Year end recap for our May 2025 plumbing co acquisition

Quick year-end recap for our plumbing company post-acquisition: Closed May###-###-#### At the time of purchase, we had projected $4.5M Revenue for 2025. Finished 2025 @ 4.36M revenue, so 140k below goal. Misses: - We tried the AI CSR thing, didn't work for us (it doesn't do well with southern accents or older demographics). Our booking rate tanked for 6 weeks an ended up costing us about 100k. Glad we tried it, but I think we tried to get it to work for a little too long since we knew pretty quickly that the problem was fundamental and not systemic, but we tried working with the provider to get it to work. Should have pulled that trigger sooner - Missed on a hire. Spent too long trying to train the wrong person. We have since tightened up our hiring practices. Challenges: - Had to fire our top salesman. He was toxic, but we didn't have a replacement. Glad we did it (everyone thanked us for letting him go), but it set us back. Between his last month when we were trying to work with him, and the immediate aftermath, we lost about 300k. - Found that our computer/phone system was outdated to the point that it was costing us opportunities. Speed-to-lead is critical and minutes matter, but it took a lot of problem solving to finally arrive at the fact that the hardware was the issue. Rewired the office, replaced the modem, router and upgraded internet service which doubled our speed. - 3 trucks totaled, only 1 was no-fault. Two were new trucks that we had just bought. This let to one of our wins below Wins: - using AI chatbot to service pay-per-lead has been a game-changer. Our reaction time to inquiries from Angies, Home Advisor, etc are down to seconds which has greatly increased conversion. - ReOrg/hires - we promoted a tech to Service/Install Manager and he has been doing an amazing job. Also, when we started, the office personnel kind of all did everything. We assigned roles and hired a dispatcher (more on her next), which allowed us to define roles and responsibilities. - Hired a dispatcher - seriously if your service company doesn't have a dispatcher and you have more than a few techs, you are missing out. She is amazing. She has helped us hone our job ratings as well as Recaps at the completion of each job. Our Recalls have gone down, AR has gone down and she coordinates material orders etc. - Truck Cameras - serious game-changer. The system we use looks for bad driving habits (phone use, speeding, rolling stops, tailgating, eating, etc) and takes snapshots of violations. It monitors seatbelt usage as well. First week we had well over 200 violations. 4 weeks later it was down to 20. With the trucks lost in a short amount of time, we needed to do something. The guys hated it at first, but soon they adjusted to it. We are well-positioned to kick some ass in Spring. We are hiring 3 techs and a CSR in Spring. LETS GO!