Revolutionizing Home Services: Brooks Pettus on AI’s Impact, Industry Breakthroughs, and Unrivaled Customer Service at Housecall Pro

Unlock the keys to exponential business growth as we sit down with Brooks Pettus, the unstoppable Chief Operating Officer at Housecall Pro. Ever wondered how a company could revolutionize an industry typically resistant to change? Brooks shares Housecall Pro’s inspiring journey, unveiling how their robust operating system has empowered 45,000 tradespeople to manage their businesses more efficiently. From overcoming the tech resistance in HVAC, plumbing, and electrical sectors to ensuring an unparalleled customer experience, Brooks reveals the strategic moves that have steered their impressive seven-year climb.

What if AI could be the game-changer your business needs? Brooks dives into the transformative potential of AI in enhancing business operations. Guided by the brilliance of co-founder Ian, Housecall Pro is pioneering AI advancements that level up team skills and performance, making them as sharp as the business owner’s vision. Imagine AI as your ever-present assistant, endlessly knowledgeable and consistent, ensuring that your team always delivers top-notch quality and efficiency. Brooks parallels this AI evolution with historic technological breakthroughs, illustrating just how indispensable this tool is becoming.

Lastly, explore how revolutionary conversational AI is setting new standards in hiring and customer service. Brooks discusses innovative tools that streamline hiring processes, making it quicker and more effective than ever. Additionally, discover how Housecall Pro’s Assist Business leverages AI to ensure no customer call goes unanswered, even after hours, addressing a critical industry pain point. Brooks invites you to connect directly at brookspettus@housecallpro.com for personalized support, reaffirming his commitment to helping your business thrive and improve every single day.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:57

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and I'm here with my friend, brooks Pettis, with Housecall Pro. What's up, brooks? How are you? I'm doing great, corey. How are you? Good to see you, good to see you. So, brooks, you want to tell everybody a little bit about your position with Housecall Pro, a little bit about yourself, before we dive into our conversation today.

Speaker 2: 1:18

little bit about yourself before we dive into our conversation today. Absolutely, I'd love to. Yeah, so, brooks Pettis, chief Operating Officer. People always say what does that mean? It's a job that really the CEO gets to define.

Speaker 2: 1:30

And what the business needed when I got here seven or so years ago at Housecall Pro is we had very technical founders who built this incredible product to help people in the trades have an operating system to run their business, and what they needed was a business partner to help them actually build a business around all that great IP that they built, figure out how to go to market and get customers in the door, keep those customers and help those pros, as we call them, get to success. And those founders and I have spent the last seven plus years, from being a very small company to a much bigger company today, in telling our story, serving the mission of helping pros get to success and thrive. And they're good at the product and I was good at the go to market and magic has happened over this time frame. We've been very, very blessed along the way along the way.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Not an easy feat, being on the technology and technical side and working with contractors.

Speaker 2: 2:29

That was a tough bridge to get out by bed. That is one way to say it. I would say people in the trades like, again, hvac, plumbing, electrical, home cleaning, carpet cleaning not the most tech forward group in the world, not in a hurry to adopt technology, home cleaning, carpet cleaning not the most tech forward group in the world, right, not in a hurry to adopt technology, not keen to go spend that money on an app or a service when they could go spend money on marketing or get a new truck or whatever it is. So we had to tell our story like the migration has been happening right Offline to online of everything. I mean, just think Amazon. Right, that's the most obvious story of mankind, like the modern human. Offline to online. People go to stores. Now they go, do everything one click away. Well, that offline online migration has been everywhere around us in our world. That's been a slower migration than other places because the customer is just not in a hurry. They're not tech forward per se, but they're getting there. Man, the beauty of our business, the reason why we have 45,000 customers today, companies at Housecall Pro, is because they realize they have to become more contemporary. They have to get to the brave new world. As I say, they have to adopt technology to really serve their customer.

