Recently, Melissa Mohr received a panicked text message from one of her CSRs at Superior Plumbing.
The CSR, who proudly calls herself a “first ringer” because she answers the phone the second it rings, had missed a call because her computer froze. She felt horrible and quickly texted Mohr, the Atlanta-area shop’s CRM specialist, to apologize.
“I promise it was an accident,” she said. But Mohr wasn’t concerned.
"It's okay,” she replied. “Piper's got it.”
“Oh yeah,” the relieved CSR said. “Piper’s got my back.”
Piper is Superior’s name for the newest addition to the team — ServiceTitan’s AI Voice Agent, available as a standalone product or as part of Contact Center Pro. She can handle an unlimited amount of calls, simultaneously. She can book and reschedule appointments. She knows the company’s mission statement. She can escalate to a team member, if necessary.
Piper had indeed picked up the call, first thanking the customer for calling Superior, then introducing herself. “My name is Piper and I'm your virtual agent. How may I assist you today?”
The customer had an issue with their water heater. Piper listened, and then booked the job. Since implementing the AI voice agent in October, Piper’s close rate is 67%, trailing Superior’s CSRs by only three percentage points — and that, Mohr said, is because of the limitations Superior places on Piper before she escalates to a team member.
But the CSRs at Superior haven’t been looking over their shoulders. It’s actually been quite the opposite.
Here’s why.
A force multiplier — not a replacement
For 40 years, Superior has prided itself on keeping hold times to an absolute minimum — if not zero. But that meant, from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Superior would err on the side of caution by overstaffing CSRs.
“We’d (always) find this weird time in the middle of the day where we were overstaffed,” Mohr said.
Even so, Superior’s CSRs frequently found themselves bogged down with busy work, “following up on this thing, looking at this metric and reviewing this call,” Mohr explained. The shop also struggled with a high turnover rate.
That’s why they implemented ServiceTitan’s AI Voice Agent. But Mohr had one big worry.
“My primary concern was I wanted the CSRs to see the voice agent as a force multiplier and not their replacement,” Mohr said. “We were looking to give them a tool to allow them to spend the time they need with the customer who needs that live person.”
Mohr’s solution to make AI more personable? A naming contest. The call center put a bunch of names on a whiteboard. And after narrowing it down to a final five, Piper was the winner.
But the actual moment when the skepticism vanished happened a couple of months later — when Piper allowed Superior to do something it’d never done in 40 years.
No more overstaffing
Piper is easily programmable, Mohr explained.
“She only does what you tell her she can do, so you are her biggest limiting factor,” she said. “The more you open up, the more she can do.”
For example, during a recent cold spell in Atlanta, Mohr programmed Piper to provide customers with tips about cold weather.
Piper asks direct questions and quickly gets to the root of the issue. “I think that has really resonated with a lot of our customers,” Mohr said.
As for the benefits for Superior? There’s no more overstaffing CSRs throughout the day. In fact…
Turnover: Due to natural attrition, Superior has gone from six full-time CSRs and one part-timer, to three full-time CSRs and Piper — without missing a beat.
Growth opportunities: One CSR moved to the warehouse, because “Piper has allowed us to utilize talent inside rather than hiring outside,” Mohr said.
Go home: During that cold spell, Superior closed early and sent its CSR home, because Piper was there to help. “I think she took five leads and converted four of those during that two-hour period,” Mohr said.
But the biggest moment came during Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Piper was our holiday CSR,” Mohr said, explaining they also had an escalation manager on-call. “For the very first time in 40 years, I did not have a CSR work on Thanksgiving or Christmas. And for the very first time, every employee was present at the Christmas party. No one was working.”
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‘Just another employee’
Mohr’s craziest day as a CSR was when she once worked 17 straight hours and took care of 600-plus customers after freezing temperatures caused a rash of pipe breaks.
“The good news is that doesn't have to be the case in the future. Piper can take (an unlimited amount of) phone calls at a time. I can take one,” Mohr said.
She said it’s been fun to watch the swath of ServiceTitan voice agent features released in the past few months, like custom follow-up questions and a self-serve knowledge base.
Looking ahead, Mohr’s excited to transition from their after hours answering service to relying more heavily on Piper. She’s also excited for the day when she can weave Piper into other ServiceTitan products like Marketing Pro, such as outbound reminder calls to inform customers that their water heater is 10 years old.
“We have found that we garner the most success when we stay internal with products in ServiceTitan,” Mohr said, stressing that having access to all of your data under one roof is “absolutely crucial.”
As for her concern that team members would feel threatened by an AI voice agent? That was overblown.
“She's not this enemy off to the side. Piper's here to help us all,” Mohr said. “She's here to help our customers. She's here to help my CSRs. She's here to help dispatch. Even the plumbers refer to her in the first person, ‘Oh, Piper took my call. She did a good job today.’ She is just another employee now.”
Every employee has a headshot on Superior’s website. That’s why the team recently decided that Piper deserves one, too.
“The most appropriate solution (is an) AI generated image,” Mohr said. “We're going to have to find a face that matches the voice.”
