The Home Service Expert Podcast
00:13:41 · Zach Deering, Tommy Mello
[00:13:41] S0: the room. Totally. [00:13:41] S3: So you're looking at this display on an iPad. Yep. And the homeowners in control, but they're also the other homeowner, the the him or her is also going through it at the same time. Hey, go back. Hey, I wanna look at this. Hey, this one probably makes more sense for us. And you got all the options in there and then you get to pick the add ons at the end. And they're always like, you know what, let's just... If you got both homeowners, it tends... My situation has been someone's else always like, no. Let's not do this one. We gotta save it. Someone's like, listen. This is like, we're not gonna purchase this again for another decade. Sure. Let's just go and do it the right way. Yep. Let's get the the lower electric bill. Yep. Let's get the the better air quality. Yep. Let's get this this this. But if it's not presented properly [00:14:26] S0: Sure. [00:14:27] S3: They they don't like to be sold it.
00:14:27 · Tommy Mello, Zach Deering
[00:14:27] S3: They they don't like to be sold it. [00:14:28] S0: Totally. Totally. And it's funny funny you mentioned that. One of your your virtual sales sales team members, Trevor, sent me a text message. He's like, Zach, I just had a one legger, husband was away. This used to be kind of like the death of all calls, right, because we knew we weren't gonna get to a conclusion. And he was like, with Smart Quote and with the remote control feature, we were able to send the link to the husband that wasn't at the home and bring both of the shoppers through the experience, the wife and husband, even though they were in two different places, and then ultimately, they signed with basically no discounts. And so I think that's really powerful, because we all know that in those purchases, right, that if you wanna stay married or partnered, you should probably get the other person's buy in, and so now how do you deliver an experience that gives homeowners the ability to quickly resolve the problem? Because they called you with a problem. Right. And I think it's easy to sometimes forget and lose sight of that and they're interested in solving the problem. Otherwise, they wouldn't have taken the time to be at home to greet your technician and to go through the process.
00:15:27 · Tommy Mello, Zach Deering
[00:15:27] S3: It's true. You know, one of the things that we gotta do a better job of is is that HVAC does an amazing job, plumbing does a great job, is the age of equipment and understanding with service agreements when to go back there. I talked to... I'm not gonna go into the company name, but they're massive. They are massive in the Northeast. Yep. The biggest company in the Northeast. And it's not Aaron Gaynor even though he's amazing in Ohio. They said this month, they're churning over 70% of service calls they go into for a new HVAC unit. Yeah. And they're closing 62% of those. [00:16:06] S0: Yeah. [00:16:07] S3: And by the way, all these companies are between seventy eighty percent finance. [00:16:10] S0: Yep. [00:16:10] S3: They're selling it with the finance companies. [00:16:13] S0: Yep. [00:16:14] S3: And I just think about that and I'm like, man, we are just we're just get... We're we're so tiny. We're we're nowhere near those numbers. It's like we're not even in the hemisphere of those numbers. Yeah. I mean, to turn over that many qualified leads. Totally. So this... For for companies like that, this is an absolute game changer. That's why you kind of focused on HHI plumbing electrical most likely. Where do you see the other big industries coming in? Obviously, we pulled it off of garages, we're still in the early stages. We've deployed it in a couple of markets. But what other industries? It's probably a bigger ticket.
00:16:47 · Zach Deering, Tommy Mello
[00:16:47] S0: Yeah. Roofing is something we got a lot of inquiries on. I mean, really anything under the home service umbrella, it's probably, like, relevant for particularly if there's notably a purchase. Like, you... It's... Think about window siding, like bath remodel. It's a little bit of a different motion. But I think in all those... Because fundamentally, like, what is the technology? It's how do you build a shopping experience for the homeowner, and then how do you follow-up if you don't close to the kitchen table? Which if you think that, like, garage doors maybe has a low follow-up rate compared to what it could be, like, foundation repair, for example. We were talking with a foundation company, and evidently, like, it's pretty common to have a 20% close rate because a lot of times this is sort of an optional, like, relatively low urgency purchase. And so I really think that there's opportunities across the board. I would say our focus right now is HVAC plumbing, electrical, recently garage door. I anticipate we'll probably get into roofing this year just given where there's I think a ton of interest. [00:17:44] S3: You know, lot of people are talking about ChatGPT Claude Sure. The different LLMs. You know, from what I've heard from very smart people is we got about another year. A lot of people are still purchasing off of Google and doing research on the LLMs. What are your thought and take on that?
00:17:44 · Tommy Mello, Zach Deering
[00:17:44] S3: You know, lot of people are talking about ChatGPT Claude Sure. The different LLMs. You know, from what I've heard from very smart people is we got about another year. A lot of people are still purchasing off of Google and doing research on the LLMs. What are your thought and take on that? [00:18:02] S0: Yeah. I think the data would suggest that people are not finding contractors today on Claude or ChatGPT. Right? 3%. And going back to that survey we did Gemini. Or or Gemini. 3% founded on some sort of answer engine today. Right? So they're not finding it today, or at least that today was as of end of twenty twenty five. That obviously will start to change, and we are increasingly hearing sort of murmurings of people, right, taking a proposal and running it through ChatGPT to see sort of what they should be thinking about it. I still think it's a relative sort of minority that's happening, but the shift will eventually happen there. And I think that that's where it's even more important given what the model's reward, which is specificity. Right? Hey. If I go search for how much to the garage door in Milwaukee, like, what are the results that I'm getting back? So are you as a contractor putting out the right information that the models will reward and likely show you as a source that you can get that get that lead from them.
00:18:58 · Tommy Mello
[00:18:58] S3: You know, this has gotta be scary for a lot of contractors listening right now because quite frankly, we want a chance to sell face to face. Totally. We wanna give you enough information where we're not giving you the farm. Totally. But there is this theory that I predict that things are gonna start getting commoditized, not next year, not the year after, but as things become... And I think more about the OEMs building a workforce around them because I think the OEMs kinda control a lot. What are your thoughts about the future of the home service industry, home improvement industry?