Turning Service Calls into Profits with Brigham Dickinson's Innovative Strategies

Unlock the secrets to transforming every customer call into a golden opportunity with Brigham Dickinson, the visionary behind Power Selling Pros. Our conversation unpacks the journey from the nadir of the 2008 financial crisis to the zenith of creating exceptional customer service experiences in the trades. Brigham's 'Pattern for Excellence' is more than a set of principles—it's a revolution in engaging with customers that started with a pivotal collaboration with Nearing's Plumbing and Heating and has since reshaped the industry's approach to customer interactions.

Prepare to be inspired as we showcase the incredible tales of customer service metamorphosis, spotlighting industry leaders like Tom Robichaud and Mike Agugliaro. They share their wisdom on the art of personalized coaching for customer service representatives (CSRs), scaling the capacity to impress and retain customers across a thousand-strong workforce. This isn't just about handling calls; it’s about crafting moments that leave customers saying "wow" and eagerly waiting for their next service.

In this episode, we also unravel the enduring power of the human touch in a tech-dominated world. Drawing on lessons from teppanyaki chefs to the ethos of Chick-fil-A, we explore how human-led interactions are irreplaceable for creating memorable service experiences. Furthermore, we discuss the path to leadership and financial freedom, highlighting how investing in your team's growth can turn your CSR department into a profit-generating powerhouse. Join us for an enriching session that promises to arm you with strategies and insights to elevate your business's customer service game to unparalleled heights.

https://powersellingpros.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Welcome to the successful life podcast. I'm your host, corey barrier, and I'm here with my man, brigham Dickinson. What's up, buddy?

Speaker 2: 1:04

Hi, I was going. Corey appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Yeah, dude. So I got a chance to meet. We had a chance to meet a few, I don't know, maybe a month ago at Tommy's event. I was super excited actually to meet you because Really, what you guys do for the trades, it's one of the most important things in my opinion. That is severely overlooked. But before we get into all that, if you want to tell everybody a little bit about who you are, the folks that maybe don't know you- yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:36

So Brigham Dickinson, owner of power selling pros, we've been around for 15 years. Crazy story getting into the Call handling training business especially for this industry. I was working with a Company called nearing's plumbing and heating. Troy nearing's is the owner of that company in Utah and I was helping with his advertising. I was helping to make his phone ring now, back in 2008. I Was a broker for two different digital agencies. They couldn't hire me as an employee because it was 2008. So I was hustling and I had a couple roofing companies, heating Quinn company and I Think it was an electrical company or what have you. And so Troy brings me in, sits me down and starts talking to me about these leads. Now, this digital average advertising agency was generating leads and I was just brokering the deal. So I just want to make everything work so I can get my paycheck each month.

Speaker 2: 2:36

So, troy, it was talking to me as we were talking there and he said, hey, the leads that we're getting aren't really good. And I said, what do you mean? They're not really good? He says, well, it's just not something that we're used to. And I said, well, what kind of leads are they truly? What's going on? He says, well, they just want a ballpark price. They just want to know what we charge to come out, they just want to talk to a technician. And I said why do they want to talk to a technician? What do they want a ballpark price on? Well, as the system. Okay, they're heating and cooling system, troy. Yeah, they're heating and cooling system. Okay, so that's a lead. Yeah, what are your technicians doing if they're not taking those calls? Well, we're not getting many calls coming in, huh, well then we should probably learn how to book these calls. You shouldn't be firing me. You should be canceling this. You should actually be doubling down on it. All you need to do now is train your CSR. So he said well, you have any ideas? I said, of course I do had tons of ideas. Right, it doesn't my days, as opposed to firing me. Yeah, I've got a ton of ideas.

Speaker 2: 3:44

And so what Troy didn't know is that I was trained by Kevin Cumberford. Long service champions in Northern California Recently was acquired by the wrench group and is extremely successful. But many years ago he was a district manager for service experts in California and I happened to be the lead coordinator managing these schedules of four different Comfort advisors at the time at Arctic Air in Chico, california, kevin gave me a call and he said hey, brigham, I'm gonna come and visit you. And the back man. I was like, wow, I'm just a lead coordinator, he wants to come visit me. He's over all these companies. And I said, all right, it sounds great. And I thought it was because of all my marketing that I was doing, because I had a marketing degree I just finished and I had Some marketing that I was doing for Arctic Air and so I prepared all these marketing ideas.

