Commercial business leaders are expert problem-solvers. So why, when it comes to their customer relationship management (CRM) software, have many of them identified a problem, but not found a solution?
According to a recent ServiceTitan survey, CRM systems are widely used across commercial business leaders, with 78% of businesses having one in place. But user satisfaction is tepid. Only 22% of users reported they are "very satisfied" with their CRM, 41% are "satisfied,” and a combined 16% are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
The top reason for being dissatisfied? Their CRM is "not industry-specific."
"Commercial business leaders care so much about their close rates, customer relationships and people not doing overhead work, but there's a disconnect between what they want in a CRM and what they actually have," said Blake Meulmester, VP of Product at ServiceTitan.
“At the end of the day, some of them are not really getting what they want.”
ServiceTitan’s survey of 1,005 commercial sales directors/managers, business development managers, service department managers, and estimators, primarily in mechanical, electrical and plumbing, was conducted by Thrive Analytics from July 14 to July 31, 2025.
The survey revealed familiar challenges that commercial business leaders are trying to overcome. For example, while a significant portion of businesses have dedicated sales representatives (48%) or a hybrid model (22%), there is a large gap in how accounts are managed:
Only 63% of businesses have a clear, structured approach to account ownership.
37% of sales teams operate on an ad-hoc, first-come, or judgment-based system.
This lack of formal structure extends to specialization, with the report noting that specialization by geography or industry is limited.
“If 48% of businesses have dedicated sales reps for new business development, then only about half of companies are actually resourcing efforts to find whitespace customers,” Meulmester said. “Account managers have very strong incentives to focus on serving existing customers, so we typically see dedicated sales reps as a requirement to have a repeatable way to break into new accounts.”
The survey also noted a familiar concern for commercial business leaders: inefficient sales processes.
Non-Selling Activities: 57% of sales representatives spend close to half of their time on non-selling activities.
“Why hire sellers and have them do overhead work?” Meulmester said. “Sellers should spend their time in front of customers, trying to find customers, trying to close work. They should not spend their time getting job summaries, calling people to get more information, and contacting the office to find out if the quote went out.”
Meanwhile, when it comes to finding new business, the survey revealed that commercial business leaders are leaning heavily on tried and true methods:
Referrals and repeat business from existing customers (71%)
Paid advertising (71%)
Website and organic digital marketing (67%)
“If most of your business comes from taking care of your existing customers, then it'd be crazy not to track those relationships and not have a clean account service history. This is where all of your gold is in terms of knowing the replacement opportunities, the findings from past service calls, which competitors are in the account, when their service agreement expires, and so forth,” Meulmester said.
The one thing they aren’t using much? Artificial intelligence. The use of AI in sales processes is still a developing area for commercial business leaders, with only 29% of survey respondents currently using AI agents. However, the businesses that do use AI use it for:
Sales content creation and personalization (58%)
Lead scoring and qualification (43%)
Automating CRM data entry and updates (43%)
The report also notes that AI usage is more concentrated among higher-performing businesses.
So what does all of this mean? According to Meulmester, it means commercial business leaders who are unhappy with their current CRMs need to make the switch to an industry-specific CRM, one with AI capabilities that can automate the sales process and better serve your customers.
“There's a whole bunch of CRMs out there, but you need to customize them to death to make them work the way you want,” Meulmester said. “At ServiceTitan, we already know how you want it to work. This is what we do, all day long.
“Our industry-specific CRM fills out data for you wherever it can. We try to have the shortest possible click paths to get something done. Our vision with the product is to use AI. A huge part of what we're trying to do at ServiceTitan is make things automatic.”
Check out ServiceTitan’s 2025 Commercial Sales & Marketing Report here.
