell them,
00:16:54.985 --> 00:17:00.265
Hey, when you call in, be pissed off, right? Be upset, right? Whatever that is.
00:17:00.585 --> 00:17:04.745
And, and see how the AI handles it. And it, a lot of times it's handling it
00:17:04.745 --> 00:17:07.545
better than a human would because it's not getting flustered.
00:17:07.865 --> 00:17:10.425
As you're responding back with, I understand your frustration.
00:17:10.645 --> 00:17:14.125
I understand it's, you know, it's hot out right now. Let's get you on the schedule
00:17:14.125 --> 00:17:17.185
so we can come out and get this taken care of. The emotion isn't there.
00:17:17.405 --> 00:17:20.405
You know, it is empathetic and that sort of thing, but it's not going to get
00:17:20.405 --> 00:17:23.825
flustered and get irritated back at that customer.
00:17:24.325 --> 00:17:26.785
Right. Which escalates it. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:17:27.524 --> 00:17:32.104
Yeah, that makes sense. And I called your demo number and the number was,
00:17:32.184 --> 00:17:36.264
you know, recreated a real life situation.
00:17:36.764 --> 00:17:40.424
And I tried to throw all kinds of curveballs at the AI.
00:17:40.664 --> 00:17:46.604
So I cut the AI off. And I have a video of it that has a lot of views on YouTube
00:17:46.604 --> 00:17:48.884
because it was really interesting.
00:17:48.884 --> 00:17:53.464
So I just said some wild things and asked for pricing and everything just to
00:17:53.464 --> 00:17:56.484
try to see if I could throw the AI off.
00:17:56.564 --> 00:17:58.704
This was a few months ago and I wasn't able to.
00:17:59.144 --> 00:18:03.924
So, I mean, I really, I'm going to put a number in this description of this
00:18:03.924 --> 00:18:08.404
podcast so that other people who have fears and concerns about it can try it.
00:18:08.464 --> 00:18:12.604
Because that's really the best way to do it is to actually call it and try it
00:18:12.604 --> 00:18:17.224
and listen to what the AI responds with, right? Right.
00:18:17.724 --> 00:18:23.344
So, well, and the AI that's built out for that number is a super simple demo, right?
00:18:23.544 --> 00:18:26.804
When it comes to how we're building these out for our customers,
00:18:27.224 --> 00:18:31.344
you know, the scripting is one part and the scripting is something that is obviously
00:18:31.344 --> 00:18:33.424
very important, but it's that knowledge base, right?
00:18:33.424 --> 00:18:37.244
When you get into the knowledge base and you're starting to load it with pages
00:18:37.244 --> 00:18:42.764
and pages of documentation on a company, or if this, then if someone calls in
00:18:42.764 --> 00:18:44.344
and you don't have a soon enough time,
00:18:44.604 --> 00:18:47.664
book them for the time that you're quoting them and tell them someone's going
00:18:47.664 --> 00:18:52.324
to call them back if something else opens up. Secure that appointment.
00:18:52.644 --> 00:18:55.664
There's a lot of different things that can happen within that knowledge base
00:18:55.664 --> 00:19:00.184
that really kind of get the nimbleness and the personality of the AI locked in.
00:19:00.184 --> 00:19:05.744
So that the AI, yeah, the AI is going to need to understand the specifics about
00:19:05.744 --> 00:19:08.424
that company that a CSR understands, right?
00:19:08.524 --> 00:19:12.744
Like what are their hours and what is their service fee and things like that
00:19:12.744 --> 00:19:14.924
and their policies and even...
00:19:15.993 --> 00:19:21.153
One of the things I was talking to Ben about a while ago with Free to Grow was, man,
00:19:21.293 --> 00:19:27.613
I really wish that these AIs can go into Service Titan based upon who's calling
00:19:27.613 --> 00:19:32.553
and talk about job history and answer some questions from the job history.
00:19:32.673 --> 00:19:37.353
Because whenever I called, like I called, I remember calling Verizon and it
00:19:37.353 --> 00:19:41.833
was really annoying when I called them after we just had a conversation and
00:19:41.833 --> 00:19:46.013
they didn't know anything we previously talked about. So I'd have to start over.
00:19:46.233 --> 00:19:52.713
And I always liked and I noticed years ago that these these CSRs at these companies
00:19:52.713 --> 00:19:55.013
started to have history and they could see, oh, Mr.
00:19:55.113 --> 00:20:00.613
Brown, I saw you talk with with Susan a few days ago and they could continue the conversation.
00:20:00.813 --> 00:20:04.113
And Ben told me that your AI does that.
00:20:04.253 --> 00:20:09.593
So you guys can go into Service Titan. Yeah, we can look at job history.
00:20:09.753 --> 00:20:11.873
So if someone calls in, it's a callback, right?
00:20:12.473 --> 00:20:15.653
Yeah. You know, hey, you guys were just out here. Yep. Mr. Smith,
00:20:15.813 --> 00:20:17.053
I'm seeing that we were just out there.
00:20:17.333 --> 00:20:19.813
Is this having to do with, you know, the work that was just done?