Speaker 2: 4:39

And Kevin came and he listened to all my marketing ideas for about five minutes. Super nice guy to do that. Right After about five minutes I was like I'm gonna go and get my To do that. Right After about five minutes he put his hands on Everything. I wrote out all the paperwork that I had, just all these ideas on the table. He moved them to sign. He said you know what these marketing ideas bring? More great, they're really good. I want you to keep up the good work on that. But right now I want to hear how you answer the phones. And then he goes bring Dead steer kid, you're not. And I'm looking at him going what the freak, oh, this is bringing with article already. Care, can I help you? He's like that's it. Oh, you caught me off guard, kevin. I thought we're gonna talk about marketing today. For the next two hours he drills me on how to answer the phones. Okay, so I'm armed, I'm prepared. So, several years waiter.

Speaker 2: 5:33

When I'm talking to Troy and he says, hey, what do you got in mind? I said I'll train him. Back my head. I think about how Kevin trained me. I Said, let me train these guys.

Speaker 2: 5:43

And the crazy thing is that the day before I I Was on caught my brother-in-law's basement. I was just a Piece in this story together as we go, corey, but, but the reason why I was on a caught my brother-in-law's basement is because I had a business that just fell and I Was brokering these ad agency deals, just trying to make a living. So the day before I actually drew the first version of the pattern for excellence on that caught my brother-in-law's basement Eight principles and one outcome, obviously. Outcome is to create a winning moment, and the principles are positive attitude, confidence, listening skills, caring, regissuring, asking the right questions, creating value and being grateful. That's how you, in a moment, the day before I'm having this conversation with Troy and drew these things up. He says, dude, I want to put this stuff on hold. I said, no, those are leads, I'll train them. And, crazy thing, the very thing that I trained them on was the thing that I drew. I want to cut my brother-in-law's basement the night the day before, crazy huh. So I start training them and and their call conversions go up 20%. But within about a month and he has a friend named Tom Robichaud, precision plumbing and heating in Boulder, colorado, and Tom calls me up and he says, hey, I hear you're training Troy's team, his CSR. So I said, absolutely, and I'm doing his advertising. He's like, well, that's good, that's good, but I'll pay you to train my CSR. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I don't have, I don't have to broker advertising deals anymore. I could just, I could just get paid to train people. I got really excited.

Speaker 2: 7:40

I flew over to Colorado and Boulder and Boulder's different Corey I don't know if you've ever been a Boulder, but my gosh, it is a different place lots of, let's just say, the hairstyle of choice is Weird, crazy hair, long hair, lots of long hair, and I don't have it here. So I have no idea how that feels but Crazy deal. Lots of street performers in Boulder. It's a different place, interesting.

Speaker 2: 8:13

It was fantastic working with precision plumbing and heating, and so so Tom Robichaud and Twin earrings started talking and they're like we've got to help bring him out. Man, he's got something here, he really does. And so they said you know what we need to do. We need to talk to Micah Guglero at East at Gold medal, and he's friends with New Jersey and so, sure enough, within about a month, mike calls me up and he says hey, I want you to fly out to eat to New Jersey. And I can remember the first time I went out there I had no money, so I put it on my card, I put the flight on my car, the hotel, my card went out there. And Mike, he was tough, he made me negotiate over a couple days While I was there and he says tell you what bring him. If this works, I Will refer you to everybody I know and I promise you I will build that business for you. And I was like, alright, sounds good. And sure enough, he started referring me to clients left and right, started hiring All my friends Corey and I don't have a lot of friends, okay, they're all working with me and we just, we blossom from there.

Speaker 2: 9:19

I went from From coaching six CSRs and the cool thing about it is that I had access to choice calls. I was able to monitor all these calls. And then Tom, he said, yeah, record my calls to. Crazy thing, mike records to, so everybody's recording their calls. So I start building a team of people who all they do is listen to phone calls Now for six CSRs as a piece of cake. Well, today we were listening to phone calls for over a thousand CSRs. So we're putting over a thousand CSRs through our program on a regular basis and we monitor their calls, we coach them one-on-one twice a month, use their own phone calls. So, yeah, that's the background on power-silling pros that's dude.