Speaker 2: 3:44

And the one thing I'll tell you a quick story the most informative thing in all these years of working here that I heard is on a sales call. And the pro said I said what's your superpower, what are you great at? And he goes. You know what? In the early days I was pretty good at the work, but you know what? One day I woke up I realized the customer can't tell how good my work is, but you know what that customer knows. They know what it feels like to work with my company.

Speaker 2: 4:10

And that guy had that light bulb moment that it's obsession around the customer that wins the day. And so from that moment on I'm like, oh my God, this is how we get this customer to win. The reason why pros will adopt is because they deeply care about taking care of their customer and creating a long relationship with that customer. So they're back in that house once or twice a year, not just when shit breaks oh, sorry, stuff breaks, no, you're good. So that obsession around the customer is what our pros need to understand. And when that light bulb goes off for them, they realize they need to partner with someone like Housecall Pro to get all the services, all the tools that we provide, so they can focus on the things that they're great at, which is the work and taking care of that customer. Actually, that's kind of the whole story of our business in a nutshell, right there.

Speaker 1: 4:57

At a reasonable price in comparison to a lot, very reasonable.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Indeed, I would say some of our competitors charge four times as much for a product. That is today, and it wasn't always true. Our product has evolved wildly in the last few years. Our engineering team went from about 40 people to about 350 product people in engineer estate, 350 people cranking code every day, building this incredible portfolio of products, hardening those products, making them world class so that we can help our pros do everything they need, like the turnkey solution to everything in that business except the work and taking care of the customer. And it's been an evolutionary process.

Speaker 2: 5:36

But today we are that company. We can help those pros, with a single sign-on, do damn near everything they could think of and dream of and we care about their success and we're willing to deliver a very to your point, corey, a very valuable price relative to our peers. And do you know why that is? I mean, like we started with a one-person carpet cleaner that was our customer when I got here. And when you can figure out how to build a mobile solution and price it so the one-person owner-operator of a carpet cleaning business can get to success, you get to average of five people. It's a walk in the park by comparison. So we just were really focused on value early and we just kept adding to that value equation with products and services over time and we never really scaled up our pricing. I don't think we've even matched the rate of inflation over the last seven years. I've been here honestly because we just want to make sure the pro succeeds more than anything in this business.

Speaker 1: 6:32

That makes complete sense. I wish everybody thought that way, both in business. You know just so many people that just get. You know they just don't. They just can't see the value portion of this. I don't know if you think it's like smoke and mirrors or what, but it's where it's at. I mean, if you do right by people, they're going to do right by you, but also if you don't do right by people, you're going to get shit on.

Speaker 2: 6:55

Yeah, you know, I think that goes back to our mission and I'll give you another quick anecdote on this one because I think it's important. This is actually the first truly mission-driven company that I've operated in my whole lifetime. I've been an operator for a long while and I've been lucky enough to serve and help grow many a company and when I met Ian who is now the president, was the CEO and is one of the co-founders brilliant, human being. That first hour I met him, corey, all he talked about was helping people like his dad Butch. His dad Butch was a painter. This whole company exists because of Butch. Actually, because I just want to help people like my dad Butch do better. I want them to have the help of a company like Housecall Pro, our software, our services. I want them to do better. There's not a BS. You usually hear from a founder like I'm going to make all this money, I'm going to be famous, I'm going to be able to cover whatever. All Ian cared about was this mission. It wasn't called a mission then. It was just like I just want to help people like my dad Butch do better. Man, we're smart enough we can help them do that. He was so obsessed, so fixated on that outcome. That's the reason why this company is so special and that's the reason why we think about our mission before we think about monetization. We just want to take care of the pro. We want that pro to thrive.

Speaker 2: 8:14

We know how fricking hard it is to be a small business owner. Can you imagine like you go out in the field I say this to all our employees all the time, anytime. Like you know, we talk about work Imagine doing your job and then having a second job Like the first job is the one you go crank the wrench every day. Then you have to come home and figure out how to run a small business and grow that small business. I mean, that's two really hard jobs and you have to wear both of them and you're writing the checks for all of it. That's hard, so it's very humbling. We serve our mission. We build a value equation for our customer that works and we've just been lucky that 45,000 companies wanted to partner with us over the last years and we grow at an incredible rate because we're just lucky, blessed, and we work hard to take care of the customer.

