AI Receptionist vs Outsourced vs Owners
Hello everyone, New to the community here. Recently launched an HVAC business in Texas, after being in real estate development for nearly 2 decades. Would love to hear your insights on your experience with AI receptionist vs outsourced team vs you answering the calls yourself. I am personally finding our AI receptionist build via RetellAI perhaps isn't the best. But also, majority of calls now are sales calls....so I am really torn on what to do. Any advice and insights would be appreciated. Sincerely, AliceMilwaukee vs DeWalt Tools, which one?
We’re Lock Nerds Locksmith, a Buffalo, NY-based company that’s always relied on Milwaukee tools. But we’re curious—what tools do other pros trust? We're looking for honest pros and cons between Milwaukee and DeWalt to see if it's time for us to reconsider our setup.How do you utilize reports in your business?
I am curious to hear which reports you consider most valuable in your business and what actions are taken based on those reports if anyone is willing to share. Are there reports that you use regularly in Jobber or reports that you wish were part of Jobber? If so how do you utilize the information that the reports provide? Are changes made based on the reports? Is the data used to create the reports monitored internally for consistency? Thanks for sharing all input is helpful!How Much Should You Really Be Charging?
The number one question I receive is tied directly to the fact, most contractors are still guessing when it comes to pricing. Overhead. Profit. Labor rate. Trip fees. They think just because they throw a number they hear their competitors use, thats all that they need. It may work, but how and what do you divide these funds is just as important for your business health. If you don’t know how to do the math, you’re not building a business. You’re surviving check to check and think you need more work, when you do not. So here’s the plan: This Tuesday & Thursday on IG, I’m walking you through our Contractor Price Builder Worksheet FREE on instagram live. We will cover: - How to calculate your real hourly rate - The difference between markup and margin - Why profit is a non-negotiable - And how to price with confidence Join the session. Bring your numbers.
Suggestions for Jobber
Below is some suggestions I have for Jobber to improve use. This is reviewing the two past years of my company and the complications they have using it. Anymore? Keep it going! Create a filter in clients to separate residential and commercial. Display icon in clients for residential and commercial. Prompt you if a duplicate client is being created. Identical names especially for companies shouldn't be allowed. Option to turn off archived search results when using the search bar. Create a collect payment button for invoices instead of having to click edit invoice to collect payment. Under save invoice options add selection save invoice and mark as sent. Create an edit mode for products and services and for visits. You would click the button allowing you to change the text in the columns and toggle taxable or non taxable. when edit mode is turned off it will save any changes. You can also do a select box so you can deactivate or delete multiple at a time. For visits, dates should be an option in the edit mode. Length of visits should be an option in one off or recurring. Shouldn't just default to all day. Quotes have a bulk archive, this should be added to jobs and requests and for the quotes there should be options such as bulk archive, bulk approve. When converting quotes to a job there should be selection boxes to select which line items you want to convert. And once line items are converted and someone tries to do it again maybe a popup saying this has already been converted to job #______ are you sure you want to proceed? In Manage teams, allow you to create a password for your technician. Sometimes techs are in the field having issues and don't have time to verify and change a password. Administrators should have this option.
We Need a Catalog to Build Estimates 📗
🥳🔥We need a catalog 📗! The items in the catalog help with building out an estimate. These items are the nuts and bolts of the products and services. Examples of catalog items are materials, permits, labor, subs, and anything else you need to complete a job. The ability to add images to the item would be a plus! Creating an Item in the Catalog; Item Name; Description for customer (can be toggled on to let customer see or turned off); Sku Number; Part Number; Quantity; Unit (Each, Feet, Gallon); Cost Code; Type; Unit Cost; Extended Cost (Calculated After you input the qty); Unit Price; Extended Price (Calculated after you input the qty with selected Markup or Margin); Markup; Margin; Taxable y/n; Internal Notes; Image of item 😮Currently, we build estimates outside of Jobber. Once we know the prices, we create the estimate in Jobber and send it to the customer. It would be nice to create an estimate in Jobber and, behind the scenes, see the prices, quantities, and markups of items we picked from the catalog to determine the estimated amount. Once the job is complete, adjusting the actual item's prices or quantities would be super cool to see how the final numbers compare to the estimated cost. Is there anyone else out there who would benefit from a catalog?
Automated Campaigns in HVAC
We'd like to start using the automated campaign feature to contact our clients when they're due for servicing, and I'm wondering if anyone has done this with their HVAC business so far and has some tips on how to set it up. Tags seem to be the best way to sort clients in Jobber but how do you tag or sort clients so the right clients are getting the right reminder at the right time? Thanks in advance!Do you utilize battery-powered tools?
Handheld battery-powered tools have come a long way from their first iterations, especially over the past few years. I've started making the switch away from gas-powered equipment throughout the last few seasons for my business and have found the switch to be positive for my workflow and bottom line. This is a trend I believe will continue as batteries become more powerful and long-lasting. Are you utilizing any battery-powered equipment and, if so, do you have any favorites you'd like to share??
Direct Call Leads
We only pay per qualified conversation with homeowners. After a few years of hunting down bad contacts, getting ghosted and wasting money on ads and ad managers we internally built out a system that only costs money when a homeowner directly calls us looking for our services. It’s been a gamechanger and we even started selling these calls to other roofers and other industries/home service companies because there’s no real risk. Either you talk to a homeowner who wants you to come out, or you don’t pay. They can be kind of expensive but our ROI is at about 3.4x for a while now using it so I’m never going back to our old methods…unless someone has a lower risk option that doesn’t consume a ton of time.