Speaker 1: 10:01

I love that you did find, you have found and again, there's a lot of companies out there that 1000% need to talk to you. Because that it is crazy. It's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. To spend 30 or 40 thousand dollars on marketing leads To not have to have a shitty CSR answer the phone, or an unproductive CSR or an unhappy CSR or a CSR that you like. It is Insanity in my opinion. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah, when we go in to work with CSRs, one of the things that really irks me is that, when the phones aren't ringing, you have a team of CSRs that are either doing collections or they're reading their favorite novel or they're watching paint dry.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Why are we doing that? Why are we doing that, especially if we're training them, right, if we're training them to book the call, while the customer keep the dispatch board full because that's their job, right? Your job is not to answer phones. Anybody can answer a phone call. I can answer a phone call, right. It's not about answering phones, it's about keeping the dispatch board full. Now, if calls are coming in, great, keep the dispatch for full with those calls that are coming in. If they're not coming in, you call out. Now, if we're putting them through a program where they're creating wow experience after wow experience over the phone and they're selling service agreements with those inbound phone calls and they should be right it's the best time to sell a service agreement, in my opinion. Why? Because the customer feels that emotional angst While the system's not working. They're not sure they can afford it. It was a surprise. They're frustrated, they're concerned, right, all those things. I'll just give you a quick example this morning I had an entire day planned out and all of a sudden, I see water leaking from underneath my sink. Guess what. My day's schedule got changed Okay. Was I happy about it? No, I wasn't happy about it. Every plumber I call was like, oh, maybe I can get to it next year. Like no, bro, bro, it's leaking, I'm not going to sit here wiping it with a towel until next year. You know what I'm saying. So we need people who can answer the phone's, create a wow experience for that customer by time to hang up. It's like 911 and there's no 911, help us on the way. Right, that's our goal. So we train to see us how to do all those things. Best time to sell a service agreement is when they're feeling that emotional angst. Hey, mr Jones, we've got you all taking care of. Just so you know, you've called us a few times over the last two or three years. Here I'm just looking at your notes here and looking at your history. Why don't you, why haven't you ever considered a club membership of this club membership? What's that? Well, it prevents things like this, the thing that you're dealing with right now, from happening. So, if you want it, I can get you going on that right now. In fact, it gives you discounted all of our services and it gives you priority service. You don't have to wait. So if you want to get you going on that right now, best time to sell a service agreement is right over the phone. But you got to train them to do that Now.

Speaker 2: 13:35

If they're selling service agreements on those inbound calls, if calls aren't coming in, they're already prepared. They're trained. Give them a list of existing customers and have them call out. They can call out for a lot of reasons. They can call out to renew service agreements. They can call out to talk about past replacement calls that weren't sold for whatever reason, because the Comfort Advisor is not doing it. No, sir, they're not. Yeah, comfort Advisor is not doing it. The selling tech is not doing it. They may say that they're doing it Right If they're listening to this podcast, that they're saying what are you talking?

Speaker 2: 14:10

about. I always do it Whatever, bro. Yeah, come on. No, come on. I've been in this industry a very long time. It's okay. It's okay and it's all right to ask for help, and that's what the CSR is there for, right? So their job is to call out, and you know what? We should incentivize them. I know this is weird, but we should incentivize them to sell service agreements. We should incentivize them to turn service calls and replacement calls Back.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Here you're going oh my gosh, that's reserved for technicians. Why, if you're able to look at the notes and go, mr Jones, I'm looking at your notes and I noticed that you've been working with us for about 12 years. You've got a system. That's what, at least 12 years ago? That system is only supposed to last about 10 years, even if it's installed correctly. Have you ever considered replacing your unit as opposed to fixing it? And if you want it, I can send it to technician and a comfort advisor. Now, the comfort advisor doesn't cost you a dime. The technician will cost you $79, which is your prefer. Oh, the comfort advisor? Cool, let's send them out and I should be paid for that, right? Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 15:13

So if we could train CSRs to be proactive in their position and give them a way to control their own income in that position. Guess what? They won't leave that position 100% and if they're good, if they're good man, they can make as much money as they want to make and they can and they continue to answer phones, as opposed to aspiring to be in accounting or whatever else, whatever other position that's available to them that they feel is up the ladder. No, you're already at the top of the ladder, you're already the quarterback. All I need to do is give you the skill set and the tools with the right attitude. No, boy, I can make them the most profitable part of your company.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Yeah, I totally agree with you, and usually it's the lowest paid position If they're not using you if they're not, I don't know how in the world it would make sense to anybody to pay them, because usually I shouldn't say usually lots of times they're the lowest man on the totem pole and they're the most important person to get that customer from a not being a non-customer to a paying customer. But yet you're shitting all over the people that are doing makes zero sense.

Speaker 2: 16:37

Yeah, the phone rings, the advertising's done its job. How many ad agencies call us and say, brigham, we need your help because we have customers calling complaining about their leads, cons of all of them? Yeah, I was on the phone with an ad agency last week, right before Thanksgiving, and I sat down with each of their customer, facing employees the ones that are the account executives for each of the contractors and they were in dire straits. And the reason why is because right now in the industry, it's pretty funny. Well, it's not funny at all, it's just the way the industry's going, because of the economy or what have you, but customers are choosing to fix their system as opposed to replace it, and it's super reminiscent of 2007, by the way.

