CHAPTER 13

Management and Office Best Practices

The day-to-day visibility into KPIs on the ServiceTitan dashboard puts trade company managers in position to recognize and act on business trends. Setting alerts, building custom reports and automated delivery of information to key stakeholders supercharge what you know.

SECTION 3 OF 7

Setting Alerts Within Your Company

Alerts put information employees need in front of them fast

Alerts allow you to manage your business without having to constantly monitor and dig for information. These real time notifications ensure problems are identified and fixed immediately. 

To get the most out of alerts, make sure the team members who receive them understand what you expect as a response.  To ensure maximum efficiency, ask team members to review the list of available alerts for any that could improve efficiency and response time for their role. 

Be thoughtful when setting up alerts. Excessive alerts often end up ignored, so be sure the team is leveraging alerts to take action. 

Use alerts to monitor activity

The standard ServiceTitan functionality allows automatic text messages or emails when certain parameters are met. 

Lee’s Air in Fresno, Calif., uses alerts to automatically send an email when a warranty form is filled out. Since they have ServiceTitan set up to force the warranty form to be filled out on every warranty job type, they know it will be filled out and they’ll get an email alert when it is completed. 

This allows them to make sure that warranty parts are being tracked and that credits are being given from the supplier. A step-by-step guide to setting up alerts within ServiceTitan can be found here.

Below is a list of alerts that can improve efficiency and keep a pulse on the business.

Unsold Job: Used to monitor technician performance and provide real-time coaching to technicians in the field. Should be set to prompt an immediate manager to immediately reach out to the technician. If you catch unsold jobs as they occur you can turn technician performance around in real time and ensure the technician remains motivated to sell. 

Abandoned Call: Used to notify call center managers when customers hang up. Set the alert to go to the call center manager to ensure that no opportunity is lost and that the phones have adequate coverage. There should be two people receiving the alerts—one prepared to call the missed call back, and the second a manager prepared to add coverage on the phones if excessive call volume is causing abandoned calls.

Unbooked Call: Similar to an abandoned call alert, used to ensure that all opportunities coming into the business are booked. There should be two people receiving the alerts, one dedicated to saving the customer and the second a manager monitoring call center performance.

Canceled Job: Used to notify all interested parties when a job is canceled. This alert can be set up in general or customized by job type, campaign and business unit. A general alert set up for your call center to review immediately and try to save the customer is recommended. This alert generally goes to a specific person or the call center manager to review and take save action if necessary. A customized alert for high dollar job types or expensive campaign types, sent to managers/owners who are interested in monitoring this, is also recommended. In addition, it is recommended that a customized alert be set up for job types that may require planning and ordering, for example installs, to ensure that coordinators and the warehouse are notified as soon as possible to prevent unnecessary ordering/set up.

Completed Form On Job: With some forms, a secondary team member needs to review or action needs to be taken. A common example would be a technician lead capture form. Once this form is completed, a team member is notified to take the appropriate next steps for scheduling with the customer. All of the forms being used by a company should be reviewed for immediate notification requirements. If such notification is necessary, an alert should be used. 

Customer Signed Online Estimate:  Set up to go to the call center to follow up with the customer and book accepted work. Can also be set up to go to the person who created the estimate so they are informed when the work is sold. This alert is an important part of remote or contactless experience, so the call center will need to be cautious and only follow up with those jobs that are in completed status. 

Customer Viewed Online Estimate: This is a powerful alert for the followup process. It should go to a person within the company prepared and trained to follow up immediately. Can also be set up to go to the estimate’s creator. Allows for contact asking if the customer has questions about the estimate. 

Email Delivery Failed: Set up to go to the call center, this alert is to trigger followup to get an updated email address. It is especially important when you first transition to a paperless system as the email is how the customer will receive all of their information on the job, as well as future follow up.

Invoice Email Delivery Failed: Should be set up to go whoever is managing AR. For those invoices with a balance, this allows for immediate followup. 

Sold Estimate: The sold estimate alert should be set up for those job types where next steps are needed. It is common for certain job types to require next steps to be taken (such as installs and projects) and can be leveraged to ensure all the right people within the company (such as the warehouse and coordinators) are informed. 

Task Used: Most commonly used to automate processes and procedures and stay informed of discounts being offered. For example, when coupons and discounts are used on an invoice, managers can be alerted and review immediately to prevent excessive discounting by technicians. In addition, for some tasks additional steps may be needed, and this task can trigger the next necessary step. For example, if a water heater is installed, a permit or inspection may be needed. A task alert can trigger that workflow to improve efficiency.

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