Your close rate isn’t just made in the home. It’s made on the phone before the tech ever shows up. The person who answers with empathy on someone’s worst day, the dispatcher who sends the right tech and sets clear expectations. By the time your technician arrives, trust is either already there or already gone. Train the front of the funnel like it matters, because it does.

Many people in home services focus just on training and development for their technician, which makes sense, right? They're the ones going out in the home, they're having the conversations, they're building the options, they're trying to close the deal, so on and so forth. But I would argue that your call center and your dispatch team are just as important and have just as much impact on that close rate as anybody else and average ticket. All of the operational KPIs, your call center and your dispatch team have a ton of influence in how that tech performs. What do I mean by that? Well, did the person who answer the phone answer with a smile? Could you feel their smile through the phone? Could you feel their empathy through the phone? In home services, most customers are calling us on their worst day of the year. This is broke, my house has water in it, I don't have air conditioning, I don't have heat. So how are we on the phone going to empathize with that customer and understand, hey, I know that really stinks, but the good news is you called us and we're going to get somebody out there to fix it. And then our dispatch team working to make sure that they get the right technician to the right call, sending the person based on the information that we have, sending the person that has that skill set to take care of that problem. And also, communicating with the customer in a timely manner so that they know that when we are going to arrive, and then ultimately, the tech arrives. Well, if we do those first two things really, really well, what do you think that customer expectation and customer, like, understanding of who they called is? All of a sudden, that interaction between tech and customer, all of the walls are broken down because they already have such a high level of trust in the company. Now, you're a representative of that company, I should trust you as well.