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- [00:00]
A
In 2025, there are two things that are dominating the space. We got AI on one hand and blue collar on the other side. Larry Fink recently said that there's going to be a shortage of 500,000 electricians here in the near future, just inside their portfolio alone. And so today I've got a few guys with me over from Call Source that are a little counter AI right now. You know, in a world where we're literally trying to automate the human out of everything in 2025, today we're going to talk a little bit about what is the alternative? What does that actually look like? And so give me, give me an update. What are you guys have been in the trade space for a long time.
- [00:47]
B
Absolutely. We've been working with trades businesses for 20 plus years. We worked with either through manufacturers or direct with retailers. I'd say about 25,000 businesses. 25,000, yes.
- [01:06]
A
So you guys know what you're talking about?
- [01:08]
B
Yeah, we know a thing or two. Yes, we followed the evolution of technology. Today we are talking AI. Ten years ago we were talking SaaS, but ultimately we believe that there are certain foundational principles that build great businesses, whether it's AI, whether it's SaaS, whether it's people power. And we need to be mindful of the mix of what we are using.
- [01:40]
A
I mean it's interesting. Obviously there are all different types of AI solutions in the marketplace. Basic from replacing Google with ChatGPT to Go and search, we'll see what's going on to, all the way up until where like people are building full blown apps and development and everything. You got agent work that's taking place. I think pretty prevalent right now in the trades is we got the voice AI bots right? Like these, these guys are coming in. I mean we see it all over, all over the place. In fact, we have a couple partners in, in the space that, that provide those type of services.
- [02:14]
B
And so so do we, by the way.
- [02:16]
A
Okay, so so do we. So I mean the question's got to be like, okay, is that the right move?
- [02:21]
C
Right?
- [02:21]
A
Like it. Should we be replacing all humans with voice AI bots with text bots? Like, or like what do you guys see happening in the marketplace right now? Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free here on YouTube. Now let's dive back in the show.
- [02:40]
C
Well, I think the, well I think the interesting thing is right AI Bots are scalable, right? And that's the first thing that people go into is how can I scale back my call center? You have agents that go on vacation, they get sick. AI bots. Don't they handle all of those inbound calls or whatever you have set up in that process. I think the interesting part to that, though, AI is only good as you program and the data that you put into it, right? If you're not programming it correctly, you're not going to have the right conversations over the phone, and your customers who call in are actually going to get upset. Transfer me to a live agent. Some of those calls don't even close. We listened to thousands of calls where the customer literally just hangs up and they're pissed. So it's like, how do you bridge that gap, right, from that AI agent on the inbound side, leveraging humans to either follow up with those missed opportunities or ultimately transfer that to someone in your call center.
- [03:36]
B
So quickly, if I may add to this. And Jay's fantastic, right? So the application of AI we have to be mindful of. So in the background, if you are taking a brochure making it prettier, AI does a fantastic job. But when we are talking directly with a customer or a prospect, that's where our position is, that a. That a hybrid solution works better than a pure AI solution.
- [04:12]
A
So do you think there's a world where AI is better than like 50% of the CSRs out there?
- [04:19]
B
It will get there for sure, right? That is an eventuality. But the question is, are we there today? And as a business owner, are you willing to risk that today by implementing a pure AI solution?
- [04:39]
A
Oh, I'll tell you, I mean, that's. That's my number one fear. I mean, that's what keeps us going from all in on, like, AI sales agents. Because the reality is, I mean, our experience just in. In like even selling information or whatnot is like, man, we don't get those appointments booked because these guys are like, no, I don't want to deal with AI.
- [04:57]
B
So. So one of the interesting things our company does is we are engaged to audit the efficacy of a third party AI bot. And we have some interesting statistics around that that we would love to share.
- [05:14]
C
I'll just share them right now.
- [05:16]
B
All right. Love it. Let's do it. Let's do it.
- [05:18]
C
Last month alone, we had one of our largest clients. They had 33,000 inbound phone calls.
- [05:24]
A
33,000?
- [05:25]
C
Yeah.
- [05:25]
B
11.
- [05:26]
A
What kind of volume is this client doing on, like, a revenue standpoint?
- [05:29]
C
There are about 75 million on there. Right. And so you're going to have some small to medium sized businesses. Obviously this is large. But of those 33,000 calls, 11,000 of them were handled by an AI agent. All right, so 33% of those inbound calls handled by this AI bot.
- [05:47]
A
Question for you. If they have 11. So it's a third of them. Yeah. Are they, are they exercising like after hours AI or is it just they're. They're implementing it alongside their current agents.
- [05:58]
C
So it's alongside their current agents. Right. So they have their call center, roughly 15 people. Anything else beyond that overflow all goes to the AI. Got it from there. Then what are those results? Right. So as we mentioned, 11,000 calls last month alone in November, 1200 of them had zero outcome. Like it was.
- [06:22]
B
Right?
- [06:23]
C
Yeah. So yeah, 1200 calls, zero outcome. Nothing.
- [06:27]
A
When you say zero outcome, you're saying there was nothing at like dispositioned.
- [06:32]
C
Nothing. Disposition, nothing in the CRM at all. Right. So you got over 10 of your calls that you don't even know what to do with.
- [06:38]
B
Yeah.
