With ServiceTitan, Bill Joplin’s Air Conditioning & Heating has seen more growth—and less paper

Lately, there’s been less and less of something that used to litter the offices at Bill Joplin’s Air Conditioning & Heating in McKinney, Texas.

Paper.

“It was a horrible amount,” Pam Mora, account manager at Bill Joplin’s, said.

“There were multiple people touching the same piece of paper to enter a piece of information because it fell into their role,” added service operations manager Randi Thompson. “From technician to dispatch to accounting. Heaven forbid it got lost along the way.”

Thankfully, that’s no longer a concern. From 2021-2022, the company spent $4,000 less on office supplies by simply buying less paper.

» Want to grow your business? Click here to get a demo. What else happened in that timeframe? The residential, commercial and new construction HVAC shop switched to ServiceTitan. The all-in-one software for the trades puts data from all parts of Bill Joplin’s Air Conditioning & Heating in the same place, powering great decisions throughout the business.

Not only has it led to less paper, but also shorter workdays, better efficiency, increased visibility, company growth and more revenue. In 2021, Bill Joplin’s earned $14 million. In 2022, they hit the $20 million mark, a company record.

The all-in-one nature of ServiceTitan feels a little dreamy for Thompson and Mora, who’ve collectively been with the company for more than 40 years and seen Bill Joplin’s evolve from typewriters, fax machines, Rolodexes and tractor-feed printers.

Just the other day, Thompson smirked when she came across her pre-ServiceTitan spreadsheet that showed the steps it once took from an incoming customer call to paying the techs and vendors. 

It was 32 steps—most of which involved paper.

“I couldn’t help but laugh,” Thompson said. “It was ridiculous.”

‘We need this’

Before switching to ServiceTitan, Thompson and Mora questioned the company’s processes every day.

“It came to a point where we couldn't grow,” Thompson said. “There was no way we could hire more technicians, run more calls and earn more with the platform we were using. We were at max capacity. It took way too long just to get payroll done.”

In 2020, Thompson, Mora, a sales manager and service manager stressed to the president of the company why they needed better software. He agreed, which eventually led them all to a conference room to sit through a ServiceTitan demo. When it ended, everyone had the same look on their face.

“It was a room full of people with their mouths just hanging open,” Mora said.

“We were like, ‘We need this,’” Thompson said.

Home by dinner

Bill Joplin’s went live with ServiceTitan in March 2021. During the transition, Thompson said, her job essentially shifted to working for ServiceTitan as she became Bill Joplin’s ServiceTitan project manager. She and Mora threw themselves into the software, and assisted their co-workers with any needs or questions that arose—and there were plenty.

“During the switchover, I was doing like 14-hour days,” Mora said.

“Those were long days,” Thompson added.

But two years in, it’s the opposite. Gone are the days of chasing down a piece of paper that got lost in the shuffle, or searching for model numbers because the technician didn’t list it, or sifting through filing cabinets for a specific folder. 

Thompson no longer eats dinner at her desk.

“I can go home around 5 p.m.,” Thompson said.

Increased company growth and efficiency

After implementing ServiceTitan, Bill Joplin’s added two install crews and doubled their maintenance department. Today, the company sits at 40 technicians throughout all departments.

Here are Thompson’s and Mora’s favorite ServiceTitan features.

• Dispatch: The dispatch team used to spend too much time on the phone talking with technicians to provide customer history. Now, ServiceTitan’s dispatch board and service history are stored in the cloud to give everyone more visibility, and save the dispatch team from answering those questions.

• Membership Billing: Bill Joplin’s has almost 6,000 membership customers who are billed in the spring or fall. Before the switch to ServiceTitan, they had to print two separate copies of these bills with credit card stickers, and then fold, seal, stamp and mail them. When the payments slowly rolled in, someone would have to type in credit card numbers for 6,000 memberships. Now, this process is radically different with ServiceTitan’s membership billing platform. “It took me five minutes to bill everyone,” Thompson said. “We had like $100,000 in payments in 24 hours. When that first happened, I emailed our ServiceTitan onboarder and said, ‘I finally feel it! This is amazing.’"

• Accounting: ServiceTitan has made Mora’s job as an account manager more efficient. Before, she was accustomed to having two sets of reports for pretty much everything—one she could look at and make reviews and changes, and then another to compare those reports to paper invoices. This process led to boxes upon boxes of paper. “Now, we’re just like, ‘I no longer have to print that,’” Mora said.

Thompson said there are fewer fires to put out. The software has also allowed her to wear different hats.

“I think I've played more roles, because the tasks that I did before we switched to ServiceTitan now take less time,” Thompson said.

She and Mora are also very proud of their TitanScore, which tracks utilization of ServiceTitan products. The higher the score, the more a user benefits from the full functionality of ServiceTitan tools. 

A TitanScore of 95+ is in the top 50 percent. Bill Joplin’s score is 222.

“Since last March, we've been in the top 20 of scores every week,” Thompson said.

Out with the old, in with the new

Recently, Thompson and Mora spent a day cleaning out an office storage room filled with remnants of Bill Joplin’s past.

There was the old typewriter, the fax machine, the Rolodexes, the tractor-feed printers, and the most recently used tool, the heavy time clocks and time cards.

“The day we went live with ServiceTitan, we took those down and put them in the storage room,” Thompson said.

Now, everything was going in the dumpster.

Looking ahead, the pair are excited about implementing ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro, an all-in-one marketing automation solution for the trades that allows companies to leverage customer data and supercharge their contracting business with more calls, booked jobs and higher customer spend.

They know, just like ServiceTitan’s main software, it will lead to more streamlined work flows and company growth. 

And even less paper.

“Nowadays, if somebody asks me, ‘Hey, can you print that for me?’ I tend to have the same response,” Mora said. 

“‘Really? No.’”