When Matt and Lori Swanson founded Guardian Roofing in 2005, they were up against stiff competition: Seattle was already home to many well-established residential roof-replacement contractors.
So the Swansons decided to run their business a little differently, adopting a “Customer for Life” philosophy. While other companies were focused strictly on reroofing, Guardian offered maintenance and repair work, too—no job was too small.
“A company that just does reroofs, they might have 40 transactions in a month—that would be a really big reroof company,” Matt said. “Well, sometimes we have 40 a day.”
To keep track of all of those jobs, Guardian turned to ServiceTitan, the software built for the trades. And although it was intimidating to learn the field service software at first, Matt said it was well worth the effort.
“The average contractor, they’re just trying to make a living,” Matt said. “That little extra time they have to invest (in ServiceTitan) may seem daunting, when really, it’s one of the best investments they could make.”
To prove the point, Matt and Lori highlighted 11 ServiceTitan features that have had the biggest impact on Guardian Roofing.
Freedom from paperwork
Guardian’s techs used to write job notes by hand in the field, meaning there was “a lot of paper and there was a lot of miscommunication,” Lori recalled. Today, techs record job notes directly into ServiceTitan while still on-site, giving the front office team up-to-date information to answer customer questions promptly.
Reporting
Every morning, Matt and Lori pull up the reporting dashboard in ServiceTitan to monitor Guardian’s revenue, performance and bookings. “I can’t even imagine going back to pre-ServiceTitan because of how archaic it was not having real-time information,” Lori said. “Having to wait until the end of the month to know your metrics is just not scalable.”
Customer history
Guardian uses ServiceTitan to quickly reference important customer history information like estimates, invoices, job histories, notes and photos. ”That makes us more of a partner with (our customers), versus them starting over with somebody coming out and doing a completely full assessment,” Matt said.
Ready to scale
Guardian joined ServiceTitan because the sheer amount of administrative work was “stifling our growth,” Matt said. Today, the company is now three times the size it was a decade ago—they were just under $30 million in revenue for 2023—and “there’s no way we could have done that” without the operational efficiencies introduced by the software, Matt said.
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Elevated customer experience
According to Matt, customers want to be given the same modern experience they get from, say, Amazon. That’s why Guardian uses ServiceTitan to send customers text message notifications, digital estimates and online booking. “It’s what the customer has basically demanded from us,” Matt said.
Marketing Pro’s reputation feature
ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro reputation feature makes it easy for Guardian to collect customer reviews, and manage Google, Facebook and CitySearch reviews from one place. If they get a negative review, Lori and Matt are automatically notified via text message so they can take action.
Project management
ServiceTitan’s project tracking software allows Guardian to understand the status of every project from bid to completion. That means smoother project hand-offs between internal teams—and better customer service. “If we know what’s happening, it’s pretty likely that our customer knows what’s happening,” Matt said.
Adding new business lines
Launching a new business unit isn’t easy. But adding a new vertical to ServiceTitan is, Lori said. She was surprised by how “seamless” it was to replicate Guardian’s settings to apply to their new gutter and insulation units, which allowed for accurate reporting from Day 1.
Job costing
Speaking of gutters and insulation, “When you start a new division, you want to know what your margins are (...) and that you’re going to be profitable,” Lori said. So when Guardian started those new divisions, Lori paid close attention to ServiceTitan’s job costing tools to track materials, equipment and labor for every job, ensuring maximum profitability.
Marketing Pro’s email campaigns
You can’t have customers for life if they forget about your business. Guardian uses ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro software to create email campaigns to alert customers to new services, membership programs and specials.
Maintenance memberships
To keep each customer’s roof in great condition for as long as possible, Guardian runs its maintenance membership program through ServiceTitan. The software alerts Guardian’s team when a customer is due for maintenance, when warranties are expiring, or if it’s time for annual maintenance.