Speaker 2: 17:24

2007, oh my gosh, we were moving boxes like crazy and it was easy. Right, we were order taking. 2008 hits and boom, nobody's replacing their unit, nobody's calling in. We're feeling the same sorts of things right now as we speak. Right, calls aren't coming in as much as they used to, and those who do call in are opting to fix their system, even if it's 30 years old, as opposed to replacing it, no matter how good the salespeople are. And so the two departments that we were ignoring CSR department, the technician department. Why? Because lead coordinators were rocking it, comfort advisors were rocking it, making it drop in $15,000, $20,000 jobs left and right, looking like the heroes. Everybody's calling them the money, men, whatever, right, yeah. And everybody forgets about the heart and soul of our industry, which is our CSRs and our technicians. And so now we're relying heavily on our tech, hey, technicians. And so where are you by the last three years, jerk? Oh, now you have technician training, now you have CSR training. Cool, great, welcome back. Glad you care about us now.

Speaker 1: 18:45

I wonder and you might even know the answer to this if it's even, it's bound to be measurable to a degree. But I'm curious how? Because, to your point, there's a lot of companies that just they were order takers 2020, 2021. And now we're seeing that switch. But I believe that a lot of owners are not realizing you can't just show up and sell a box. You've got to figure out a way to pivot, and a lot of these guys are trained to just sell boxes and I'm not sure what's going to happen to them.

Speaker 2: 19:22

Okay. So let's talk about that for just a minute. Let's put a quick little blow on the CSR department, real quick, sure, okay. So our goal is to create a wild experience for the customer. In order to create a wild experience for the customer, we have to do the unexpected. Okay, extremely important. So it's important to monitor the CSR's calls, provide coaching on a regular basis based on their performance. That's the whole point of having them listen to their calls on a regular basis is to gauge performance based on their own phone calls. You do that on a regular basis. You're going to make sure that the wild experience is created and that you're the only one going out. That's the whole point. You don't want to be one of five bits. A technician, believe it or not, the comfort advisor doesn't want to be one of five bits, and it's the CSR's job, the lead coordinator's job, to perform such an amazing experience over the phone that they are the only one going out there, and if you're the only one going out, the chances of you making a sale go way up. Okay, so that's the CSR department.

Speaker 2: 20:30

As far as technicians are concerned, it's interesting because since the beginning of the year, I started becoming an undercover technician. The water is kind of changing in the industry a little bit, and I felt like it was a good time to spend a whole lot more time with the techs, and so I would get in a technician uniform. I did this with five different companies. I went over a hundred ride-alongs with techs and I got to the point where I was super, super efficient being able to get out there, because what I do is I show up on the job site like in a rental car and I'd meet the technician there. We'd go in, knock on the door, throw on our booties, throw on our booties and go for it together. And it was funny too, because the technician would be like okay, are you doing the talking? I'm doing the talking. Who's doing the talking? I said, dude, we're going to do the talking, we're going to do it, we're going to create the shock and awe, create an amazing experience and win this moment. Let's go, let's have some fun, and that's exactly what we do.

Speaker 2: 21:40

Sold something every time, except for once, and the one time was because I was one of five bids, and so I went back into the office as soon as that experience was over and I said I will never be one of five bids. Again, I need your CSRs to be held accountable. And from that moment on, I wouldn't do another ride along until he paid for his CSRs to get coached and trained on a regular basis by my team. And then, of course, I went back out there. Crazy thing, we sold something every time.

Speaker 2: 22:09

But with technicians, what I like to do is sit them down as a group in the morning and I say okay, guys, there's two things you need to understand, and the first is you've got to know how to get kissed on the first date. Now, funny thing about technicians when they hear that it doesn't matter how early in the morning it is, when they realize that they're about to learn something important like getting kissed on the first date, oh my gosh, it's amazing how they pay attention. They don't need any red bull anymore, they're like holy crap.

