Possibly the only thing more important than investing in new technology is knowing when not to. Tom Markham, co-owner of Mr. Rooter of Binghamton, New York, seems to understand that.
Markham is in the process of building out the plumbing and drain cleaning franchise to include more specialized infrastructure services such as trenchless pipe repair. And he embraces the new technology in today’s workplace, such as the ServiceTitan software that Mr. Rooter franchisees use to streamline scheduling, invoicing and dispatching.
The latest technological wizardry is, of course, artificial intelligence. Mr. Rooter has taken advantage, employing AI in answering after-hours and middle-of-the-night calls from customers.
“It is a huge help,” Markham says.
But he’s careful not to overuse it. During regular business hours, customer calls are answered by genuine human beings.
“We like the aspect of having a real human voice on our end of the line,” Markham says. “We want to keep that.”
Read more about Mr. Rooter of Binghamton in the July 2026 issue of Cleaner magazine.
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