Weekends, nights and holidays. Throughout the history of the company that bears his name, Bob McAllister always felt compelled to answer the phone when customers called after hours.
Family dinners, at the beach, at a swim meet – McAllister thought it important to maintain personal contact.
“I felt it kept me connected to people,” said the founder and owner of Comfort Now by Bob McAllister in Egg Harbor Township on the South Jersey Shore.
But champions adjust, and 11 years after opening, Comfort Now has grown to a $15 million business and McAllister has adapted. To answer the phones, he’s now using the AI Virtual Agent on ServiceTitan, the cloud-based software for the trades.
The artificial intelligence-driven tool integrates seamlessly into a business’s phone and messaging systems to answer inbound calls. It collects job types, addresses, and service issues, then finds an open slot and books the appointment.
“I don’t have a phone at my desk anymore,” McAllister said. “I twitch when I think about it.”
Those who are comfortable handling their request virtually can do so. Importantly to McAllister, those who wish to may still speak with a team member.
Comfort Now as an entity was born from a business Bob’s great grandfather started in 1876. Bob worked for that business for 38 years before deciding to open his own. Egg Harbor Township is just west of Atlantic City and about 40 miles north of Cape May. Much of its business is driven by summer vacationers to the South Jersey Shore.
“We started as a very small operation,” McAllister said. “Initially, I took all the calls, working from a spare bedroom.”
He admits there weren’t an overwhelming number at first. The first six weeks in business, Comfort Now earned $40,000 in revenue. But as the business grew, so have the challenges – but so, too, has the technology.
“Virtual agents have been crucial,” said Casey McAllister, Comfort Now Vice President and Bob’s son. “When we hit that 1.5 million additional people in the summertime, it's very hard to keep up.
“It doesn't matter how much I staff, or any other company staffs, around here. There's not enough companies to support the workload that's here for two months. So having a virtual agent be able to pick up the load, book these calls, deal with the maintenance … it makes a difference.”
And he notes the AI that drives the virtual agent is intended to help the team, not replace them.
“(Almost 50% of Comfort Now leads) are opting for the AI agent or they're doing an online booking, a virtual online booking,” Casey said. “That's saving time for my people inside to do the jobs they need to do.”
The first night that Comfort Now used the virtual agent, Bob was not aware of any incoming calls. That means the agent worked as it should – it communicated based on how Comfort Now has built its knowledge base.
“It’s made customers happier,” said R.J. McAllister, Commercial Service Manager for Comfort Now and another of Bob’s sons. “They're able to get calls booked more efficiently. They're not having to wait on hold to get onto the phone with somebody.”
Bob said the ringing phones used to be the pulse of the office. With the virtual agent answering, the phone does not ring unless the caller requests to speak to the human representative. If the caller requests to speak to a staff member, the call is transferred to a CSR's wireless ear piece, seamlessly.
“All you hear are people's voices,” he said.
That’s a sense of calm Bob is growing to appreciate, though he’s old-school enough to believe in personal contact when he can make it happen.
But there are times when the benefits of ServiceTitan’s Virtual Agent become clear. The South Jersey Shore was roasting during this year’s Fourth of July weekend, with temperatures pushing 100 degrees. Vacationers wanted their comfort.
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That led to a lot of calls to Comfort Now, and gratitude that the virtual agent was equipped to deal with them.
“If we didn't have the virtual agent that weekend, we would have been overwhelmed on the phones,” Bob said. “The virtual agent helped manage that load and make it so our staff, which has been pretty steady now for several years, didn't have to bulk up.
“We didn't miss calls. We booked more calls. We made more income, and the job-ticket revenue went up.”
