Service Agreements 101: Setup, Structure, and Increased Profitability

Service agreements tend to get categorized as a scheduling tool — a way to manage recurring visits and stay organized. What they can actually be is a window into profitability, technician efficiency, and customer lifetime value. In this episode of the Mastering ServiceTitan podcast, host Josh sits down with David Helms, Operations Manager at Edd Helms Air Conditioning and Electric, to dig into how service agreements work in practice: how to structure them, what they reveal about your business, and how to use them to make smarter decisions over time.

Helms walks through how his team uses ServiceTitan's Service Agreements feature to track hours, measure pull-through work, and build a clearer picture of each customer relationship — and why the feature is more approachable to get started with than most operators expect.

How ServiceTitan's Service Agreements Support Techs in the Field

At its core, Service Agreements in ServiceTitan gives operations managers a way to set expectations around visit time and then measure against them. Helms puts it plainly: "ServiceTitan's Service Agreements feature allows you to set the number of hours that you're expecting on that visit and compare that with the actual hours it took."

That comparison matters more than it might seem. When a tech is consistently running over on agreement visits, it signals something — whether that's a pricing gap, an efficiency issue, or a job type that needs to be scoped differently. Without that data, the issue stays invisible.

For the tech in the field, agreements also provide structure. They know what the visit is supposed to cover, what's expected of them, and how the job is meant to be completed. That clarity reduces the back-and-forth between the field and the office.

Pull-Through Work and Why It Matters

One of the most underused signals in a service agreement program is pull-through work — the additional repairs, replacements, or add-ons that come out of a scheduled agreement visit. It's not upselling; it's what happens when a tech finds something that genuinely needs attention.

Helms describes pull-through as a key indicator of the real value each customer relationship generates. A customer who books one agreement visit per year but consistently generates repair revenue on top of that looks very different on paper than one who doesn't — and service agreements make that visible in ServiceTitan.

Understanding that pattern at scale helps operators decide where to invest in agreement growth, what customer segments are worth prioritizing, and how to have conversations with ownership about ROI.

Low-Risk Implementation and Onboarding Tips

Getting started with Service Agreements doesn't require a full operational overhaul. Helms recommends a phased approach — start with one agreement type, get the structure right, and expand from there.

The setup work involves decisions that are worth taking seriously:

• What job types will the agreement cover

• How many hours to allocate per visit

• What follow-up steps or tasks should be triggered

• Which custom fields will capture the information your team actually needs

Once those decisions are made and the first agreement type is live, the feedback loop starts. Teams can see where estimates don't match actuals, where pull-through is happening, and where the workflow needs adjustment. That data makes the next agreement type easier to configure and easier to defend to the rest of the team.

Helms' broader point is that the barrier to entry is lower than it looks. The feature is already in the platform — the work is in setting it up thoughtfully, not in building something from scratch.

David Helms recently joined Josh on the 'Mastering ServiceTitan' podcast to discuss:

[2:24] how ServiceTitan's Service Agreements support techs in the field

[10:41] pull-through work and why it matters

[15:34] low-risk implementation and onboarding tips

Check out these resources mentioned during the podcast:

Service Agreements

Spark

Torch

You can find this interview and many more by subscribing to Mastering ServiceTitan on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or here.