00:20:19.933 --> 00:20:21.733
Yep. You were just out here and things aren't working.
00:20:21.893 --> 00:20:25.633
Okay. Let's get you on the schedule and I'm going to ask this up to make it a priority.
00:20:26.213 --> 00:20:30.093
That's cool. And that probably was not super easy to program.
00:20:30.373 --> 00:20:33.813
As somebody who dabbles into the back end of AI.
00:20:34.213 --> 00:20:38.573
Man, that must have taken a while, but you guys must have, that's where Jerry comes in, right?
00:20:39.793 --> 00:20:44.273
It's always those. Jerry and Jerry's team. They're great. It's always those young guys.
00:20:44.433 --> 00:20:49.453
They are killing it when it comes to being able to program and speak with AI.
00:20:49.853 --> 00:20:53.173
It's crazy how you look at these guys in the tech
00:20:53.173 --> 00:20:56.173
space and I read a lot of news articles
00:20:56.173 --> 00:20:58.953
online and they're always like kids that know this stuff
00:20:58.953 --> 00:21:02.193
it's crazy it's wild man it's wild so you know
00:21:02.193 --> 00:21:04.953
when it comes to setting this technology up in your
00:21:04.953 --> 00:21:07.673
business a lot of contractors have a
00:21:07.673 --> 00:21:10.553
lot of different pieces of software that they set up
00:21:10.553 --> 00:21:13.653
service titan because a lot of the listeners in this
00:21:13.653 --> 00:21:17.173
podcast are going to be on service tight is a mountain
00:21:17.173 --> 00:21:23.473
of work to set up to onboard and you're never 100 ready when you onboard and
00:21:23.473 --> 00:21:27.473
there's people that have been using Service Titan for years that haven't even
00:21:27.473 --> 00:21:33.773
been able to take advantage of the features in it that they're paying for, right?
00:21:33.913 --> 00:21:38.493
And so as an operator, I always think, man, all right, I'm going to,
00:21:38.653 --> 00:21:43.293
I love the idea of the technology, but now it's going to be weeks and weeks
00:21:43.293 --> 00:21:44.613
and weeks of onboarding.
00:21:44.933 --> 00:21:49.853
And it's going to be up to me to do the onboarding really, really well and know
00:21:49.853 --> 00:21:53.673
the system really well to be able to get my return on investment and everything.
00:21:54.033 --> 00:21:56.953
So contractors are just really sour to that.
00:21:57.313 --> 00:22:05.013
Can you talk about your onboarding process and is it easier than it normally
00:22:05.013 --> 00:22:06.173
would be with other software?
00:22:06.513 --> 00:22:08.553
It is. We intentionally...
00:22:09.619 --> 00:22:14.019
Have worked really hard on onboarding, right? We understand that getting this
00:22:14.019 --> 00:22:16.019
right out of the gate is extremely important.
00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:20.759
When we do that, we do tell customers, hey, for onboarding, we would like the
00:22:20.759 --> 00:22:24.599
attention of the folks that are going to own this within your organization,
00:22:24.979 --> 00:22:26.899
right? Be it an owner, a manager, whoever that might be.
00:22:27.039 --> 00:22:31.659
We actually assign them a customer success and an onboarding manager, right?
00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:35.079
And they're with them throughout the lifetime of the contract.
00:22:35.499 --> 00:22:39.039
They have someone that's assigned to their account. That person is there to
00:22:39.039 --> 00:22:42.719
help set everything up, help test, roll it over to the customer to have them
00:22:42.719 --> 00:22:44.699
test. We're looking at all the test calls.
00:22:44.919 --> 00:22:49.359
And then as things progress and they go live, we're looking at their calls that are coming in.
00:22:49.539 --> 00:22:52.319
Yeah, we're doing it with AI, but we're also doing it with humans,
00:22:52.499 --> 00:22:56.679
making sure that, hey, you know, what's your success rate? What is your booking rate?
00:22:56.879 --> 00:22:59.219
You know, completed calls, everything along those lines.
00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:03.139
Great little story about that. One of our customer success, you know,
00:23:03.219 --> 00:23:04.699
we have a great customer success team.
00:23:05.079 --> 00:23:09.519
But one of our customer success managers, Jess, is actually a former client of ours.
00:23:09.779 --> 00:23:14.499
So when we first transitioned AI, she was our point of contact with a company
00:23:14.499 --> 00:23:15.919
that is still a client of ours.
00:23:16.059 --> 00:23:19.579
She left to, she was CSR manager role.
00:23:19.739 --> 00:23:23.439
And she went on to another company that was more on the commercial side.
00:23:23.579 --> 00:23:25.079
I think she was there maybe a few months.
00:23:25.699 --> 00:23:31.939
And she reached out to me and said, hey, I made this move, not thrilled with where I am.
00:23:32.819 --> 00:23:34.979
What are you guys doing? Do you guys have anything? I was like,
00:23:35.139 --> 00:23:39.019
you know what, if we can find someone that has the experience that Jess has
00:23:39.019 --> 00:23:42.779
and bring them in and she understands the technology and she can get people
00:23:42.779 --> 00:23:45.259
up and running, but she also understands this role,
00:23:45.419 --> 00:23:49.499
the CSR and what needs to get done and how service time works and all that stuff.