Speaker 2: 22:34

What's going on? What's happening here? I get eye contact immediately right With this group of individuals. All right, fellas, here's what you do. You've got to have three things in order to get a chance to get kissed on the first date. Number one you got to make sure that they feel safe, because guess what, if the gal your dating does not feel safe, you are not going to get kissed 100%. Second, they got to feel comfortable. They got to feel comfortable with you, comfortable in their environment. They've got to feel extremely comfortable, so it's up to you to make sure that they feel comfortable. Lastly, they got to have just a little bit of fun. Okay, if they're having a little bit of fun, they're comfortable and they feel safe around you. Guess what? You have created yourself an environment to get kissed.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Now, the same thing is true inside the customer's home, and this is where they joke around. The goal you want us to get kissed in the customer's home, right? Well, no, come on, man, let's focus here, right, let's focus. Our goal is for them to feel safe, comfortable and have a little bit of fun, so that you can be curious about what's going on inside the customer's home. See, the last thing the customer wants is for you to come out five times to fix everything that's inside the home. If you could come in once, take a look at everything inside the home, everything that's going on, and fix it the first time, I promise you you're going to have a customer for life. But the only way you can do that is to be able to gain access to the rest of the home. And in order to gain access to the rest of the home, they've got to feel safe, they've got to feel comfortable and they've got to have just a little bit of fun. So essentially, yeah, it's a date. It's a date you get in there.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Your job is not just to do the thing that you were called out to do. Your job is to be curious and, as you're curious, walk around the home, you're providing options, you provide the options and then you simply get to a yes or no on each of the options you provide. And this is where they go. Wait a minute, no selling, no, no, selling. Never once said selling. Did I say selling no? Did you say selling no? Nobody said selling Right.

Speaker 2: 24:31

All I'm talking about is creating an environment of safety, comfort and fun where you can get curious, provide options, get to yes or no. Make sure you get to yes or no. That's all I want you to do. That's it. Well, it's so simple, yeah, it's so simple. And then I go out there in a technician uniform, demonstrate how simple and easy it is and, straight up, it is a date Every time Safe, comfortable, fun, curious options, yes or no Done.

Speaker 2: 25:03

And when we leave, the homeowner is like, oh my gosh, premium, you're like the best technician ever. And crazy thing, I'm not a technician. And the technicians laughing as hard as I am when we get to the van, because we all know that I'm not even a technician. I'm not, but I was able to create an environment of safety, comfort and fun. I was curious about what's going on inside the customer's home, whether it was a drippy faucet, whether it was a leaky water heater, whether it was a system that was 20 years old, whether it was the filters that were freaking, freaking, crazy dirty, whether it was somebody who was suffering from asthma or allergies. I was just curious, provided all the options based on my curiosity and I got to a yes or no every time. And crazy thing, we sold something every time.

Speaker 2: 25:48

So once the technician experiences that, oh my gosh, they go gangbusters, they go gangbusters. And so the reason why I started doing all this is because I was like you know what? The technician is being neglected they're being, they're not getting the training, the attention that they need. You've got an operations manager that's handling what? 50 technicians, 60 technicians, and you've got some amazing technology coming into the industry where you're able to record the technicians conversations. That's right. Well, crazy thing, corey, I have a team of coal monitors that are monitoring calls for 1000 CSRs. I have the only training company that already has an army of individuals that can monitor these calls, monitor this technology and provide immediate feedback and coaching.

Speaker 1: 26:34

So, anyway, so let's dive into. By the way, I agree with literally everything you said. I think, though and this is just my observation I don't want to stay on this too long but my observation is I'm from outside the industry, like, I'm not a technician, I didn't come from this industry. I came with a sales background from multiple industries, and so I believe that the reason what you just said makes complete sense to me is because we don't overthink it. We don't think like a technician, we don't think like a salesperson. You just go and build a relationship.

Speaker 1: 27:11

It's really, for a lot of us, it's not that hard, but when you're a kinesthetic technician that you think you're just going in to fix everything, I think there's a disconnect there, and you're right, they are being neglected. The soft skills in the industry is probably one of the most overlooked things in the industry, and a lot of that's because they don't teach it in trade school. They don't spend any time on it, and it's, by and large, the most important thing, because if you don't have the ability to talk to the customer, you sure as hell ain't gonna fix a problem 100% If they, if the homeowner loves the technician, the price isn't gonna matter.

Speaker 1: 27:58

That's right.

Speaker 2: 28:00

If they are loving the experience that they're having, whether it's over the phone or in the customer's home. If they're loving that experience, the price doesn't matter. Your timing whether you can get it done today, get it done tomorrow, doesn't matter as much if they like you. So at the end of the day and look, I've learned this the hard way the minute you use the word sales, you're done Because they don't want to be salespeople.

