By Francesco Lo Presti
Information for this article was taken from Derrick Berney’s, co-founder of LeadSecretary, Business Management Technical Training, presentation titled “Business Management AI Practical Back Office Solutions for Plumbing & HVAC Contractors.”
It’s hard to ignore how prevalent artificial intelligence (AI) has become in our lives. But instead of just using AI to find the best travel destination or rewrite an email, business owners can leverage this tool as an efficient back-office solution.
The fact of the matter is AI in trades is still in its infancy. In a survey conducted by ServiceTitan, 70 per cent of contractors stated that AI is relevant to the industry and their business. However, in that same survey, only 12 per cent stated that they have embedded AI into how they work day-to-day.
When it comes to adopting AI in the workplace, businesses that adopt early have an edge over the competition, answering every call faster, providing faster quotes, and running more efficiently. In any business, but especially in service or retail, the most expensive machine in the business is the unanswered phone, and there are numbers to prove it.
In the 2024 Invoca Call Analytics survey, it was reported that 27 per cent of inbound calls to home-service businesses go unanswered. That same survey, but from 2025, showed that 73 per cent of home-service calls come outside the regular nine-to-five workday; this means nights, weekends, or emergencies.
The BIA/Kelsey Consumer Research survey also shows that 85 per cent of callers who reach voicemail don’t call back. Lastly, the Invoca Home-Service benchmark found that, on average, there is more than $1,200 in missed revenue from missed service calls.
These numbers show that as a service provider, missing phone calls are detrimental to business. But AI can help solve missed phone calls and much more.
AI solutions
AI as a business solution can be used in four key areas: the front office and phones, operations, the field, and the business side.
Starting with the front office and phones, AI can be utilized as a voice agent. The first benefit of voice AI is that it never sleeps or misses. Regardless of whether it’s 2 a.m. or 2 p.m., voice AI will take the call. With an AI voice agent, the call will come in, the AI will answer instantly, ask the customer triage questions, book the job, quote the fee, and text the customer the job confirmation and ETA. If the customer call is a true emergency, the AI will also contact your on-call technician.
In a case data study done in 2026 by ServiceTitan, one HVAC firm’s AI voice agent booked $74,000 worth of revenue in three months.
As we mentioned earlier, voice AI will be there when your people aren’t, specifically during off-business hours. What voice AI will not do is take the calls your best people are winning. When it comes to upset customers, complaints, or callbacks, that will still be handled by your people. Voice AI will help pick up missed opportunities. Complicated issues or higher-level issues that AI can’t handle should be handed off to your people.
Operations
The second way that AI can be used as a solution is in operations, or as we call it, speed to lead. What speed to lead means is that the first company to respond usually wins. This theory is supported by the numbers shown in Figure 2.
We already covered phone calls, but this solution is focusing more on the web, aka customers filling out forms on websites, searching for local businesses, or text chats. You can utilize AI in this scenario to provide instant contact with potential customers. This will help generate more jobs from ad leads, as customers receive instant feedback rather than a callback 30 minutes later.
AI can also help your business implement better scheduling and dispatch standards. Essentially, dispatching involves making various judgement calls throughout the day. By using AI, these judgement calls can now be made more consistently, and AI will instantly help re-plan when your day gets busy.
Planning inventory is another challenge that can be addressed with AI, which can track what is on each truck and which stock your technicians use most. This works by having barcodes or QR codes on the truck, which are fed to the AI system.
In this scenario, you can evaluate your fleet on average. Now you will instantly see if one truck is using more of a certain product. From there, AI can help recommend the ideal stock per truck. It can also learn from your job history to ensure inventory is ordered in advance, rather than backordered.
Know before you go
Another option for using AI is to include a dedicated pre-job assessment. Instead of having your technician go out to the job to assess an issue with a heat pump, you could have customers send a picture of the unit to your AI system. Now, even before you get to the job, the AI system can read the model plates and conditions to give you an idea before you even get to the job.
AI can also help draft your good, better, best options from your price book for customers by analyzing past jobs to find the best fit for this new job. It can also serve as your pricebook manager by monitoring material costs through supplier invoices and repricing feeds. For example, AI can flag flat-rate items whose margins have eroded, send alerts on jobs quoted below target margin, or highlight materials that never got billed.
As we mentioned at the start of the article, most people use AI to answer questions. This can also be used in the field by contractors or technicians. There are AI software systems you can use as your personal support system. This can be a helpful tool for new apprentices out in the field who need support in the moment. Again, this will not replace experienced journeypersons and their wisdom or industry training; this is about a young apprentice having another tool in their belt to help them on the job. AI can be used as a training multiplier, not a shortcut around proper training.