Speaker 1: 8:57

And you do the right thing.

Speaker 2: 8:58

We do the right thing yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:00

So, important.

Speaker 2: 9:02

Aren't there many companies that do the right thing.

Speaker 1: 9:03

It's the truth, unfortunately. So, you know, for the people that are listening today, let's talk about the pros of AI. You know this is a big thing. In my world it's, I would say it's the future. But the future's here, but a lot of our people don't. They're not, they're not adopting it as quickly. I don't know if it's just maybe they don't have time. The guy that's running his business and turning wrenches, he certainly doesn't have time to dive into, even chat GPT lots of times. So let's talk about some of those benefits and what you guys are doing to educate these guys, and then also what you're doing as a company to grow with this new technology.

Speaker 2: 9:54

Yeah, this is super interesting. This is one of those areas that Ian again co-founder. Like Ian's one of the three smartest people. I've been incredibly fortunate to meet a bunch of smart people in my lifetime by the nature of my work, all these crazy things I've done in my lifetime. Ian's one of the three smartest people I've ever met. He makes my head hurt. He's so smart. So now today, he leads our innovation.

Speaker 2: 10:16

How do we build these moonshot products that are going to make a huge difference in the world and change the lives of these pros? And AI is right at the forefront of it. So we have this really keen mind, a phenomenal team out there building and investing in a strategy and execution against AI. And you said it, corey like that is coming at you like a fricking freight train, like it is so fast moving. Every single day it changes. That's how dynamic the AI world is and you read about it if you actually care to read about it. You read about how fast it is everywhere, but specifically in the trades, it's moving every bit as fast and Ian, to his credit, is right there at the forefront of it and is wound up about this topic, as he was about our mission when I met him. He's just batshit crazy about it. So here's what we talk about and I'll try to contextualize it and I'll try to be specific if it'll help you, perfect. So it's here. It's something that we're all going to live with and breathe with, naturally, in the time to come. It's like the automobile, it's like the phone, it's like the you know, this mobile device. It's one of those things that is going to be pervasive, it's going to be everywhere before you know it.

Speaker 2: 11:30

But always, like in history, you go back and study history. I mean, I was a history major in college. I was a business guy in college, I was a history major. I went back and say the patterns of humans over time and they just repeat themselves over and over again, right? So, like you know, when we went from the horse-drawn carriage to the automobile, right, people were unbelievably resistant to the danger and the risk of the automobile and all these laws were created against it.

Speaker 2: 11:59

And Andreessen has talked about this, one of these really smart guys in the tech world, mark Andreessen, right, you've probably heard of him, you've probably listened. I'm sure that guy's just wicked smart too, and he just talks about all these theories and one of the things he talks about is this theory about the automobile, the carriage of the automobile. People want to put their head in the sand. That's dangerous, that's bad, I want nothing to do with it. It's going to kill people, it's going to cause harm. Well, five years later, they're driving a Model T, whether they liked it or not, and they're like oh my God, I can't imagine the time when I didn't have the Model T. That's just human nature.

Speaker 2: 12:27

Right, internet comes along. Right, phone, mobile phone comes along. These are one of these, like AI is one of these forces that people are both drawn to and terrified of, equal parts. And the reality is fast forward. Everybody's going to be on board soon enough. The question is just not if it's a matter of when. So we look at that and say it's coming. So how do we lead and how do we serve our customer in a very thoughtful way, with our strategies, with all the resources that we're blessed to have, and our view is that look just like Ian said hey, we can build software and services to help people like my dad, butch, do better. Ai is an argument that imagine if we can make everybody in your company smarter tomorrow than they are today, more capable tomorrow than they are at this moment in time. And imagine the world with AI. That Housecall Pro can help.