Speaker 2: 28:23

Now, I learned this with the CSRs. Every time I said the word sales, I was done. Pack up my bags and go home, metaphorically speaking Done. They wouldn't listen to me anymore. Right? So it was very simple for me. Once I sat down with the technicians and said you guys, I don't want you to sell, I want you to provide a phenomenal customer experience. Now, even though technicians don't want to sell, they do want to do a good job. They take pride in their work, they pride in what they're doing, they love their customers, they love their job, they love working with their hands, they love it and they want to do a good job. So all I do is paint the picture of what a good job looks like.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Makes sense, makes total sense. So let's dive into AI. Now I know what you I know you mentioned a second ago about the recall recordings Fully. I'm super familiar with that. I've had Sebastian on. We don't have to necessarily dive into that because I think the audience has probably heard about that. So how else are you utilizing AI?

Speaker 2: 29:26

Okay. So the way that we want to use AI is to make sure it's the servant and never the master Right? Here's what I mean by that. If you have AI answering your phones, I don't care how good it is, I don't care. I don't care if you take all three of my books and program the thing to answer the phones exactly the way that I teach to do it. I've been doing it for 15 years. Okay, even if you did that, you're programming it to do something that is expected. Okay, I was at a tip and yucky. You've ever been to a tip and yucky where they cook the food right in front of you?

Speaker 1: 30:17

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:18

You've been to those places? Yeah, One of those incredible food. Right, they throw up the eggs and they make a volcano out of olive oil and you're like oh my gosh, this is amazing Kids are excited. You're afraid your hairs are going to get singed when they do the big old blow up thing. And then they cook you some amazing noodles and steak and everybody's happy. They're all fat and happy to eat a bunch of food. You know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 30:44

Yeah, the Tulsa shrimp in the hat, one of these places.

Speaker 2: 30:46

Yeah. So at one point there was a robot that came out singing a happy birthday. It rolled on out saying happy birthday. The first time I saw it I was like, wow, this is the coolest thing ever, because it had a cake on top and it delivered the birthday cake to the birthday person. It's great, it's fantastic. The first time I saw it, I was wowed, but the second time I never even gave it a glance. I heard it, I heard what it sounded like, Didn't even give it a second glance. They probably spent oh, I don't know $40,000 on that robot and for the initial wow experience it was great. But then, after that, just a robot, it's programmed to do what it does. Wow experience wasn't there. Now the same thing is going to be true If everybody starts using AI to answer phones. They are programmed to do what they are programmed to do. They cannot do the unexpected. The only reason why you would turn to AI to answer your phones is if your CSRs are terrible.

Speaker 1: 31:57

Which definitely is the case with some people.

Speaker 2: 32:00

Yeah, your CSRs with the right training. Right, we take them through four levels of certification. Take somebody a year to have to complete, but by the time we're done they're booking at least 85% of their phone calls to the well-in customers. They're selling outbound, inbound and they're affecting their own income and they are constantly doing the unexpected based on the customer's unique need. So if you're going to have AI and, quite frankly, to a certain extent we already have it through Service Titan, we have the ability to dispatch for profits on the back end, but not the front end. It's on the back end. In other words, it calculates which comfort advisor is hot right now based on their cells and dispatches to them before the other guys. Now that's great. It is a servant. Ai is a servant. Don't make it the master. Same thing with RILA they're recording the technicians' conversations. They're not having the conversations for the technicians. We let the humans be the masters. We teach them to do the unexpected, create wow experience after wow experience. You cannot. The only thing that'll happen with making AI the master, let's say AI is answering phone calls and even in certain times you'd have people over the phone, or even robots over the phone handling customer questions via text or whatever via chat. The only thing that's going to happen if everybody starts doing that is we're going to have to lower our prices. Why? Because now we are apples, we're an apple. Everybody provides an apple service. Well, if you were an apple, and an apple is the apple's comparison, the lowest price wins. Is that what our industry wants? No, we are not an Amazon industry, we're a Chick-fil-A industry. This is how we're able to charge the margins that we're able to charge. This is why we got out of new construction. We all got out of new construction 10 years ago. We ran from new construction because you'd have to install 15 units a day to make money, whereas with residential, we install four and we make three times as much money as new construction. That's why we got out of new construction. Why would we run back to that model? All right, let's go to a question.

Speaker 2: 34:28

So, in order to maintain our margins, in order to justify the price that we charge, we've got to create a well-experienced, just like Chick-fil-A does it. And right now, chick-fil-a doubles down on that experience. They are to the point now where they not only have people outside, they have people where you usually reach in through the window to get your food. They have a person that stands there now that takes the food from the window and puts it in your car. Are you serious? Right? They double down on their experience. They double down on the experience because they're three times as much as McDonald's. And, crazy thing, people wait for Chick-fil-A. Crazy thing, people pay more for Chick-fil-A. We are the Chick-fil-A model in this industry. This is why everybody's investing in us right now. This is why Hedy and Cooley, companies such as Ishmael, such as Tommy Mello, such as Victor and the Wrench Group and the NAPEX, and all this money is in the industry right now, because of where our margins are at.

