ServiceTrade vs ServiceTitan: Breaking Down the Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Software

Big-Picture Differences Between ServiceTrade and ServiceTitan: Servicing Residential and Commercial Customers

By far the most important thing for service company owners to know when they’re comparing the strengths and weaknesses of ServiceTrade and ServiceTitan is that while our platform is designed for contractors who do both residentialand commercial work—ServiceTrade is mobile software for commercial service businesses only.  

If you specialize in residential service and repair or serve both residential and commercial customers, in most cases, ServiceTrade won’t have all the necessary features to support the residential side of your business operations.

On the other hand, ServiceTitan was founded with a primary focus on residential service companies, and has long since developed sophisticated functionality for commercial service as well. So our software is solidly capable of helping service businesses that serve both residential and commercial customers.

It’s also worth noting that while ServiceTrade has a specialization in commercial service contractors, they’ve developed a particular focus on fire protection services. If you’re a commercial-only service business that primarily handles maintenance and installation of fire protection equipment, ServiceTrade might be worth a closer look. 

But if you have a hybrid shop or home service business working primarily in HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing, pest control, landscaping, garage door servicing, or one of the several other service industries that ServiceTitan focuses on, in all likelihood, ServiceTitan is going to provide a more robust, customized, and purpose-built solution for your company. 

This is particularly true with ServiceTitan’s recent introduction of project management functionality—vital especially for construction projects and subcontracting gigs—that does not exist in ServiceTrade.  

Now that we’ve covered the macro differences between ServiceTrade and ServiceTitan, let’s zoom in to examine the more subtle nuances we flagged in the intro:

• Custom reporting

• Job booking

• Pricebook integration

Differences In Custom Reporting

For most service business owners in today’s competitive environment, having complete clarity on key business metrics is essential for maintaining profitability and improving overall business performance.

Advanced reporting features provide insights such as:   

• Stats-based analysis of individual employee performance 

• Whether, where, and why money is being lost or left on the table

• Comparative, conclusive reviews of marketing campaigns: which ones work, which ones don’t, and how to improve those in the middle

In comparison to ServiceTrade and most other FSMs, ServiceTitan reporting offers users far greater capability for drilling down into their numbers. For example, each revenue metric that is reported can be clicked into and tracked all the way back to the individual invoices from specific jobs and technicians. Similarly, metrics on inventory reports can be clicked into to reveal specific jobs where equipment or materials were used.

As a result of this greater ability to drill down, ServiceTitan users can have increased peace of mind and trust in their numbers, as well as the ability to make better business decisions across the board.

When it comes to the types of reports we offer, there is a wide range.

For example, with ServiceTitan’s Employee Scorecards, service contractors can customize how they prefer to analyze employee performance—from techs to customer service reps to assistant managers. Popular metrics include categories such as service agreements and revenue generation, jobs completed, and call conversions. 

Updated in real-time, employee scorecards let owners and managers stay on top of things, at a high level of detail, without breaking a sweat.

Following similar principles, ServiceTitan also provides subscribers with a Field Reporting Dashboard: an up-to-the moment view, fed by live transmissions on bespoke metrics, of tech progress over the course of the workday. To get a sense of how this actually looks, check out the screenshot above. 

Together, our Employee Scorecards and Field Reporting Dashboard furnish a clear picture of workers’ strengths and weaknesses. With that intelligence in hand, owners and managers can effectively assign employees to the jobs that best match their abilities, as well as provide pointers to help them improve in areas where they’re less skilled. 

ServiceTitan users also enjoy access to real-time data and similarly detailed, customizable reports on a wide range of KPIs. For example: 

• Sales tracking

• Accounts receivable

• Marketing campaigns

• Maintenance agreements

Combined, these reports allow service contracts to make well-informed decisions about potential business process improvements, as well as educate themselves about where their current ROI is greatest.  

Like many other FSMs currently on the market, ServiceTrade touts reporting functionality among its central features. But these features work differently than those available in ServiceTitan.

For one, contractors using ServiceTrade have less ability to drill down into the hard data that underlies reports, potentially making it difficult to confirm the accuracy of those same reports.

And it’s also worth noting that while custom reporting comes standard with a basic ServiceTitan subscription, ServiceTrade users have to pay an additional fee for every custom report. As a result, some contractors using ServiceTrade export their data from the platform to spreadsheets to run reports manually—a time-consuming and potentially error-prone process that top-notch FSMs should eliminate.