00:23:49.499 --> 00:23:55.619
And I was like, I told Jerry, I told Charlie, I was like, we need to make a spot here.
00:23:55.679 --> 00:23:58.319
And we did. And she's been fantastic.
00:23:58.479 --> 00:24:03.499
But she's one member of the team, but she's great.
00:24:03.539 --> 00:24:08.519
I just love the story that we had a former point of contact with a client that
00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:09.619
wanted to come work for us.
00:24:10.179 --> 00:24:16.739
For sure. You know, as an owner, well, former owner, sold my business a year
00:24:16.739 --> 00:24:21.139
ago, you know, you always want to save money.
00:24:21.899 --> 00:24:26.379
You always want to grow revenue and reduce expenses so you get to keep more money, right?
00:24:26.539 --> 00:24:31.859
So it's kind of easy for an owner to get buy-in on AI, right?
00:24:32.019 --> 00:24:34.079
On utilizing something like AI voice.
00:24:34.479 --> 00:24:40.899
And then also for GMs who are held to numbers and call center managers.
00:24:40.899 --> 00:24:48.259
But I feel like, and you would know this better, how does CSRs feel about bringing in AI?
00:24:48.619 --> 00:24:52.759
Do they feel threatened by it where they see these numbers in Service Titan
00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:57.719
that says, this AI has 75% booking rate. I have 50.
00:24:58.039 --> 00:25:05.139
I'm going to get the ax to this technology, right? How do they feel about that? You know what? I...
00:25:05.776 --> 00:25:08.436
A question I get a lot, as you can imagine, right?
00:25:08.696 --> 00:25:13.956
A question that I go through with, you know, people that were onboarding or
00:25:13.956 --> 00:25:18.916
that were about to, you know, sign up and they say, hey, I'm worried about how
00:25:18.916 --> 00:25:21.376
my folks are going to react to this and everything else.
00:25:21.516 --> 00:25:27.296
I feel like the good owners know who their A players are and they know where
00:25:27.296 --> 00:25:31.816
their A players are going to succeed when the AI is going to be a success, right?
00:25:32.456 --> 00:25:39.096
They figure out how to let the AI have their humans human better and do things
00:25:39.096 --> 00:25:41.316
that are more revenue generating.
00:25:41.396 --> 00:25:44.216
We have a client that's onboarding right now.
00:25:44.296 --> 00:25:49.536
And this guy was great because the enthusiasm that we get from our clients after
00:25:49.536 --> 00:25:50.856
the fact is always really high.
00:25:50.996 --> 00:25:54.556
He was very enthusiastic kind of coming into this, which I love. them.
00:25:55.656 --> 00:25:59.196
But he, he said, he's like, I'm going to be able to have my folks,
00:25:59.376 --> 00:26:03.796
you know, during peak season, take demand calls because he's going to set up
00:26:03.796 --> 00:26:08.056
the AI to where it's an emergency or where, where it's a replacement or whatever that is.
00:26:08.536 --> 00:26:11.656
You know, AI is going to book the maintenances, the simple fixes,
00:26:11.936 --> 00:26:15.196
anything that comes through with these trigger words, we're going to send on
00:26:15.196 --> 00:26:17.476
someone that's going to be available and they're going to be able to book that
00:26:17.476 --> 00:26:18.736
job and do a really good job.
00:26:19.156 --> 00:26:24.376
Right. And that's just one way that it's getting set up. And he just, from his side of it too.
00:26:24.496 --> 00:26:29.436
He's like, then when it does come to peak season next year, I don't have to bring on more people.
00:26:29.956 --> 00:26:31.716
I don't have to worry about adding more people.
00:26:32.324 --> 00:26:36.984
Yeah, there's an onboarding period when you add people that you're not going
00:26:36.984 --> 00:26:42.084
to get the KPIs and production out of those people when they first start.
00:26:42.364 --> 00:26:46.504
And there's also the fantasy of getting someone who's plug and play,
00:26:46.724 --> 00:26:48.944
which, I mean, come on, how often do you see that, right?
00:26:49.044 --> 00:26:52.804
Those people are usually well taken care of at the job they're at now.
00:26:52.804 --> 00:26:56.044
So I definitely see that as part of scaling.
00:26:56.424 --> 00:27:02.204
And I would, that would be my fear a little bit as an owner would be worst case,
00:27:02.404 --> 00:27:07.404
are all my CSRs going to see some writing on the wall, get really negative and quit?
00:27:07.604 --> 00:27:10.544
And then what if the AI doesn't work the way I hoped it to?
00:27:10.604 --> 00:27:14.144
Now I don't have CSRs and I have this technology that isn't working.
00:27:14.144 --> 00:27:18.164
So I would think that that would be, you know, something that you guys as the
00:27:18.164 --> 00:27:23.184
tech company have to be able to approach with empathy and understanding,
00:27:23.184 --> 00:27:26.064
you know, if you're just talking about people's jobs here. Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:26.324 --> 00:27:30.484
And that's where I tell, hey, this is an opportunity to kind of put your arms
00:27:30.484 --> 00:27:32.344
around your A players, right?
