The plumbing company diagnosed the problem beneath the six-decade-old home: A sewage ejector pump was needed, and a hot water heater had developed a slow trickle in the crawl space. Double-barreled work — repair and replace — that had already put the homeowners on edge.
When the estimate came, the anxiety intensified.
"How will we possibly pay for all of this?"
Then the company offered financing. But instead of handing the customer a tablet and walking them through a quick application, the technician asked them to call a third-party vendor — and left them to pace in the backyard for several minutes while the lender made a decision.
"What happens if they don't approve? What will we do? Maybe we just can't do this right now."
Minutes passed. The vendor extended a line of credit. The homeowners exhaled.
But the damage to the experience had already been done. The financing was available. The process made it feel like it wasn't.
Why offering financing matters
Financing is not just a payment option. For many customers, it's the difference between saying yes to a repair and saying not right now. Synchrony, one of ServiceTitan's financing partners, found that 41% of major purchase shoppers always seek financing. And Visa data shows that 94% of home service customers own a credit card, with 90% using it regularly.
"They may buy something they otherwise wouldn't have if you hadn't presented financing options," says Darius Lyvers, chief operating officer at F.H. Furr Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning and Electrical in northern Virginia.
Rogers Heating & Cooling in South Boston, Va., has seen strong results. In 2024, the company's third year using integrated financing in ServiceTitan, the company reported that 30% of its revenue came from financing, with a 41% close rate on installs and a $3,200 average service ticket.
"Contractors must, not should, offer the flexibility of financing and multiple ways to pay," says Jackie Aubel, host of ServiceTitan's Toolbox for the Trades podcast. "I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had about the importance of financing."
The problem with friction
The scenario at the top of this chapter isn't unusual. Contractors who offer financing through a disconnected third-party process — a phone call, a separate website, a paper application — introduce friction at exactly the wrong moment. The customer is already in the decision.
When a lender says no, the odds of losing the job climb sharply.
"If you get a denial, you know what the odds are of you losing that customer?" asks Chris Hunter, a ServiceTitan industry advisor. "It's like 60% that it turns into a no job. The customer's embarrassed."
ServiceTitan's integrated financing removes that friction at every step. Financing is built into the estimate screen — visible on the technician's tablet and in online estimates — so the monthly payment appears alongside the total price without anyone having to calculate it or remember to bring it up.
"There's no need to remember to do it," Lyvers says. "It's front-of-mind awareness."
When a customer is ready to apply, they do it directly through the technician's screen or on their own device via a link. The application is filled out, submitted, and tied to their customer profile in ServiceTitan with no separate systems, no manual data entry.
Approval comes in minutes. And the customer never sees a denial.
ServiceTitan connects its contractors to a unified financing waterfall — Financeit, GreenSky, Service Finance, Synchrony and Wells Fargo — with first-look, second-look, and no-credit-required options. If the primary lender declines, the system automatically moves to the next option, with no gap in the customer experience. Using TURNS, approval rates can reach 94%.
"There may be some higher fees," says ServiceTitan's Sena Sadeghi, "but at least there's an option out there for folks who get declined from that first-look financing."
For technicians, it's part of the workflow
The integrated financing workflow doesn't ask technicians to do anything additional. ServiceTitan automatically calculates and displays the minimum monthly payment available from its financing partners so the technician can present options by payment rather than by total price, which changes the conversation.
A strong integrated financing solution "calculates the minimum payment, allowing technicians to sell off that payment without disrupting the presentation process," Lyvers says.
Technicians who aren't comfortable gathering personal financial information don't have to. They can send the customer a link to complete the application on their own device.
"When we found out ServiceTitan was integrating with a lot of financing companies, we signed up immediately," says Alyssa Rogers, vice president of Rogers Heating & Cooling. "Now our technicians, when they're in the home, they can get the customer financed."
Full reporting is built into the platform, letting companies track financing performance by technician, job type, and plan usage so managers can see which techs are offering it, which aren't, and where the opportunity is being left behind.
"The fact that it's integrated in the CRM makes it easier for them to fill out the application, see the data in one platform, and be able to sign off and acknowledge what they're getting and how they're getting it," Lyvers says. "So that all plays into that customer experience."
Strong business strategy, human touch
Once financing was approved, the homeowners who had paced in the backyard while the plumbing company's third-party vendor made its decision stopped worrying and said "yes." But getting there had been harder than it needed to be.
Angie Snow, a principal industry advisor at ServiceTitan and former co-owner of Western Heating, Air & Plumbing in Utah, says contractors often underestimate how broadly financing applies.
"Just because you're assuming people won't want financing doesn't mean you shouldn't offer it," Snow says. "I know a lot of very wealthy people who still choose financing because of whatever reason they may have. They may want to stretch their dollar further."
"The customer is their own person," Rogers says. "They're going to make their own decisions about what's best for them. We just provide the solutions."
For Rogers Heating & Cooling, providing those solutions has been foundational.
"Our business wouldn't be where it is today without financing," Rogers says. "There's no way we could have grown at the pace we have without it."
The technician hasn't left yet. Before walking out the door, best-in-class contractors have their techs do three things: Ask the customer if they're completely satisfied — and if not, what it would take to earn a five-star review — collect payment while still in the home, and ask for that review in person before leaving.
When the technician marks the job complete on their tablet, ServiceTitan automatically fires the review request, a text or email with a direct link to the review site of the contractor's choice. The ask has already happened face to face. The automated message makes it easy to follow through.
That's how the job ends. Getting paid, capturing the review, and following up on the opportunities that didn't close are all still part of the process — and every one of them can be automated, too.
The full ServiceTitan Automation Playbook is coming soon, a practical guide to end-to-end automation for contractors told by the operators already running it.
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