Speaker 2: 13:27

Let's say, corey, you have your own HVAC business. Right, you have 10 employees. The one thing that probably keeps you up at night because I've heard this over and over and over again the thing that keeps our pros up at night is I'm here. I'm the standard for my business, right or wrong. I'm kind of the gold standard of my business. I have nine other employees and the risk in my business is between me and them and my customer. They don't know how to do things as well as I do. They're not as consistent, they're not as thoughtful, they're not as whatever it is. Pick a topic and every time they do something. That's not my standard. The customer's at risk in between. Right, that's the thing that keeps these pros up at night. Like you know, they can payroll whatever it is like. That's the thing.

Speaker 2: 14:08

And all the owners say how do I get my team to be as thoughtful, as systematic, as relentless as I am? It's leveling up the team. So imagine with. This is a punchline right.

Speaker 2: 14:23

Imagine with AI. You, as the owner of Corey's HVAC, can take your team and level them up overnight to your standard. Imagine someone gets to ride shotgun with them as if you were a ghost in the machine right next to them all day long, right around the truck with them and helping them do their job better. Imagine if you're essentially cloning yourself as the standard of your business and you can be in the truck with your team or back in the office with your team, helping them make better decisions, do their job better, do their job to their standards. That's what AI should do in the trade world, in our opinion. It helps level up your team, makes them smarter, more capable, more like you in the quality of execution all day long, because really, the reason why you're good is you have a data bank of knowledge that you apply in the decisions you make every day right, and that's why your company is so successful.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Ian's view of the world now our view of the world as a company, is that we can take that equation and compress the risk out of it to some degree maybe not all of it, but definitely some of it and help our pros sleep better at night, help those pros be more successful and, by the way, do it, like you said earlier, right In a really valuable, cost-effective way, add a resource in their business that levels everybody up in a way that's hopefully transformative for their companies and their odds of succeeding. Which goes right back to our original mission like help these pros succeed at a level they couldn't on their own. So that's it. That's it. That's like I get a bunch of technical stuff what we're doing, but like that's the gist of what we're trying to accomplish as a company and we have big teams working on it every day to try that outcome.

Speaker 1: 16:43

You hit it nail on the head because it's know the a lot of a lot of guys. You know they, uh, you know they, they don't want to let go of the control of those, the people under them, leveling up because you know it's my company, I need to do the thing, but here's what I really need to drive home and to your exact point, you can literally clone yourself. Like we built an hvac technician bot very similar to uh. We actually built it before they did. Uh, what? What blue on has? I forgot the name master mechanic same exact thing.

Speaker 1: 17:14

And so I was on a phone. Uh, I was on the phone the other day with a customer. He was an electrical, so I'm sure you can imagine he's got a thousand technical questions, but the average guy just doesn't know, nor do they care about, and really doesn't matter. What do you think I did? I just pulled up my technician bot and every time he asked me a question I said let me look at my database and I spit it out like I was like I was an electrical engineer Right, and it closed the sale because, holy crap, I'm pretty smart.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Yeah, he got off the phone with a guy that's been in the industry for 30 years and said, oh, I'm talking to Corey, I'm good, I'm talking to the guy I need to talk to and I'm like, wow, that's pretty amazing. Everybody on the team could have the exact same experience. You just got to open your mind to these things and embrace the fact that you can grow exponentially faster with these type things. This is just one thing. This is one thing.

Speaker 2: 18:12

One thing Imagine if I could wake up tomorrow and I'm 20 points smarter on my IQ. I mean I would give up damn near anything to be that smart. Right, and there's a machine, there's a little black box out there that can make me 20 points on IQ smarter if I just listen to it, if I just embrace it. And again it's coming. The question is the choice you're going to make as a small business owner, as that person trying to level up your team, drive performance, drive, success, drive, probability of outcome. There's a little black box out there that, when you tune it up and listen to it, can really help everyone be that much smarter, that much more performant. That's like mana from heaven. We have a pretty good perspective on how to deliver that payload.

Speaker 2: 19:03

So kudos to Ian kudos, to our CEO and the founders. We just have a good perspective on this and we're investing in it and it's moving fast.