00:27:32.504 --> 00:27:36.124
And say, listen, this is going to be a tool that's going to make your life easier.
00:27:36.304 --> 00:27:40.364
It's going to make, you know, your job probably a little less stressful,
00:27:40.664 --> 00:27:43.744
right? the calls that are coming in, you know, that they're going to be the
00:27:43.744 --> 00:27:48.024
calls that truly need, you know, human attention and then everything else,
00:27:48.064 --> 00:27:50.764
you know, you can, you can leave to the AI, right.
00:27:51.004 --> 00:27:55.584
You know, but I also think, you know, the, the, the folks that are worried out
00:27:55.584 --> 00:27:59.404
there, and this is probably not the best thing to say, but it's like the folks
00:27:59.404 --> 00:28:02.504
that are worried out there are probably the ones that are getting by.
00:28:03.144 --> 00:28:09.124
Yeah. That are just filling a slot because the company is scaling and growing, right?
00:28:09.324 --> 00:28:15.564
And from what I've seen as my company grew, the A players would rather have
00:28:15.564 --> 00:28:20.784
AI or an automation do the work of the D players.
00:28:21.204 --> 00:28:24.224
The D players really bother the A players, right?
00:28:24.444 --> 00:28:26.124
Yeah, absolutely. And so a lot
00:28:26.124 --> 00:28:30.064
of the things that take away from the A players doing a great job is they
00:28:30.334 --> 00:28:34.134
picking up the slack for the people that don't do well or just dealing with
00:28:34.134 --> 00:28:35.974
them on the emotional side, right?
00:28:36.154 --> 00:28:41.554
So I could see that the A players would be like, I like this.
00:28:41.694 --> 00:28:45.334
So now when we scale, I don't have to be the person that onboards all these
00:28:45.334 --> 00:28:49.994
people who might not even stay or do a good job so they can focus on getting
00:28:49.994 --> 00:28:51.294
better at their job. Exactly.
00:28:51.514 --> 00:28:56.074
For somebody that just wants to dip their toe in the water with this technology,
00:28:56.074 --> 00:29:00.854
what would you say is the safest and easiest way to begin using it?
00:29:01.714 --> 00:29:05.214
Yeah, most of our customers start off in that, you know, after hours,
00:29:05.374 --> 00:29:09.254
overflow, weekend capacity, and then they soon figure out, okay,
00:29:09.394 --> 00:29:10.934
I can start having this as frontline.
00:29:11.014 --> 00:29:17.554
They may have like an IVR in place right now and IVR is really good for filtering out spam calls.
00:29:17.714 --> 00:29:21.154
But, you know, when you're in, you know, dial nine to get to the right person
00:29:21.154 --> 00:29:24.234
and all this other stuff, you can lose people then too because people are already
00:29:24.234 --> 00:29:27.614
frustrated and they're not calling you. Typically, they're not calling for a good reason anyway.
00:29:28.054 --> 00:29:31.974
Sure. Yeah, they're calling because there's a problem. AI can take that place
00:29:31.974 --> 00:29:34.974
of that IVR too, right? Where it is filtering out that spam.
00:29:35.214 --> 00:29:39.574
It's taking all calls, right? It's able to schedule the emergency calls.
00:29:39.574 --> 00:29:41.674
It's able to schedule the maintenances and everything else.
00:29:41.794 --> 00:29:45.574
They figure out, okay, this can start taking over the IVR side of it.
00:29:45.794 --> 00:29:48.634
That happens. We do have customers that come out and they say,
00:29:48.714 --> 00:29:50.614
hey, I want to go full bore on this. And that's great.
00:29:50.894 --> 00:29:54.354
Get them up. We get them running. But a lot of it is, they got to feel comfortable
00:29:54.354 --> 00:29:57.234
with it. They got to see, you know, the after hours call come in,
00:29:57.294 --> 00:30:00.554
you know, eliminate their third party call center.
00:30:00.674 --> 00:30:03.914
That's not booking anything that sucks. And someone's on, you know,
00:30:04.134 --> 00:30:07.854
on hold for three minutes and then waiting for another two minutes while someone's,
00:30:07.894 --> 00:30:10.814
you know, wiping the crusties out of their eyes and trying to figure out what
00:30:10.814 --> 00:30:12.854
they're. I've had it happen, man. What they're doing.
00:30:13.174 --> 00:30:16.234
Yeah. Had it happen. It's death, you know?
00:30:16.930 --> 00:30:20.130
So let's do something really fun, especially in the tech field,
00:30:20.290 --> 00:30:22.990
which is speculate, right?
00:30:23.230 --> 00:30:28.710
So five to 10 years from now, which I mean, could we imagine what would happen
00:30:28.710 --> 00:30:32.230
today, five or 10 years in the past? Probably nothing like it, right?
00:30:32.630 --> 00:30:37.830
But let's have fun with this. And maybe we'll come back to this podcast in 2030,
00:30:38.210 --> 00:30:42.850
2035 and go, wow, we were right on point or we were way off, right?