Speaker 2: 35:32

Do not lose effectiveness for the sake of efficiency. Make sure that you have a well-experienced, make sure you continue to do the unexpected, and the only way you do the unexpected is with humans, trained humans, trained to perform at an extremely high level, trained to recognize pinpoints, specific situations where they can create a well-experienced for the customer, so that when that customer hangs up, they don't call anybody else. So when that technician is done, that customer is done shopping, the work is getting done, it is scheduled, it's done and right now more than ever, you've got to lean on your CSRs. You've got to lean on your technicians to bring in as much revenue as possible, because right now they're your lifeline.

Speaker 1: 36:15

I definitely agree and I've done a lot of things in the AI space and, to your point, I never really looked at the voice part of it the way you just said and look, the voice is not there yet. It's just not. It's not in, at least from my standpoint and everything that I've heard. The voice side of AI is just not. It doesn't have the ability to effectively answer the call and provide the emotion that it needs to pause when it needs to. It doesn't, it's just not there yet. So people have got to be careful with that.

Speaker 1: 36:51

But AI goes a much deeper than that. Right, it goes a mile wide and a mile deep. There's a bunch of different things and I'll tell you. So what? I?

Speaker 1: 37:01

Because of the CSR problem, so to speak, and the fact that owners don't usually listen to the calls and I get it like you're busy, like that's not the highlight of your day, but there's gold inside of those calls, from both the CSR side and the customer side, and so we built and it didn't come into fruition, because I'm not a software developer, I'm a sales guy with a great idea that so we built an MVP that would tell you on a graph how that call went. So if three-fourths of the way through, if Mary is, if her calls are dropping off three-fourths of the way through, then you can go straight to that three-fourths point and figure out why Mary's dropping off and train on that right. Yes, and so it was a pretty. I thought it was one of the best ideas on the planet. But we got most of. We got the MVP built, but then like it's going to cost me a fortune to finish it out, so, but I think something like that's invaluable.

Speaker 2: 38:12

Yes, yeah, if you have AI that is a servant to what you're doing, you should absolutely do it. You should invest in that technology and, more importantly, you should make sure that you've got leadership team that is prepared to handle all that data. Yes, what we're finding, more than anything with real estate, they're not able to handle. They've got data overload.

Speaker 1: 38:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:36

And so they're turning to third parties like us to monitor those technician calls and provide coaching based on what we notice and what we see.

Speaker 1: 38:47

Yeah, Well look, this industry is a very tough industry. If you're not from the industry and if you don't have any experience in home services, it's going to be. It's going to be tough. I don't care how good your product is and, as of four weeks ago, there's nobody on real estate team that's from the home services. You got a bunch of kids from New York trying to sell contractors and broke that. Shit's not going to work for so long. It is what it is dude yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:30

And they're selling like hotcakes. Right now they're selling like hotcakes, but they're getting their arming contractors with data that they do not. They don't have time to decipher.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Right, because there's no plan in place for coaching on the amazing data that they have.

Speaker 2: 39:50

Yeah, yeah, but hey, you got to give real estate credit and either to be there first creating good problems, right yeah?

Speaker 1: 39:59

for sure.

Speaker 2: 40:01

Hey, you don't have to do a ride along with a technician to find out what's going on anymore. You can just look at the transcript.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Yeah, 100%. They're not. And look, they didn't invent this process, right. There's multiple companies out there that have been doing this for years. They just happen to figure out the industry, to nail it on right. They're the loudest they're.

Speaker 2: 40:20

They're certainly the loudest and investing the most money to make sure that they're the loudest. But look, it's a domino thing. They've pushed forward that first domino Right, and now it's just a matter of the rest of the industry catching up.

Speaker 1: 40:34

Yeah, you're right, but that can also be. That also can cause problems. Right, the data overload and not being able to deliver. If you can't get the final result the success from the data, you've got to be able to tie the success of the data. You got to be able to tie success to the data. Right, because the data's great, having the recordings is great, but if everybody can listen to them, it's not worth a shit.

Speaker 2: 41:03

Yeah, so, corey, you're right, and I'm glad that we're talking about this, because we're the only ones I know that have a team of coal monitors, an army of coal monitors, ready to rock. So we can monitor all the data, whether it's your CSRs, whether it's your technicians. We can monitor the data and provide immediate feedback to your team.