Speaker 1: 19:13

All right. So there's two things. One that I want to tell you about because it's really cool. It's an opportunity. I'm getting ready to join a different. I've already joined the team, actually and what we've done is we've taken 20, I think it's 20,000 or 2,000, doesn't matter. The numbers are relevant case studies of the exact way to hire technician CSR, and so it eliminates let's just say you guys have a job ad out on Indeed.

Speaker 1: 19:45

I mean, somebody applies Processes. Normally they apply. Somebody from HR calls them, they set up a phone interview, then they have an in-person interview, potentially, or a Zoom interview, and then they have to talk to somebody. It's four or five steps before they really talk to the person that's going to hire them, and then you still don't really know who you're getting. You're just getting the person that you think showed up on the call and it's usually different than the guy you really hired. And so we've taken that process and shrunk it, made it completely automated and it's really fascinating. There's video involved and I won't dive too deep into it, but it's really cool. The second question or that wasn't even a question, but the second thing I want to ask you about is how are you seeing conversational AI coming into play with house call product.

Speaker 2: 20:38

Let me see what I can say. And I won't say yeah, because it'll come at you live here sooner than you can shake a stick at it. People don't want to read stuff, right they?

Speaker 2: 20:54

don't want to listen to things for too long. They want answers in a really consumable format, and it can be a really complex question. They just want to trust the source of information and say it's going to help me make a better decision, do the right thing right. So there's lots of mediums that are out there, I think, on how to leverage the data and the database, tune it up in a way that makes it more usable and then let people ask the right question in the way and this is the modality they want to ask it and get good answers in real time.

Speaker 2: 21:28

It isn't like I'm going to go study something and then go do something. It's the all day, every day, little turns and choices that people make and they want to ask a question and get an answer right. So I think that's my thing about AI's benefit. It's like chat, cpt works. I have a question, fire it, get an answer. Oh, holy crap, I'm going to do it this way Bang bang, bang. I do this marketing piece, I do whatever it is. I think in our world, situationally, the pro and their team want to be able to ask questions and things they don't understand, trust the source and get good answers in real time, all day, every day, and in a medium that works for them. That make sense.

Speaker 1: 22:05

It does so, and you took a little bit different direction than my intention. So I agree with everything that you just said 100%. The easier the better. So what about? So? One of the things that we've been working on is I mean, it's no secret that after-hour call centers are usually less than average. I'll say that the best politely. What are you thinking about? From the CSR perspective? That's right. And from the customer? Yeah so, to be able to call in, always, get somebody on the line, even though it's a trained, I got you, yeah so, and answer any question that you want to ask it about what you're calling in about, and then go and book the call on the calendar without talking to a human being.

Speaker 2: 22:59

Yeah, our house called Pro Assist Business, which I'm sure you're well aware of. Pro assist business, which I'm sure you're well aware of, um, I've personally developed our strategy. Our ceo and I did this together and build by. We ended up building it and we have thousands of customers now using our service. And it's still humans taking the call, getting jobs on calendar, like the.

Speaker 2: 23:22

The meta objective, the big objective, as you well know, in that whole domain is catch the call. So your competitor doesn't 24-7, 365. Somebody answers that call. You win Because and I know this, I've called so many pros they either don't answer the phone or their voicemail box is full. I literally cannot get a hold of you to give you money, even when I want to. So that's the great failing in the industry because the pros are busy, their voicemail box is full, they don't have some other overflow, and then they wonder why they don't have the jobs in the calendar. Well, that's like let the customer find you and book you the way they want to. So we built this great business to have humans catch those calls 24-7 for our pro and get jobs on calendar. And that ACP Assist business has thrived for all of our House Call Pro customers.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Now the future state, which is right here on the doorstep and we're already testing, is hey look, I'm like a side hustler. I'm still. You know, I have a day job but I work nights and weekends cleaning windows, whatever. Pick a job, right, and because I'm working full time for somebody else, I can't catch that call. But my budget's like small. So we think our customer they've expressed interest in building a machine-based product that can catch the call, get all the key information from their customer, fire a quick note to them and say you know, mrs Pettis just called. She's in this zip code. She needs somebody to come out and clean all the windows because her mother's coming to town Now. Instead of all that noise of all the spam, of all the check-ins, all the false stuff, it's just noisy for disruptive. If I'm working part-time or I'm busy, now I get this distilled, perfect message that the machine sounded just like me, caught and sent over to me, and that's where we are today. So we have a alpha product out there that's already testing, a machine-based solution that's very, very cost-effective, that captures the information and fires it over to the pro and then they can very efficiently hit, click, call Mrs Pettis back, boom. There you are. That value equation is huge for the pro because it's like money is just literally sitting in the line. I just got to call him back now. I'm not guessing. I know Over time, as you imagine, that machine is going to get better and better and better and smarter and more capable of doing all the things it needs to do to be a complementary force to the human CSR equation.

