How AI Actually Solves the Real Call Center Headaches in Home Services
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Release Date: 06/10/2026
How to Grow a Home Service Business by Buying Competitors, Not Ads | Alex Smereczniak
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
How to grow a home service business is usually pitched as one thing: spend more on marketing. Alex Smereczniak has a faster, cheaper answer most owners never consider. As co-founder and CEO of Franzy and a serial entrepreneur who scaled 2ULaundry and sold 118 franchise locations, he has bought, built, and financed businesses more ways than almost anyone. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Alex to unpack how to grow through acquisition instead of ads, why the wrong business partner is the number one reason companies fail, and how to finance a deal using tools most...
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Winning the Messy Middle: Home Services Marketing in the AI Era | MarketStorm
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Home services marketing has a hidden battleground, and most owners never fund it. It is the messy middle, the 40 to 100 days a homeowner spends circling a project before they ever search your name. Rick Brown and Carole Lawson of MarketStorm have spent years mapping that window, and what happens inside it decides who gets the call. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Rick, CEO and co-founder of MarketStorm, and Carole, its co-founder and chief data officer and a Harvard-trained data scientist, to break down how buyer behavior changed after the pandemic and why the...
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How One Focus Every 90 Days Scales Your Business | Josh Zolin
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Doing more does not scale your business. It stalls it. Diluted focus gets you diluted results, and the owners who grow fastest are usually the ones doing fewer things, not more. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Josh Zolin, CEO of Windy City Equipment Service and author of Blue is the New White, on how one simple shift, a single company wide focus every 90 days, took the guesswork out of hitting his goals. Josh breaks down how he points his entire company, from himself to the parts runner, at one goal each quarter, why focusing on less...
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Why Your Techs Are Losing Sales in 2026 | Justin Riley
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Service Scout (14 day free trial): This is the toughest year to close a sale in home services since 2008. Equipment costs more than ever, credit is tighter, and the customers calling for a replacement are the hardest ones to sell. The problem usually is not your leads. It is what happens when your technician walks in the door. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Justin Riley, CEO and founder of UpFrog, for a straight read on the 2026 home services market and how the best companies are still closing jobs hand over fist. Justin breaks...
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Systems That Outlast You: Building a Trades Business for Generations
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most companies do not last. A huge share of the biggest names in the world vanish within a few decades. The Smith & Oby Company has been running since 1898. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Jake Wattenbarger, president of Smith & Oby, a Foundral brand, a Cleveland mechanical contractor that has stayed relevant for 125 years by reading the market before it forces the issue, and by building systems and a culture that outlast any one person. Jake spent nearly a decade as an Army logistics officer before the trades, and it shows....
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How to Beat Private Equity Without Selling | Zach Cooper-Vastola
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Private equity is buying up home service companies and quietly gutting the good ones, and most owners think their only options are to sell or get outspent. There is a third one. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Zach Cooper-Vastola, co-founder of Hickory, who has bought and built home service companies across the tri-state to roughly 350 people and 80 million dollars in revenue, without ever running them from an ivory tower. Zach breaks down how he keeps technicians from walking out the door after an acquisition, why he...
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How Home Service Pros Hit 20% Net Margin | Profitability Partners
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most home service businesses keep just 5 to 12% net profit, and most owners have no idea that is where they are. The best run HVAC, plumbing, and electrical shops keep 20%, and the gap almost always comes down to a few fixable mistakes. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Matthew Mooney and Raymond Gong of Profitability Partners, a fractional CFO firm that spent years on the private equity side of the table and now helps owners find the profit already hiding in their business. They break down the real gross profit benchmarks for every...
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How AI Is Changing HVAC (Without Replacing Techs) | Chris Plunkett
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
AI is not coming for your techs. It is coming for the busywork, the missed calls, and the guesswork that quietly eats your margin. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett sits down with Chris Plunkett, a Tucson HVAC owner who has been in the trade since he was eight years old, to talk about what using AI in an HVAC business actually looks like day to day. They get into how Chris turned home inspections from a loss leader into one of his highest paying jobs, why his AI voice agent books calls so well that customers swear they were talking to a person, and the simple pay...
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Stop Missing Calls: The Real Reason Home Service Leads Disappear
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most home service companies do not have a lead problem. They have a missed-call problem. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Chris Nelson, Senior Manager of Vertical Marketing at CallRail, to talk about why home service leads disappear, how missed calls turn into lost revenue, and what contractors can do to better understand what is happening inside their call flow. This conversation is not just about answering the phone faster. It is about understanding where your leads come from, how they move through your business, and where good...
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How to Grow Your Business with Sales Process and Technique
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most contractors want more leads, more booked calls, and more revenue. But if your sales process is inconsistent, more leads will only expose the problem faster. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Josh Martin, Director of Revenue Strategy at 3Four Labs, to talk about how service businesses can grow by building a stronger sales framework, improving technician coaching, and using AI-powered tools the right way. Josh explains why AI and automation are only useful when your company already knows what “good” looks like. If your...
info_outlineMost home service companies don't have a lead problem.
They have a follow-up problem.
In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Kevin Wu, founder of Leaping AI, to discuss how AI voice agents and automation are helping home service businesses solve some of their biggest call center challenges.
From missed calls and slow follow-up times to after-hours booking and lead nurturing, Kevin shares how AI is being used as a practical tool to support customer service teams, improve speed-to-lead, and create better customer experiences without replacing people.
The conversation also explores the future of AI-powered call centers, how contractors can automate repetitive tasks, and why business owners should focus on using AI to eliminate bottlenecks instead of simply cutting payroll.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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Why speed-to-lead is still one of the biggest challenges in home services
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How AI voice agents help capture missed opportunities
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The difference between replacing employees and supporting employees
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Why call centers struggle with consistency and process adherence
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How AI can improve appointment scheduling and follow-up
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The role of AI in call monitoring and quality control
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Why data quality inside your CRM matters more than ever
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How AI can help clean and organize customer databases
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The future of automated outbound campaigns
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The risks of AI abuse and spam calling
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How responsible AI adoption can improve customer experience
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Why contractors should start experimenting with AI today
If you're looking for ways to improve call handling, increase booked appointments, and build a more efficient service business, this episode is packed with practical insights.
Timestamps
00:00 Challenges with contractor responsiveness
03:11 Kevin introduces himself
08:58 Kids' interest in trade careers
09:45 Issues with Customer Support Responsiveness
14:00 AI improving call center efficiency
18:33 Solving data analysis with AI
20:55 Improving business metrics accuracy
25:37 Implementing EOS for business owners
29:31 Focusing on business priorities
32:00 AI for persistent customer follow-up
35:27 Responsible AI use in marketing
39:33 Data export issues in QuickBooks
40:45 Using AI to clean CRM data
43:35 Trying something new for 30 minutes
Follow the Host and Guest
Tersh Blissett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tershblissett/
Joshua Crouch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-crouch/
Kevin Wu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-wu-452a6393/
Connect with Us
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This episode is kindly powered by:
UpFrog: upfrog.com
MarketStorm is an AI-powered advertising platform. Results vary by market, budget, and campaign configuration: https://marketstorm.ai/
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Breezy: Capture 25-30% more clients with Breezy AI Agents. Use code 'SBM' to book a demo and get $500 on us: https://getbreezyapp.com/schedule-demo
PhoneTAP: Your calls hold the key to growing your business. PhoneTAP gives you instant AI analysis, real customer lifetime value, and tools to coach your team. Learn more: phonetap.ai/demo