00:30:42.850 --> 00:30:49.710
So, man, do you think that a service company could even survive in the future
00:30:49.710 --> 00:30:52.570
without this tool, could even be profitable and make it?
00:30:53.250 --> 00:30:57.670
No, I don't. We pick up customers that are big. We pick up customers that are
00:30:57.670 --> 00:31:00.470
in that medium range and some that are smaller too.
00:31:00.750 --> 00:31:06.390
But I think it is about speed to lead. It is about taking care of customers.
00:31:07.630 --> 00:31:11.270
The worst day that the AI is having is right now, right?
00:31:11.670 --> 00:31:16.070
Yeah, right. And it's only getting better. You know, I think the model is going to be,
00:31:16.310 --> 00:31:19.890
you know, people are going to be able to do a lot more with a lot less from
00:31:19.890 --> 00:31:24.370
the human capital side in regards to you can have, you can be a sizable company
00:31:24.370 --> 00:31:27.270
and maybe have two, three, four people behind the scenes that are,
00:31:27.410 --> 00:31:31.090
you're escalating things up to and AI is taking everything else.
00:31:31.090 --> 00:31:34.690
You know, I think that's kind of the near future, to be honest.
00:31:34.850 --> 00:31:37.790
And then, you know, everything else that's coming out, you know,
00:31:37.890 --> 00:31:38.910
obviously it's just going to
00:31:38.910 --> 00:31:41.950
be getting better. The integrations are going to continue to get better.
00:31:42.550 --> 00:31:47.170
And just the knowledge base behind it and how nimble it's becoming is pretty cool.
00:31:47.961 --> 00:31:53.901
Yeah, it is. I agree with you that if you don't implement AI and automation
00:31:53.901 --> 00:31:59.321
in your company, you're going to get beat down and lose the market and probably go out of business.
00:31:59.481 --> 00:32:02.601
And one of the things I was talking to, I was talking to somebody about it the
00:32:02.601 --> 00:32:07.641
other day was, let's say that you sell a heating and air conditioning system
00:32:07.641 --> 00:32:09.921
on average for $15,000, right?
00:32:10.441 --> 00:32:15.821
And with that, your net profit of your company all the way when it flows down
00:32:15.821 --> 00:32:19.901
is 20%, which is that awesome goal that not a lot of companies achieve.
00:32:20.181 --> 00:32:27.221
Well, that build into that $15,000 are all of the expenses and inefficiencies
00:32:27.221 --> 00:32:28.661
that you have in your business, right?
00:32:28.741 --> 00:32:31.621
They have to be included in there. The customer pays for everything.
00:32:31.921 --> 00:32:38.741
So if you were able to scale without having to hire people and use this technology,
00:32:38.761 --> 00:32:43.701
then And essentially, you could charge less and keep the same amount of money,
00:32:43.861 --> 00:32:46.321
which means your conversion rate would be higher.
00:32:46.661 --> 00:32:52.041
So if you need to get $15,000 today out of a system and you're more expensive,
00:32:52.361 --> 00:32:59.241
if you're right along with the big competitors, and if you can drop that down
00:32:59.241 --> 00:33:05.581
to $14,000, you're going to convert, get more jobs, and keep more money than your competitors.
00:33:05.581 --> 00:33:11.441
So I think it's not just will be a big deal where as companies that don't use
00:33:11.441 --> 00:33:14.281
this will find that they're not
00:33:14.281 --> 00:33:18.481
able to be competitive in pricing in the market as well. Yeah, I agree.
00:33:18.861 --> 00:33:23.901
I don't think that like right away everybody's going to be super excited to drop their pricing.
00:33:24.161 --> 00:33:27.721
But you look at it and for the most part, pricing changes.
00:33:28.093 --> 00:33:33.133
Does determine what your close rate is. And, you know, if you can lower it a
00:33:33.133 --> 00:33:36.393
little bit, you'll get a little higher of a close rate for the most part.
00:33:36.593 --> 00:33:39.733
So I think that that'll be something that's coming up too.
00:33:39.913 --> 00:33:45.213
And, you know, you got these big companies using it and the smaller companies
00:33:45.213 --> 00:33:50.533
today, especially with private equity are wondering, how am I supposed to compete with these big guys?
00:33:50.733 --> 00:33:56.713
They have unlimited marketing budgets. They can pay everybody more money than I can pay them.
00:33:57.533 --> 00:34:00.773
And man, these big guys implementing AI.
00:34:01.513 --> 00:34:05.753
Wow. As a small company, I would really want to get on board with that so that
00:34:05.753 --> 00:34:10.153
I could keep my costs down as much as I possibly could. You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:34:10.813 --> 00:34:17.193
Yeah. So five to 10 years, it's going to be, it's going to be wild, you know? Yeah.
00:34:18.933 --> 00:34:22.913
Five to 10 years, it's almost unimaginable at this point.
00:34:22.913 --> 00:34:26.213
I hate to say it that way, but, you know, a lot of the things that we're seeing
00:34:26.213 --> 00:34:30.473
now with how, like, just the reactions of the AI, what we've been able to do
00:34:30.473 --> 00:34:31.833
from that knowledge base side,
00:34:32.253 --> 00:34:35.293
you know, a lot of it is just, you know, we thought it, you know,
00:34:35.373 --> 00:34:39.013
we thought it'd be a year out and it was, you know, a few months and it's like,
00:34:39.093 --> 00:34:41.413
it's just moving at, at warp speed here.
