Typically, home service businesses using ServiceTitan come to Dexcomm with one (or more) of the following issues on their hands:
- Their in-house team can't keep up with call traffic throughout the day.
- Their in-house team is experiencing burnout when tasked with answering after-hours calls.
- Their current answering service provider requires that the in-house team remains on-call.
- Their current answering service provider is using manual logins to interact with the ServiceTitan system.
Teaming with an answering service that uses API integration to schedule and log items in to your ServiceTItan account is the solution to this myriad of home service problems. Continue reading this post for a deeper dive into each of these issues and to understand just how API integration could help make your life at the office (and in the field) a lot easier.
If your in-house team can’t keep up with call traffic throughout the day…
Your in-house team most likely has a variety of responsibilities to take care of throughout the day. Beyond answering the phone, they most likely help customers who come in the door or even go out and work in the field. On top of that, even when they’re simply answering, you can never predict when or how many calls will come in the instance of overflow or if your team will have time to field the calls.
Despite, how can your in-house team focus on their primary job duties when the phone is consistently ringing in the background? When the phone rings, money is calling. So it’s crucial to answer the phone, but it’s also crucial to focus on your job.
So, you find yourself in a lose-lose situation in which you must make a choice: Miss customer calls (and potential revenue) but complete in-house tasks OR answer as many calls as possible and find yourself unable to juggle other business responsibilities.
If your in-house team is experiencing burnout when tasked with answering after-hours calls…
Sometimes, home service businesses will send their CSR’s home with an after-hours cell phone in order for them to capture leads and potential revenue that come in at the end of the regular business hours. Though the employee could be eager for some extra overtime, this responsibility can quickly become tiresome and result in a lack of work-life balance.
On top of that, no CSR can work a full-time job, answering the phone and fielding calls, and then go home and still deliver exceptional customer service to your callers. Your employees, overtime, will become exhausted and struggle to deliver a consistently fantastic experience to your callers.
If your current answering service provider requires that the in-house team remains on-call…
If you have an answering service that can only take your calls and deliver messages, your team could still find themselves receiving (and being overwhelmed) with calls. The inability for the answering service to book adds a whole extra step to the process of following up and scheduling with the customer.
On the surface, this seems inessential because you still have a live voice answering your calls. However, as previously stated, this simply lengthens the process between your caller contacting your business and them being penciled into your company’s schedule. In that amount of time, your customer could grow impatient and simply go with the next home service business willing to give them an appointment sooner.
If your answering service provider is using manual logins to interact with your instance of ServiceTitan…
Some answering service providers can work with your ServiceTitan platform, but they must manually log in with each of your callers. In this instance, you will have to provide your answering service with your usernames and passwords so they can log in on your behalf when a call comes in.
This leads to agents having to juggle two systems at a time, using both their call center platform and your ServiceTitan platform. By asking agents to work in two types of software at once, you increase the margin for error right off the bat. Additionally, if more than one caller at a time dials in with the need to schedule something into ServiceTitan, manually logging in would force agents to scramble to figure out who is using what account and when.
The Solution: The Efficiency and Effectiveness of API
API stands for application programming interface. API allows for agents to remain in their internal answering service system and simultaneously send data to and from your ServiceTitan platform. In other words, API allows for an integration between those two systems, and it keeps agents from having to juggle two systems at once. Without having to manually log in or send a message to your internal CSRs, API allows agents to verify and create customer profiles, assign the appropriate on-call technician, and schedule appointments.
In Conclusion
Answering services that have ServiceTitan API capabilities streamline the whole process of identifying callers and booking jobs into your ServiceTitan system. With API on your side, you can say goodbye to the days of an overwhelming call volume, returning customers’ calls to book appointments, and giving out your logins.
Despite, if you simply like having in-house customer service representatives, an answering service with API integration to your ServiceTitan instance can still be of assistance with:
- Call overflow,
- Holiday answering, and
- After-hours answering.
Want to learn more about ServiceTitan API integration? Click below!
