Several years into using ServiceTitan, Cyprus Air Heating & Cooling has rounded into form on maximized efficiency.
As any figure skater or NBA shooter can attest, form matters.
Except, in this case, it’s plural.
“We utilize forms a lot,” said Georgios Gounaris, Senior Operational Executive at Cyprus. “We probably have over 130 forms in the system, and they all have some kind of automation in the background.”
Gounaris started with Cyprus in 2014 as a dispatcher and quasi-CSR. In 2017 he shepherded the move to ServiceTitan, the cloud-based software for the trades.
“I was the main point of contact when the ServiceTitan project started,” he says. “And ever since that day, I have been the main point of contact for ServiceTitan and for all the projects with Cyprus Air.”
Today, Gounaris focuses on training Cyprus Air employees and management on the operations and procedures he implemented in ServiceTitan.
“It's quite exciting,” he says. “To be honest with you, ServiceTitan is one of my favorite companies to work with. And I feel like it also satisfies my dream of working in the IT world.”
He cited ServiceTitan’s willingness to grow along with its member businesses as a key pillar of his belief.
“It's the nonstop improvement,” he said. “Listening to your customers, listening to the feedback, and always providing the necessary support—sometimes even above and beyond what the scope of your work is in as far as helping us.”
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Conditional logic for the win
That constant improvement has extended to forms within ServiceTitan. ServiceTitan has added conditional logic to forms, which has made using and applying them to Cyprus’ business “way easier,” Gounaris said.
Based in the Washington, D.C., area, Cyprus’ service area extends from Northern Virginia through the District of Columbia to Maryland. That by itself creates complexities with different jurisdictions for permits and licenses.
“We were able to customize our forms for the technician to easily pick the county or the jurisdiction, and the requirements pop up for that area,” he said. “It’s less confusing compared to having a huge form and having to scroll through everything and find what you're looking for.
“With conditional logic, we were able to segment what shows up, and also create alternative scenarios based on the answers.”
A yes to one answer leads to a certain set of questions. Same with a no. All that helps a technician address and communicate specific issues, with efficiency.
“It made a big difference for the technicians,” Gounaris said. “They don’t feel overwhelmed.”
Once filled out, the form creates tickets and action items for the next department. When a form is filled out to order a part or unit, the ticket immediately goes to the warehouse to place the order, and accounting is notified to pay for it. Gounaris admits that setting up the logic in forms is a bit of a hurdle, but adds: “Once it's done, it's pretty easy to maintain.”
The time savings means more time for doing the actual work and generating new business as opposed to filling out forms.
“It can save somebody half their day,” Gounaris said. “Some people spend half their day trying to communicate, or transferring information, or even waiting for that information. Now it's instantaneous.”
More time to add value
The efficiencies extend to financing, which is integrated with several partners into ServiceTitan.
“The trend has been leaning toward financing a lot more over the past few years, and with Covid hitting we've seen a huge increase on the financing side,” Gounaris said. “Whether that is primary financing, or even alternative ways of financing based on income.”
He anticipates diving into the artificial intelligence ServiceTitan is developing, and he’s interested in investigating to see if he can become a ServiceTitan Certified Administrator.
For now he merely is grateful for the added efficiencies the software brings the business. The question he suggests asking: How much time does the team spend on data entry and communication, what he calls back-end operations?
“Not on the phone with the customer, not at the job site … how much of that is happening?” Gounaris said. “And if the answer is, let's say, more than 20% of their time, that’s a big problem.
“Our company, we had a couple of people just doing spreadsheets all day long in Excel just so we could have an idea of what's happening in our different departments, within different segments of the company.
“Now we don't have to do that. We can easily pull a report, see what happened two years ago, see everything that we were doing last year on a successful month versus this year. We have those analytics, and we don't have three, four people doing spreadsheets all day long.
“So that would be my first thing. How much overhead do you have that ServiceTitan can take away?”
If it’s a lot, maybe it’s time to round into form.
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