Speaker 2: 26:04

To be a complementary force to the human CSR equation. And the value equation is just a question of you. Pick what you want. You want this highly customized people-driven formula for your customer experience, or are you willing to trade off a little bit of that for the machine reality at a much more cost-effective rate? Pick your poison. It's up to you, and that's what is enabled by the machine and AI. And so that's the way the world is already like again. Like that freight train we talked about coming at you fast. It's like right here in my garage, racing through the house here. The question is where am I going to hitch on? Right, right, so from a personal.

Speaker 1: 26:41

I know we're getting short on time, so I'll just wrap up with this. So, personally, um, do you would you rather have a? Would you rather have a phone call with let's just call it a robot that sounds practically human and get all your answers, all your questions answered effectively every single time, or would you, you know, would you rather you rather roll the dice on the human experience? And I know that answer is probably different for a lot of people, but I think that answer is not going to be that different before long.

Speaker 2: 27:17

I would agree. The technology is evolving to a point where people what we found and what we've studied is that people want to know it's a machine, it's a robot essentially answering the call. They don't want you to think you're faking it. They don't want to know that, like, hey, this is Corey's HVAC, my assistant here is going to help you out, get you all the information you need. I'm going to give you, I'm going to fire back a call to you right away. They're like oh, you're going to solve my problem. I already hear your voice, I trust it's you. Let me get that information to the machine. Off we go. But as you sort of extend that out, like, hey, this is Corey, corey's HVAC, my assistant here is not only going to get all the information booked. That job, Does that sound good? Let's go.

Speaker 2: 28:05

And so that evolution is going to keep happening. Where the trust is there, the transparency is there, and then compounding that trust and you get to the outcome you want, which, again, my wife, mrs Pettis. All she cares about is that someone's going to show up and fix the hot air problem in this house, because that's all she knows is the problem. She wants the solution If she knows that that truck's showing up at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning and she trusts that person is going to show up. Man, that is just everything she needs in this world. That's great, so that's where we're headed.

Speaker 2: 28:32

We're after it. We're making a great investment in it. Thank god for ian in this world and the investment willing to make as a company to help our pros. Honestly, like it just blows my hair back if I had to. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Well, brooks dude, I really you know, really enjoyed this conversation. I just really appreciate you coming on today. If somebody wants to try to get a hold of you, how would you suggest they do that?

Speaker 2: 28:57

If they're a House Call Pro customer the blue chat bubble they can just ask away and ask for Brooks or ask for these solutions and get information. If not, they can email me and look, I'll take the email and I will help them out. It's brookspettis at housecallprocom. That's a lot. That's a lot of letters. Maybe you can put in your show notes or something like that. Just brookspettis at housecallprocom. Please reach out to me. I am here to serve you. If you are a pro and you want to know how we can help you in any way, that is my job. I am a servant to you, so reach out to me. I will get back to you. My team will help you out and we'll get you to better off tomorrow than you are today.

Speaker 1: 29:36

Yeah, and there's also. There'll be a link in the show notes, the howstallprocom forward slash successful life, I think something like that. But you'll have it in the show notes. But, brooks, thank you, my friend Appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 29:47

This is a jam. Thanks a lot for your time. I appreciate all the great questions.

Speaker 1: 29:51

You got it, my friend.