Field Management Software: ServiceTitan v. Housecall Pro v. others?
January 01, 2022
by a searcher from Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, IL, USA
Curious about folks' experience using ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro, especially with regard to the implementation phase and the ongoing support both companies offer. I'm trying to decide between the two (or maybe a third option I'm overlooking). I would love to get a sense for how easy / hard it will be to implement the new software, and how much my crews will love / hate the new system.
I plan to implement in a business with 4-5 crews + 1 estimator out in the field every day doing HVAC-like installations and service. The business currently uses ESC which is an older, on-prem version of FieldEdge. Crews love ESC, but it seems like they are sunsetting the product and we need to move to the cloud.
I would also love any perspectives on whether ServiceTitan's additional features justify the 3-4X cost premium v Housecall.
Any thoughts appreciated! And if anyone's game to trade notes on a quick call please let me know.
from University of Pennsylvania in Portland, OR, USA
1) The system's capability's are vast and constantly expanding. In the absence of a champion who commits to serving as the system expert, it is very easy for an organization to miss out on the full feature set. An example... ServiceTitan has a powerful API and a vast list of integration partners. If used fully, the system supports a complete data capture all the way from a Google LSA click to the inbound phonecall to the dispatch to the quote to the completed job to the credit card payment to the NPS and review follow-up. When we bought the business, most of the steps of the process were handled in unintegrated platforms which robbed us of good data and missed out on efficiencies for our team. Turning on additional features is straightforward. I think this pretty common with CRMs. I had a similar experience with Salesforce.com in a B2B sales environment where our company struggled to drive adoption beyond the most basic features. The good news here, is that the ServiceTitan features really do help people do their jobs - not just report to management.
2) Service Titan has solid live support and invests in quality content. I recommend reading their entire "Contractors' Playbook" which is available on the website even to non-subscribers. The in-system help content (just about every metric has a roll-over definition) and the "Service Titan Academy" have answered nearly every question I've had as a new user - even taking on non-routine tasks like adjusting the price book.
3) Service Titan is the dominant player in home service CRM and gaining speed. As the switching cost of changings CRMs is always high, if only in the pain of a new implementation, you are well served to consider Service Titan deeply as a longterm solution. I suspect you'll find that they continue their high support and feature roll-out for many years. This year ServiceTitan raised $700M in two rounds and made a $200M acquisition. It looks like the have big plans, and the system is already a good one. A final example of the depth of penetration into the home services industry ServiceTitan is achieving... my plumbing supply house (regional player) just announced an integration that will allow me to update material costs in my pricebook and place replenishment orders for my warehouse based on parts used on jobs and captured in ServiceTitan.
Good luck with your deal and picking a CRM.
from University of Virginia in Atlanta, GA, USA