Chris Hunter has called it "the million-dollar job" since at least 2020, back when he was running Hunter Super Techs in Oklahoma.
The math is simple and a little brutal: marketing spend, a technician's drive time, the diagnostic, the estimate, the whole choreography of a service call — and the customer says not right now.
The lead cost money. The truck roll cost money. The time cost money. And the estimate is sitting in a database, unsold, while the contractor is already on to the next call.
Hunter sold his company, but he still preaches the follow-up gospel as a ServiceTitan principal industry advisor. The problem he identified years ago hasn't gone away. It's gotten more automated, which means contractors who aren't running follow-up systems are falling further behind the ones who are.
The basics of automated follow-up are straightforward. An automated text or email sent a few hours after a job goes unsold can ask the customer if they have any questions, give them the ability to review the proposal, authorize the work, pay a deposit, or apply for financing — all without a CSR having to think about it.
If the first message doesn't convert, an SMS or email drip campaign picks up the thread on a set schedule, much like the campaign Phillip Kent of Cooper Heating Cooling Plumbing and Electrical built in Chapter 2 — a sequence that has driven $1.8 million in revenue year to date from a single text message triggered on day 10 of an unsold estimate.
"It usually doesn't get that far," Kent says.
That kind of automated sequence keeps the contractor front of mind without requiring anyone to manually track which estimates have gone cold. The system does the watching. The messages go out on schedule. And the customer who wasn't ready on day one might be ready on day 14.
But there's another approach for when the early automation doesn't work, one that uses AI to make the human follow-up smarter.
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Going Above + Beyond
Above + Beyond Service Co. in Edmond, Okla., is a $20-million business. They have one person whose entire job is following up on estimates that didn't close.
Every day, she works through the unsold estimates, reaching out to customers, staying in touch, and making sure they know the company is still ready to help.
"All she does is go through the unsold estimates and unsold jobs, every day, day in and day out. And she makes sure that we're staying in touch with that customer and letting them know that we care and we are here to solve their problems in any way that they need."
Vincent Price, Above + Beyond sales manager, said in 2024, she recovered $1 million in revenue from estimates that would otherwise have gone cold.
Then she added a step. She began using the AI in ServiceTitan's Field Pro to summarize the original service calls and identify where in the conversation the sale had stalled. Field Pro's AI analyzes the call, surfaces what the customer's concerns were, how receptive they seemed, what objections came up that may not have been fully addressed, and offers suggestions for how to re-engage.
"It gives her all the information and tools. It gives her suggestions as far as what she can do to help push the sale forward. How did the customer react during the call? Were they receptive, not receptive? Did they have concerns that maybe she's not aware of?"
In the first six months of 2025, she recovered $1.2 million in sales — same job, same person, more effective because of the AI-powered automation behind her.
Price says Above + Beyond's average ticket is up 29% since implementing Field Pro, and close rates have climbed from 55% to 60%.
"Everything we track has increased. Our ticket averages, our closing percentage, our conversion ratio, everything has gone up. Our booking rates have gone up. Everything that helps our technicians relates to everybody else in the business."
The Above + Beyond model is a useful frame for thinking about where automation ends and human judgment begins. The automated drip — the text on day 10, the email on day 14 — is efficient at reaching customers who just needed a nudge or a reminder. But the customer who was hesitant, the one who had a concern that didn't fully surface during the visit, the one where something in the conversation went sideways — that customer benefits from a follow-up that understands what happened, not just one that knows the estimate is still open.
Field Pro provides the understanding. The follow-up coordinator provides the human connection. Neither is as effective alone.
"I never thought we'd use AI, and now we can't do business without it," Price says.
That's ultimately what the follow-up process is about: making sure no opportunity is abandoned simply because the contractor was busy, or because no one had time to review the recording, or because the estimate aged past the point where anyone thought to try again. The money was already spent getting to that customer. The only question is whether the business is going to work to bring them back.
"It operates every single day. It doesn't call out sick. It doesn't complain. It just does its job."
Ryan Deshaies, founder, owner, and president of Chesapeake Electric in Annapolis, Md., said that in describing his automation stack. That's the standard. Not every unsold estimate will convert. But every one of them deserves the effort.
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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