00:34:41.413 --> 00:34:44.433
So, yeah, it's, it's crazy.
00:34:44.673 --> 00:34:49.093
So for a while you did inbound voice only, right?
00:34:49.393 --> 00:34:52.753
And then there's something that a lot of CSRs do.
00:34:53.687 --> 00:34:58.947
Which is outbound, which, you know, an outbound is normally going to be calling
00:34:58.947 --> 00:35:01.067
and following up on unsold work.
00:35:01.487 --> 00:35:06.267
So booking the maintenance calls for customers who have a maintenance plan.
00:35:06.507 --> 00:35:11.067
And really, it's a monotonous job for CSRs to do that, right?
00:35:11.207 --> 00:35:15.147
It's just, especially some of these companies that have thousands of them and everything.
00:35:15.147 --> 00:35:23.167
And have you guys been working on the AI outbound version, which is going to
00:35:23.167 --> 00:35:29.127
have these AI CSRs call and book these overwhelming quantity of calls for some companies?
00:35:29.267 --> 00:35:35.687
Yeah, we have AI outbound officially being released at the end of August.
00:35:35.727 --> 00:35:40.267
Our capability from doing AI outbound has been there for a while.
00:35:40.267 --> 00:35:44.567
It is going to be, you know, it's starting off just for, just for service site
00:35:44.567 --> 00:35:46.267
and the integration that we have into service site.
00:35:46.427 --> 00:35:49.907
You know, we had thought about releasing it more towards the beginning of the year.
00:35:50.187 --> 00:35:53.947
I've said this to a lot of people. I had, I was very bullish on it to begin
00:35:53.947 --> 00:35:57.647
with and then got, you know, into springtime and, you know, being in St.
00:35:57.687 --> 00:36:01.867
Louis, we had a lot of storms here and I've gotten a lot of AI roofing calls
00:36:01.867 --> 00:36:06.267
and that sort of thing. And Album is definitely a gray area too, right?
00:36:06.447 --> 00:36:11.607
Because you got to be really zeroed in. It has to be your customer base.
00:36:11.827 --> 00:36:16.727
It has to be, you know, you can't just cold call people because it's,
00:36:16.887 --> 00:36:19.407
you know, you get into some very gray legal areas too.
00:36:19.527 --> 00:36:22.987
And that's not a list you want to be on from a spam calling side of things.
00:36:23.507 --> 00:36:29.667
But, you know, limiting to current customers or we'll eventually do sales follow-ups
00:36:29.667 --> 00:36:33.607
too and that sort of thing. But starting off with that maintenance member check-in
00:36:33.607 --> 00:36:38.167
is going to be our first one here at the end of the month.
00:36:39.227 --> 00:36:43.187
Yeah, those calls are prepaid, so they're usually very easy to convert, right?
00:36:43.407 --> 00:36:48.547
Prepaid, easy to convert, and the outbound can go a bunch of different ways,
00:36:48.627 --> 00:36:52.047
but it's a pretty easy script. Hey, we haven't seen you in six months.
00:36:52.287 --> 00:36:55.167
Can we get you on the schedule for two weeks out from now? Yeah.
00:36:56.147 --> 00:37:02.247
And it's still important technology because these are customers that you could lose, right?
00:37:02.387 --> 00:37:06.287
These are ones that you've had existing relationships with. So they're usually
00:37:06.287 --> 00:37:09.707
a little bit more patient, but man, you don't want to lose those customers.
00:37:10.547 --> 00:37:15.387
That's your future sales, your future lifeline, right? Yep. Yeah.
00:37:16.319 --> 00:37:20.939
Still speculating on the future, what do you think the next big thing in AI
00:37:20.939 --> 00:37:24.759
to hit our industry will be within the next couple of years?
00:37:24.879 --> 00:37:27.499
Even if it's outside the scope of something that you guys would do.
00:37:28.059 --> 00:37:31.079
I think the next big thing is going to be outside the scope of what we're doing
00:37:31.079 --> 00:37:33.879
because I think there's a lot of stuff that, one, we have roadmapped,
00:37:33.879 --> 00:37:37.939
you know, and kind of rounding out our services, you know, from the inbound
00:37:37.939 --> 00:37:39.659
side and from the outbound side.
00:37:39.659 --> 00:37:42.959
And then, you know, the textings, like we have a lot of stuff that we're kind
00:37:42.959 --> 00:37:46.079
of putting together here to kind of round out our service offering so we can
00:37:46.079 --> 00:37:48.459
kind of be more of a complete solution on that side.
00:37:49.059 --> 00:37:52.659
I think it is going to be outside of what we're doing. I'm just,
00:37:52.779 --> 00:37:54.339
I'll be honest, Bill, I don't know what it is.
