Garage Door Estimating

[HeatherDemel]

I am curious to know if anyone is willing to share how they handle scheduling estimates within ServiceTitan. We have multiple estimators that go out in the field to gather the information from clients but do not normally build the estimates on-site. Is there anyone willing to share their estimating process down to invoicing?

[mariahmokienko]

Hi Heather.

My response won't be much help because we also do not do estimates on site. There are so many factors that will change a price of a door. For example adding windows to model A will cost this much but adding the same windows to model b will cost twice that amount. Same goes for color options. Not to mention the constant price changes from manufacturers makes it almost impossible to keep prices in our pricebook current. Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone!! I'm glad you brought this up, I'm curious to hear from others as well!

~Mariah 

[HeatherDemel]

Thank you for responding! I was wondering if there was anyone else out there that was having this same problem. We would love to be able to make them on-site but exactly like you said, different options and price changes makes things very difficult. We are still working through a process for this and hopefully there can be a better method in ServiceTitan in the future. 

[AdamCronenberg]

Hi Heather,

Do you guys do residential or commercial or is it a mix.  In general, you will want to make sure your pricebook is setup so that your estimators can generate an estimate on site if possible.  This will allow them to sell a job in the field but also accurately track close rates and make sure that they can utilize the follow up tab to keep track of all their open estimates.  I find a lot of shops that utilize your process of building the estimate back at the shop end up with a ton of jobs paused, done for now, or on hold and it can throw off getting accurate reporting and KPIs. 

There are different settings you can utilize if you need time to build out your pricebook for all the services you offer and the prices you have on them.  You can allow your techs to modify the item price in the field if bids for your services vary greatly.  I would encourage you at a minimum to have the estimator build at least 1 estimate, even if it just as a hold item and then close the job.  They can always come back to that open estimate if they need to from the office and modify it or create more estimates but you wont have a ton of jobs on hold, paused, etc and can then track them more effectively.  This also drives accountability and better results.  Once you have the proper estimate built, would then make sure you follow the proper work flow of selling the estimate, hitting perform work later if they are not going to be doing it on the spot now, and then booking the return job through the sold estimates tab.  Hope this helps.  

[HeatherDemel]

Thank you so much for your response. We do a mix of both residential and commercial. Most of the doors we sell are custom ordered so it is quite difficult to sell in the field. We would love to be able to do that at some point. In order to sell on-site, do you keep many doors on hand?

[ron_b]

Hi Heather,

Yes we make estimates while in the garage. Estimate Templates have made it really easy for the field crew to do the job while standing in the garage. This saves the office staff hours and makes a better customer experience.  

If you would like to learn more please keep asking questions. 

Ron B

One Clear Choice. 

[HeatherDemel]

Are your estimators managed technicians?

[jeisenman]

Hello Heather! Can you give me a little more detail and a contact email where I can further share more information with you. Heather are you onboarded with us yet? I want to make sure that I get you some world class help on this explaining the whole process all the way through. 

[HeatherDemel]

Thank you so much for reaching out! So our estimators do not normally give the estimates on-site. We go out and meet with the homeowners/builders and discuss their wants and needs. We will then go back to the office and prepare the estimate and email it. Sometimes this requires a second visit. I have found that building the estimate in ServiceTitan really has limitations on tracking things and reporting things on estimates such as source or who owns the estimate. So we tried out booking it as a job to go out to the appointment but this required the estimators to be managed technicians but they do not necessarily need to use ServiceTitan at the time they are on-site as we do not track them in that capacity. 

We have completed on-boarding and have a good handle on the system, it has just been hard to come up with an efficient process as we are more sales based than service. Feel free to email me at heather@precisedoorco.com. 

Thank you again for your time!!

[jeisenman]

Heather, I passed your email to one of the reps and he told me that there are similar situations with other customers and he will reach out to you to resolve this within 24 hours. Please update me if you have not received any response. jeisenman@servicetitan.com