Speaker 1: 41:27

Which is invaluable, right, invaluable, right, yeah, like it's the biggest hack on the planet.

Speaker 2: 41:36

Yeah, it's crazy, because your technicians they're going to be like oh my gosh, you're going to listen to our calls. I'm not working here anymore, I'm going elsewhere. Dude, within a year or so, everybody's going to be doing it. You cannot hide from it. Go talk to a CSR about how they feel that their calls are being recorded. They're being coached on a regular basis. They've been doing it for the last 15 years, my friend, so it's okay. Now, what's funny is that at least those contractors we've been talking to technicians are a little bit more comfortable with a third party as opposed to their own manager.

Speaker 1: 42:11

Well, they probably also know that they're. You should probably not go listen to the call.

Speaker 2: 42:15

Yeah, yeah, they've certainly been trained on a certain method, a certain way, and they're likely not following it that way perfectly and they don't want to be called on it. So I understand where they're coming from. Okay, because every cell system I've seen it's not a one-size-fits-all, right, and what a technician does is that one customer where that system, that sling system, doesn't work, they go, oh, see, and then they throw the baby out with a bath water. They say, oh, the system doesn't work because for that one customer it didn't work. Stop it, right, stop it. We know better. Okay, we know that cell system works for about 70% of your customers, and so we got to modify it, customize it a little bit for that other 30%, but we should still be using it for the other 70%, right? So it's a matter of working through that whole thing with the technician.

Speaker 1: 43:11

That's a perpetual problem in the industry. Oh, the process doesn't work. Well, we've got to change the process. Now we've got 29 different processes that you could have just fixed the birth rate. It's mind-blowing to me. It's very inefficient, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:30

So there's a lot of processes out there. We don't like teaching processes because there are so many. What we'd like to do instead is ask them what process are you using? Here's the process, cool. And then I'm going to take principles, such as a positive attitude, such as confidence, such as listening, such as empathy, such as reassurance, such as asking their questions, such as being valued, being grateful. I'm going to take principles and I'm going to show you why that process makes sense, and I'm going to show you how to modify it a little bit based on the type of customer that you're working with, and show you that process actually works for more customers than you think.

Speaker 1: 44:05

Yeah, it makes the process work. Yeah, process of work. So you got a new book out. Can you tell me a little bit about that before we wrap up?

Speaker 2: 44:19

I appreciate that. So the book is called Something to Give. I'll put it right here Something to give for those who watch the video, love it. Something to give a journey to become leader worth following.

Speaker 2: 44:30

Now, this is my third book. The reason why I wrote it is because I own three different companies that run by themselves, and when I work with contractors, I find that they are still working 10-hour days and they've got their fingers in the dispatch department, they've got their fingers in the install department, they've got their fingers in the CSR department and they're just running themselves ragged and they're not giving their team opportunities to lead departments. And so I give them a tool set to begin to offload some of their responsibilities onto members of their team so that they begin to work on their business as opposed to in it. Now, the cool thing about working on your business as opposed to in it is that there is a specific time limit. You can golf, you can go on vacations and you can work on your business. In fact, from the beach, you can work on your business. While you're golfing, you can work on your business. Okay, you can work on your business from anywhere. It's when you get sucked up into your business where you don't have time.

Speaker 2: 45:37

So our goal is not just to buy, not to be financially free right when we first get into business. That's what we're concerned about most is holy crap, I got to pay the bills. But once the bills are being paid, then you got to start working on freedom over your time. So you've got to continue to work, continue to hustle and get to the point where you have a solid team that is ready to take on leadership responsibilities. As they take on leadership responsibilities especially those ambitious ones they stop going elsewhere. You stop losing them. Instead, they stick around because they see that there's opportunity to continue to lead and grow and be stretched. So they win. Your team does, and you win by getting out of your business and start working on it, and so that's why I wrote the book.

Speaker 2: 46:24

You can get it by going to Brigham Dickinsoncom. That's B-R-I-G-H-A-M-D-I-C-K-I-N-S-O-Ncom. All three of my books are there. Feel free to get them all and, if you want, if you know in your heart of hearts that you're never going to train your CSRs or you're never going to give them the attention they need in order to become your most profitable department inside your heating cooling company, come to PowerSelling Pros, just go to powersellingproscom and you can get a free demo. Get a free demo and just, let's just talk about it. Let's talk about your CSR department and see if we can't turn it into a profit center for you.

Speaker 1: 47:05

Yeah, brigham man, this has been a great conversation. I knew it was going to be a great conversation. We align on everything we talked about today, so I appreciate you, my friend. This was fantastic, thank you Appreciate the opportunity.