00:37:54.919 --> 00:38:00.259
Yeah. It's, yeah, it's so tough to predict, you know, when you get that far
00:38:00.259 --> 00:38:03.679
out and then all of a sudden a company pops up and they've been developing something
00:38:03.679 --> 00:38:05.459
and it's ready to be released and it's here.
00:38:05.719 --> 00:38:09.199
So, yeah. Yeah, I get it. What do you think? What do you think, Bill?
00:38:10.499 --> 00:38:13.159
Man i think that with the tech that you
00:38:13.159 --> 00:38:16.039
guys have that we're getting to diminishing returns
00:38:16.039 --> 00:38:19.159
on the call center side right i think
00:38:19.159 --> 00:38:22.239
that we're really starting to cover all of the
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:28.559
key points that a csr does i think the next step goes more into the field and
00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:34.139
helps with the technicians be more successful and more comfortable doing their
00:38:34.139 --> 00:38:39.659
job on the customer communication side so they have you know,
00:38:39.939 --> 00:38:41.919
Ciro and SalesPro.
00:38:42.379 --> 00:38:46.219
And then there's also companies like Rilla that are very popular,
00:38:46.219 --> 00:38:48.259
which are these virtual ride along.
00:38:48.439 --> 00:38:53.859
So it is, you know, it's AI and they're recording calls. I think that taking that a step further.
00:38:54.579 --> 00:39:01.599
That technicians will be recording, will be prepared from AI based upon the
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:05.439
complete history of the customer to be able to continue the conversation when
00:39:05.439 --> 00:39:07.399
they knock on the door, right?
00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:14.399
So they're going to get some sort of a pre-call AI back and forth.
00:39:14.579 --> 00:39:18.799
So maybe they'll call in to their own company and talk with the chatbot and
00:39:18.799 --> 00:39:20.339
say, hey, you're going out to Mrs.
00:39:20.499 --> 00:39:22.799
Jones's house. She's been a customer for 12 years.
00:39:23.259 --> 00:39:26.259
This is who's been there before. This is the equipment we've installed.
00:39:26.399 --> 00:39:28.459
So no searching through Service Titan.
00:39:28.679 --> 00:39:34.559
It's going to be a call on the way to the customer's house. So they're going
00:39:34.559 --> 00:39:38.439
to prepare the technicians with some very specific questions for that customer,
00:39:38.439 --> 00:39:41.859
make sure that there's questions and things they don't bring up, right?
00:39:41.999 --> 00:39:47.599
And then they record the conversation that they have with the customer, the AI does it.
00:39:47.919 --> 00:39:54.339
Then based upon all that information, the specific technical inspection is customized
00:39:54.339 --> 00:39:57.539
to exactly what is relevant to that job.
00:39:57.739 --> 00:40:00.859
So right now we have like a maintenance inspection, right? And there's.
00:40:01.475 --> 00:40:04.655
99 points you hit. Well, not everybody needs all those 99.
00:40:04.875 --> 00:40:10.795
Maybe this customer needs 45 of them. Well, the AI is going to customize the inspection.
00:40:11.035 --> 00:40:16.395
The inspection with the technician to the AI also might be a voice conversation
00:40:16.395 --> 00:40:19.895
where you're just talking about what you're measuring, what you're seeing.
00:40:20.135 --> 00:40:22.515
And then you could tell I thought about this a lot.
00:40:22.975 --> 00:40:28.215
Then we put all of that information together before it's time to make a presentation
00:40:28.215 --> 00:40:29.855
of solutions for a customer.
00:40:30.195 --> 00:40:36.055
And the AI looks at the price book and creates the solution options based upon
00:40:36.055 --> 00:40:42.615
all of these indicators and even based upon that specific conversation that
00:40:42.615 --> 00:40:44.955
the tech just had with the customer,
00:40:44.955 --> 00:40:49.295
what was found on the technical inspection, prepares the options.
00:40:49.295 --> 00:40:54.735
And for techs that are kind of nervous to talk to customers,
00:40:54.955 --> 00:40:59.935
especially new guys, You know, the AI can do the presentation and handle objections
00:40:59.935 --> 00:41:01.955
and close it. Here's the iPad. Right.
00:41:02.215 --> 00:41:06.835
And for the ones that are comfortable with doing a presentation,
00:41:07.155 --> 00:41:12.715
the AI will prepare them for it and help talk them through and everything like that.
00:41:12.715 --> 00:41:18.315
And I think one of the great things about something like that would be as a
00:41:18.315 --> 00:41:22.655
technician, you would be really confident that the options that you're putting
00:41:22.655 --> 00:41:26.275
together for customers are very relevant.
00:41:26.655 --> 00:41:30.415
I mean, I think that a real fear for a technician is trying to sell something
00:41:30.415 --> 00:41:32.435
to a customer that they want.
00:41:32.830 --> 00:41:35.950
Believe that they don't need. And I think that AI is going to help with that.
00:41:36.190 --> 00:41:38.930
So we close the deal at that point.
00:41:39.390 --> 00:41:46.610
And then the final piece of it is that there'll be a debriefing where the AI.
00:41:47.230 --> 00:41:51.970
Tells the technician how they did all the way through the process and says,
00:41:52.150 --> 00:41:55.210
and that's kind of from what I've seen, what Rilla does.