Differences In Job Booking

From the moment a call comes in, ServiceTitan uses automation to provide CSRs with the name and address of the person on the line, while simultaneously storing that information on the platform (functioning as a CRM feature). 

This gives the dispatcher an opportunity to establish a friendly rapport with a customer—or potential customer—and identifying opportunities to sell on the basis of data such as the size and age of a home.

In addition, having that data stored in ServiceTitan makes it available for the contractor to draw on for automated follow-up alerts (in the event of a sale not closing right away) and highly targeted marketing campaigns through our Marketing Pro add-on, which facilitates email marketing, direct mail marketing, and more. 

In other words: simply by calling a contractor using ServiceTitan, customers can become seamlessly integrated into that contractor’s sales funnel. Their data can also be automatically input in our fully customizable, editable forms, which are unavailable within the ServiceTrade platform.       

Moreover, with ServiceTitan, each one of those incoming calls is recorded automatically and made available to users in the future: business owners, managers, CSRs, and service techs can all refer back to a call to glean helpful details about the specs of a job or to verify information in the event of a dispute somewhere down the line.  

Automated confirmations and update notifications are sent to clients via email and text. Homeowners and commercial business owners can even track their tech on the day of a scheduled job, allowing them to keep closely abreast of their arrival time. In addition to making for better customer experience, this feature helps to significantly reduce the chance of a no-show. ServiceTitan provides for automated web booking, too.

Once jobs are booked, ServiceTitan users can manage their schedules using our adjustable planning capacity features. These allow service contractors to best distribute company man-hours over the course of each workweek to account for fluctuations in workload and job type. 

For example, during the summer, HVAC contractors are likely to have tons of air conditioning check-up calls, each of which will take relatively little time. So it’s likely going to be advantageous for HVAC shops to overbook their calendars, knowing that despite unusually high job numbers, their techs should be able to cover all their assignments. 

On the other hand, if an HVAC company has a week where they’re going to be doing an unusual number of system replacements, they will probably want to underbook, knowing that each of those (lucrative) jobs is likely to take quite a while to complete. 

Differences In Pricebook Integration

Product Image | ServicesThere are a number of key ways ServiceTitan’s pricebook features are different and more useful than pricebooks offered by other FSMs on the market.

First and foremost, ServiceTitan’s pricebook features are natively built within our app. To use our base pricebook functionality, there’s no need to integrate with third party apps. And as a result, we offer a seamless connection between a service business’s pricebook and the rest of their operational workflows (from creating estimates, to work orders, to invoices, to accounting). 

In contrast, other FSMs like ServiceTrade (which uses ProfitRhino as a third party integration) offer a less seamless experience for users.

In addition, our pricebook features make pricebook management much easier than other apps. For example, users can easily edit individual pricebook items or bulk edit groups of items from within our interface. There’s no need to export your pricebook, make changes in spreadsheets, and reupload it to the platform— a common, laborious process for businesses using third-party pricebooks.

Our Pricebook Connect features, available upon request, provide users access to top industry supplier catalogs such as Carrier, Bryant, Lennox, and Dynamic ACS, among others. In a few clicks, materials and equipment can be added directly to your pricebook with the most up-to-date prices to expand your product and service offerings.

We also offer Pricebook Pro, our custom, flat-rate pricebook that’s built and continuously maintained by the industry experts on our team. It allows businesses to rest assured they’re offering services based on industry best practices, pricing services for profitability, all while taking the burden of constant pricebook updating off of their staff.

Finally, all ServiceTitan pricebooks (whether custom built, imported into the platform, or using Pricebook Pro) enable techs in the field to build and present attractive proposals with the most up-to-date pricing via our mobile app (compatible with Android, iPhone, iPad, and other ios devices.)

Conclusion

As we noted early in this article, if you’re a commercial-only shop—and if you’re comfortable paying for and juggling add-ons and integrations with third-party services—ServiceTrade might be an FSM worth considering. 

But if you focus on residential work, or if you service both residential and commercial customers, you’re likely to find ServiceTitan to be a better fit for your business.

This is particularly true if you value a holistic, one-stop-shop approach to managing your service business—one that can help you streamlineworkflow, increase efficiency, and seamlessly link core elements of your business such as advanced reporting, job booking, and pricebook integration—your best bet is likely going to be to opt for a product like ServiceTitan.  

Discover what ServiceTitan can do for your commercial or home service business. Schedule a call to get a free, personalized demo of our all-in-oneSaaS solution today.