As the owner of Plomero en Phoenix with only six employees, Armando Ramos relies on efficiency to boost profit margins.
That explains why he pays a monthly fee to have a business partner that works as hard as he does: ServiceTitan software, which to Ramos is the equivalent of having several more employees on board without paying the salaries and benefits.
The business-management software, developed especially for the trades, can handle everything from dispatching, financial reporting and schedule optimization to payroll, job estimates and customer payments by credit card.
“We started using ServiceTitan about five years ago,” Ramos says. “It’s definitely played a huge role in our growth.”
ServiceTitan allows dispatchers to do things like easily text back and forth with technicians, notify customers by text and/or email about a technician’s impending arrival and confirm appointments ahead of time by text, which helps avoid no-shows. It also offers the same tracking technology that ride-share companies like Uber use, so customers can track technicians on the way to jobs.
“When our technicians arrive at customers’ homes, it’s not unusual for them to see customers standing in their driveways or on their porches, cellphones in hand,” Ramos says, noting how much clients enjoy this feature.
The cloud-based software also tracks how much revenue technicians make per day or week, as well as their sales closing rates.
“This helps us quickly see who isn’t meeting goals, so we can see how we can help them out of the red zone — get them the training they need,” Ramos explains.
ServiceTitan also enables technicians to build estimates quickly and accurately. It allows them to build six different options — similar to a good, better and best approach. With the push of a button, technicians can even add items from various options to one main option and build a custom job proposal that customers feel comfortable approving.
“It helps them better understand big projects without feeling overwhelmed,” Ramos says.
Ramos says he also offers customers financing through an independent third-party company for customers who can’t afford more expensive repairs, like sewer line replacements, for example.
“Technicians can do an estimate for a $40,000 or $50,000 job in minutes because they don’t have to write things down or look up things in a price book — the system automatically provides flat-rate prices,” he says. “This also means there’s less room for errors, compared to someone using a price book and a calculator to build bids.”
Technicians can add to the bid photos and videos of various projects; customers love being able to actually see what they’re buying, Ramos says.
“Overall, this makes our guys and our company look very professional and progressive,” he says. “Most of our customers have never seen anything like it before — it’s a game-changer.”
Ramos concedes he was a little skeptical about whether the monthly fee, which is drastically higher than what he was paying for another business-management software system, would be worth it.
“I wasn’t skeptical about the software,” he says. “I was skeptical about the investment because it was a huge jump in cost, and wondered if it actually would be the right product for us. But it absolutely was the right product.”
Read more about Plomero en Phoenix in the August 2023 issue of Cleaner magazine