00:41:55.330 --> 00:41:59.930
And it's kind of like a coach that said, Hey, man, you did a great job talking about this.
00:42:00.370 --> 00:42:06.070
Your tone and your cadence of the conversation was great. You felt confident.
00:42:06.350 --> 00:42:10.950
And that's why the customer bought. And then the last thing would be the AI
00:42:10.950 --> 00:42:17.050
would analyze the whole thing and determine what future opportunities exist in that house.
00:42:17.270 --> 00:42:23.450
So let's say I had a humidifier as an option in my option sheet.
00:42:23.590 --> 00:42:27.350
And the customer was like, no, I had a humidifier before it leaked.
00:42:28.010 --> 00:42:33.210
Don't sell me on that. Right. Which is very obvious. Or sometimes it could be subtle.
00:42:33.450 --> 00:42:40.590
Well, the AI would go, would list it and either and put it into its memory or in service Titan.
00:42:41.070 --> 00:42:44.070
Don't bring up a humidifier to this customer again.
00:42:44.330 --> 00:42:50.650
So with that, I think the next level of help is with the guys in the field, you know?
00:42:51.190 --> 00:42:56.650
So I don't know how far along that tech is as far as being ready,
00:42:56.850 --> 00:43:02.730
but that's just what I would wish that I had as a technician,
00:43:02.730 --> 00:43:08.870
that I had that level of help so that I just didn't go out there and get blasted by customers, right?
00:43:09.070 --> 00:43:11.270
It's very disheartening as a
00:43:11.270 --> 00:43:15.430
technician to have a customer push you out of their home. It really sucks.
00:43:15.650 --> 00:43:17.970
It really hurts your confidence, right?
00:43:18.250 --> 00:43:21.650
So I think that'll be something we see in the future.
00:43:22.882 --> 00:43:26.462
And then after that, I really don't know, man. I really don't know what else
00:43:26.462 --> 00:43:28.862
there is. I can't see past that.
00:43:29.702 --> 00:43:35.302
Yeah. I think that solution is, it's probably like 20 or 30% of the way there
00:43:35.302 --> 00:43:36.682
from what you just went through, right?
00:43:36.822 --> 00:43:40.582
Yeah. It's not quite there yet, but it's, yeah.
00:43:40.802 --> 00:43:43.422
And you can add it in stages, right? It doesn't have to be perfect.
00:43:43.662 --> 00:43:47.002
The first stage was the debriefing at the end that Rilla does,
00:43:47.082 --> 00:43:50.702
which I think is, that's very important to get that feedback,
00:43:50.962 --> 00:43:55.962
man. I mean, you have no idea when you're on a call if you did a good job or a bad job.
00:43:56.082 --> 00:44:00.082
Neither do CSRs. They don't really know, especially if you do a high volume
00:44:00.082 --> 00:44:03.502
of calls. You can't say how your sentiment is.
00:44:03.682 --> 00:44:06.542
How happy was that customer? It's very difficult to do that.
00:44:06.682 --> 00:44:12.762
So for me as a tech who wants to get better, that would be vital information.
00:44:12.862 --> 00:44:17.562
As a tech today, I'd be recording every one of my phone calls so I could analyze
00:44:17.562 --> 00:44:23.822
that. Even if I did it myself, I'd want to know how I was doing from someone who was unbiased.
00:44:24.042 --> 00:44:27.442
And then also, you know, like everything, you'll have the text that'll think
00:44:27.442 --> 00:44:29.242
it's big brother and hate it.
00:44:29.402 --> 00:44:32.602
Right. But those usually aren't the real high level guys. Right.
00:44:32.922 --> 00:44:38.262
Yeah. So, yeah, that's awesome. It'll be fun to see how all this plays out, you know. It will be.
00:44:38.742 --> 00:44:44.002
Yeah. It will be. So, you know, thanks for breaking all this down for us.
00:44:44.082 --> 00:44:47.722
You know, it really shows the AI is not this fancy toy. it's
00:44:47.722 --> 00:44:51.422
really becoming a must-have to keep up and win the market so
00:44:51.422 --> 00:44:54.322
if you want to know more about free to grow where you
00:44:54.322 --> 00:44:57.642
can book a demo i also have the phone number below where
00:44:57.642 --> 00:45:03.022
you can give this demo ai voice a call and if you're not if you haven't already
00:45:03.022 --> 00:45:07.862
joined the service titan hacks facebook group you can join 9 000 other contractors
00:45:07.862 --> 00:45:13.322
who are learning about this technology and sharing tips tricks and hacks about
00:45:13.322 --> 00:45:17.602
service titan and we'll see you next time and nate Thanks for coming today, man.
00:45:18.002 --> 00:45:20.342
Bill, thanks for having me. This was fun. Love it. Awesome.
00:45:21.842 --> 00:45:26.042
Thanks for listening to the Home Service Hacks podcast. Be sure to subscribe
00:45:26.042 --> 00:45:29.922
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00:45:30.142 --> 00:45:34.682
For more information or to connect with Bill, you can check us out on Facebook
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00:45:40.182 --> 00:45:41.642
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