What Should Home Service Businesses Automate First to Save Time?
Small manual tasks start stacking up, catching up on follow-ups, re-adjusting scheduling, invoicing, review requests, the list goes on and on. Sound familiar? What’s one task you’re still doing manually that you know could be automated? What’s stopping you from setting it up?How do home service businesses fill their calendar before busy season?
When work slows down, most service businesses feel it fast: stress, cash flow pressure, and last-minute scrambling. Sound familiar? What’s the one thing you rely on most before busy season to keep your calendar full? New leads Repeat customers Referrals Deposits or upfront payments Booking weeks in advance Something else? (do tell!) Bonus: What used to stress you out about slow periods that doesn’t anymore?Will AI replace jobs in home service and skilled trades?
I saw an article yesterday about all the tech jobs that are being replaced by AI and I thought about how hard that would be to know your position can be replaced by someTHING that can do it faster and cheaper than you can. Then I thought how happy I am that I decided a long time ago that I am going to work with my hands. Be handy. Solve real problems. I would be safe in saying that AI is never going to cut your lawn, remove your junk, exterminate your bed bugs, plumb in or wire your home. Am I going to regret saying this? Is AI reading thins and just started plotting to take all our jobs???How Are Home Service Businesses Preparing for AI Search Visibility?
Search is changing fast. We’ve already seen Google test online estimates and AI-assisted pricing in local search. Now, AI tools are helping homeowners decide who to call, sometimes before they ever visit a website. Scorpion Marketing published a report with the following stats: 22% of homeowners are already using AI tools to research services or get recommendations 80% of business owners say they don’t know how to prepare for AI-driven search visibility We’d love to hear what you’re seeing👇 Have you noticed changes in how customers find you or ask questions? Are you doing anything intentionally today to prep for AI-driven search? If AI search on your radar but still confusing, what question do you have? This space will continue to evolve. Sharing what’s working (or not) across different trades helps everyone get ahead of it!New Google Search Features: Online Estimates Filter and “Have AI Check Prices” — what does this mean for service pros?
Google has recently started rolling out new pricing-related features in local home service search, and they could impact how service businesses get discovered. Two early changes we’re seeing: “Online estimates” filter Google is beginning to surface an Online estimates filter in some home service searches. Early signs suggest businesses that provide clear, machine-readable pricing or instant estimates may be favored over generic contact forms. “Have AI check prices” or “Ask AI for Pricing” feature Google is also testing an AI feature that gathers pricing on a homeowner’s behalf by using AI to call businesses and collect price quotes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illIa8LSfY0 These features are still new and evolving, but they raise big questions about pricing transparency, estimates, and local search visibility. We’re curious: Have you noticed either of these features in your area yet? Do you currently show pricing or estimate ranges online? Do changes like this make you rethink how you approach pricing and Google visibility? Would love to hear what service pros are seeing so far 👇How do you manage different level Service Contracts in Jobber?
We are currently offering one service contract; however, we are looking to create three tiers. We would have a Silver, Gold, and Platinum package. Each package/membership would offer something different. How could we effectively manage this in Jobber to keep track of which clients are on which level package? How many visits they have/have used? Payments? Etc.How to start an in house training center for painting?
I am looking for feedback on starting a training center for residential painting. We have a shop but it is kind of small for what I am looking at doing. Is there any creative ways I could go about purchasing, or leasing a building that is specifically for training and education? My goal would be to hire on young men and women who are interested in the painting trade and have a facility to train them in before they every step foot on a job. For example, there would be a class room to learn about products and applications. Then there would be actually rooms built out and small exterior walls build out with different substrates to actually train applications. I would hire some of my current employees to be paid extra to run classes and training. What do you think? Am I dreaming too big or is this something I could accomplish? How could I go about making this happen?How to implement safety meetings? Certs?
When growing your painting business how can you go about focusing more on safety? With a larger team and more people on jobs/bigger jobs what do safety meeting look like? How do you go about getting your team and your self educated? What certs can you get and how do you offer them?Automated Task Creation?
Is there a way in Jobber to create an automatic “Task” creation que after a job is bid? For example: Sales rep goes and does a bid, customer doesn’t sign on the spot, and a “task” is automatically created on the schedule that is titled follow call. This follow up call would happen 24 hours after client received the bid. Then maybe another task creation at 3 days. And the ability to create a desired que? THIS WOULD BE IDEAL FOR AUTOMATING MY SALES TEAMS FOLLOW UP CALLS AND MAKING SURE THEY GET COMPLETED.Building an AI online bid?
I have been messing around with the idea of creating a way for my customers to submit some information on their own through our website and AI provide them their bid for painting. Has anyone done this? Have any ideas on how to do it? And what could be the potential pros and cons of this? I'm thinking that it would need to have a customer login & portal. There would need to be a way to upload additional files. Pictures and videos of project. There would need to be a fee that is charged to use this service to try and gatekeep competitors from using it. The fee would be removed if the job is landed. There might need to be an agreement signed that unforeseen work that wasn't included in the submission could result in a change order. What would you add?
