How ServiceTitan’s Pro Products help Orient Electric find out what customers really need

Recently, Rick Close, the service manager at Orient Electric, noticed that a customer service rep booked a new appointment for a local burger chain in Portland, Oregon.

But “it didn’t really make sense, what the job description said of why we were going out there,” Close said.

And that’s not uncommon. 

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That’s because “CSMs aren't electricians,” Close said, which means that sometimes, the reason why a customer is calling can be misinterpreted and incorrectly recorded in a job description. This can cause techs to show up to jobs unprepared—and spend valuable time diagnosing problems instead of fixing them.

Thankfully, Close and Orient Electric no longer worry about situations like this. That’s because the residential and commercial service company started using Phones Pro, a cloud-based phone offering that seamlessly integrates into ServiceTitan. 

With Phones Pro, Orient Electric’s inbound and outbound calls are automatically recorded and attached to the correct booking within ServiceTitan. These recordings have become incredibly important to the team, as in the situation mentioned above.

After Close saw the job description that didn’t make sense, he simply listened to the call, and realized the restaurant just wanted a light taken down, fearing it would block their new digital menu. Close knew his techs would be on-site the next week to install the menu, and could easily remove the light then. So he called the burger chain’s operations manager and explained the situation. The operations manager was more than happy to wait a few days to remove the light. 

“And it saved us from driving (across town) for 30 seconds of work,” Close said.

Finding the right tools for the job

The main reason Orient Electric started using ServiceTitan was to go paperless. Today, the company’s invoices, estimates and forms are digital documents, organized neatly in the cloud for quick reference.

But Close quickly learned that going paperless isn’t the only reason to love ServiceTitan. Here are some of his favorite features:

• Scheduling Pro: Scheduling Pro is stocked with features such as live text and chat support, and customer experience insights. But what excites Close the most is that Scheduling Pro allows customers to book their appointments online—without ever needing to call into the office.

• Dispatch board: The dispatch board is one of Close’s favorite features in ServiceTitan. It’s now easy to make or reschedule appointments, and the entire team can see detailed job, location and customer information with the click of a button. 

• Collect payments from the field: In the past, Orient Electric’s customers would call the office to pay via credit card. But Close always felt uncomfortable asking customers to provide sensitive information over the phone. With ServiceTitan, techs can securely collect payment in the field, allowing customers to easily settle their bill—and for Orient Electric to get paid faster. 

Like word of mouth—but better

Orient Electric never really thought much about marketing. In the past, they never needed to. 

“The whole marketing side of things is new and weird to us,” Close said. “We’ve always been word of mouth.” 

But word of mouth looks a little different in the modern age. Today, customers want to read reviews of businesses before booking an appointment. Unfortunately, Orient Electric had no way of generating more reviews or building buzz.

“We checked every once in a while and (would see), ‘Oh, somebody left a review six months ago,’” Close said. 

That changed when Orient Electric started using ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro software.

Through the reputation management feature, Orient Electric now sends automated messages to customers after every job, encouraging them to share their experience on sites like Google, Facebook and Citysearch. 

Once the reviews are posted, Marketing Pro consolidates them into a single feed in ServiceTitan, allowing Close to read and respond to reviews from one window. Even though Orient Electric has only recently started using the software, Close has already seen an uptick in reviews. 

“I mean, we had 40 reviews over (the last) 12 years,” Close said. “So the fact that we have 10 more in a month is obviously really good.”

As Orient Electric grows, Close is determined to keep uncovering new ways for his team to move faster. But now, he has a little help in doing so.

“My biggest thing, overall, with ServiceTitan is I can see that there’s more ways to optimize how we run.”