For Karen Balko, one issue stands out during her first nine years as co-owner of Vector Services, a plumbing, HVAC, and electrical company in Minneapolis.
The spreadsheets.
“If you had equipment, it went into one spreadsheet,” said Balko, who focuses on operations at the commercial and residential shop. “If it was a schedule, it went into another spreadsheet. If it was the customer name, it went into another spreadsheet. What kind of filters a customer had went into another thing.”
Precious customer data was stored in a maze of spreadsheets – the old-school, non-automated kind that require tedious data entry. Appointments, estimates and invoices were hand-scribbled. Jobs were tracked in calendar apps with limited functionality.
And keeping track of it all was maddening.
“We couldn't see live numbers, we couldn't see a dashboard and really get a picture of everything,” Balko said. “It was archaic.”
Determined to end its spreadsheet nightmare and become an industry force in the Twin Cities, Vector launched a rebrand and switched to ServiceTitan in November 2023.
The decision has almost tripled the company’s fortunes.
Big change, bigger results
Balko remembers the exact day – Nov. 8, 2023 – when Vector made the change to ServiceTitan. She said the company had about 10 employees, zero branded trucks, and a lot of apprehension about implementing a software system.
Two years later, she said Vector has 38 employees, 28 branded trucks, and a bottom line that ballooned from $3.9 million in 2023, to $6.9 million in 2024, to a projected $9.3 million this year.
Balko credits ServiceTitan with helping to fuel that growth by allowing Vector to streamline every aspect of its business.
She points to the tag feature as an example. Tags provide a fast, easy visual reminder of progress being made on each job — essentially, the opposite of Vector’s previous spreadsheet web.
“I look at our dashboard, all the jobs we have, and the tags automatically go up,” she said. “We know whether we invoiced a customer … we know everything that has to happen on that customer. It just makes life easy.”
Other ways the software makes life easy:
Zone management: The dispatch tool shows Balko where all of Vector’s technicians live. “It just makes it easier for scheduling and routing purposes, and it's more fuel-efficient,” she said.
Quick estimates: Balko said Vector’s clients have gone from 95% commercial and 5% residential in 2023, to about 50-50 now, in part because pricing a job with ServiceTitan is so easy. Techs just tap in what’s needed and produce an estimate in seconds. “They turn their tablet (for the customer) and it's a good, better, best pricing option,” she said.
Efficient invoicing: As with estimates, producing an invoice after a job is a snap, and Balko said customers often pay on site. “That really helps with our cash flow,” she said.
Always looking ahead, always improving
In the age of AI, Balko knows that ServiceTitan is always upgrading, and loves that she doesn’t have to think about how she’ll keep up with the rapid technology changes.
“The good part about ServiceTitan is it is adapting,” Balko said. “You can tell they're already thinking six to 12 months or 18 months out. You can tell because they're sharing the ideas that are coming.”
It’s a big reason she highly recommends ServiceTitan to other shops.
“I think (shops) need to see the bigger picture and take it in baby steps – use it, but don't stop learning about it,” she said. “You tailor it to yourself. Ask the questions. Utilize the members at ServiceTitan.”
She has seen the results firsthand.
“ServiceTitan is a beast,” Balko said. “It is a beast, and it is a powerful, powerful tool.”