- [06:39]
C
So the remaining calls that were there, 3,300 of them had the wrong disposition. What does that mean? 40. Over 40% of the calls handled by the AI agent. You, you had no idea if it was correct or not? I as a business owner, I don't know which 40% that is. Right, Right. So I'm going to have to go back in and either reclassify all of them or have a team of individuals because there's no possible way I can go through 11,000 phone calls and, and reclassify them in any situation.
- [07:09]
D
But I think that's one of the key problems. Right. Is a lot of these CSR managers and business owners are hiring AI bots or enabling this because they don't have the capacity to do that.
- [07:18]
A
Right.
- [07:18]
D
But we just created the same problem with AI and now we have to go back and unravel what it did to identify where the problems are.
- [07:25]
A
You know, it's interesting. I would say this is very much like akin to just outsourcing your marketing and not having any idea like from a strategy standpoint. Because one thing we talk about in our, in our community is like, you need to own your marketing strategy. I don't care if you hire an agency to do the work or whatnot. You need to know exactly what work that they are doing and give them, be able to guidance. I think a lot of these business owners are just like turning it over to this AI bot and saying, please solve my Problem is not a strategy.
- [07:59]
B
And it's unfortunate. Right. Because you, you as a business owner, chances are you're not the marketing expert. Right. So default is you're thinking, wait, I'm hiring an expert. Right, Right. And then staying hands off, assuming it's all going to work out.
- [08:17]
A
So that's probably happening a ton with these AI agents.
- [08:19]
B
With the AI agents, the exact same issue, which is, wait, I have a problem. Most people know their problem, that my conversion rate is off or I'm not generating enough leads, whatever that may be. But is it simply enough to hire the expert and assume my problems are gone? Right.
- [08:40]
C
So let me go back to those 1200 phone calls that had no outcome. 130 of them actually were a booked call. When we listened to it went through. Yes. Here's a date and time that the customer said or the AI agent said issue that never got put to the dispatch board. So now you have, there was 130.
- [08:57]
A
People expecting for someone to show up. That's even worse.
- [09:01]
C
Yeah.
- [09:01]
A
So that's it. Not only did you miss out on deals, but you damaged your brand.
- [09:06]
B
Right, right, right. So if you're in a local market, all it is your brand, how do.
- [09:11]
C
You know if actually got that booking? You don't. Right.
- [09:13]
A
So what kind of service was this?
- [09:16]
C
What do you mean? H Vac?
- [09:18]
A
This is H Vac. Yep, yep, got it. And so, and then what's their close rate typically on those appointments?
- [09:25]
C
Typically on close rate, 70%.
- [09:27]
A
70%.
- [09:28]
C
So on 130 you're probably going to have about 100 or so.
- [09:31]
A
Well, that's 90.
- [09:32]
C
130.
- [09:33]
A
That would be 91. Yeah. And 91 at their average ticket, what's their average ticket?
- [09:39]
C
Blended average is about 700.
- [09:41]
A
700. Yeah. So I mean, just on the. Those that they didn't know what they did with.
- [09:46]
C
Correct.
- [09:47]
A
They missed $65,000. That's crazy. Doing some calculations over here.
- [09:52]
C
Yeah.
- [09:52]
A
So keep going. This is nuts.
- [09:55]
C
So again, it goes back to all of the calls that it handled. There was a bunch of unbooked opportunities as well. Right. At the end of the day, as I mentioned before, you're going to have the customer who's trying to get a booking with AI. One of the biggest issues besides the programming and the data. And how many different types of jobs does an H VAC contractor do?
- [10:17]
B
Right.
- [10:17]
C
You look at all of those job types that are listed in your CRM, there's a plethora of things out of that, then you're going to go through and latency is an issue, right. When you're talking to a human, I know when to respond to your inquiry. Or I can say, hey, you know, give me a second, let me take a look in my CRM and give me a moment. What you find though, is with that latency, people don't have a perfect call, right? I'm a customer. Oh, let me think about that. I gotta, I gotta talk to my wife. I gotta. And in this process that AI bot tries to respond, if there is just a small little silence gap in there, and all of a sudden the AI bot repeats itself and the customer's like, wait a minute, what's happening here? Wait, now I have to repeat myself. And all of a sudden, at the end of the day, that customer is like, right. It's always frustrating. And so at the end of the day, they ended up hanging up the call. Right? So again, the 1200 opportunities that never got flagged, 240 of them just hung up.
- [11:16]
A
Okay, so. So that was 40% of the other 60% that were done by AI. Do you know the results on those? Like, and you guys were analyzing these as from call source, right?
- [11:28]
C
Correct.
- [11:28]
B
That's correct.
- [11:29]
C
Correct, yeah. On the rest of them, they did have correct dispositions. Right. So again, going back to knowing, out of the 100% of calls that were handled by that AI bot, which 40% were wrong, which 60% were right? I, as a business owner, don't know. I expect everything, as Indra mentioned, like, hey, I'm going to offload this over to AI. It's going to take care of all my problems. What they don't see and what Tiffany alluded to earlier, it's just creating new problems inside their ecosystem, inside that CRM. And so if you're not addressing or understanding where the gaps are in that process, how do you know which data is right? How do you know which data is wrong? Who then do you need to focus time and energy on?
- [12:08]
A
Yeah, it's so interesting. You know, in 2025, we are AI, automation, everything. And so we are so unconscious around a lot of things that are actually taking place inside our business. And this applies outside of CSR phone calls.
- [12:26]
B
Right?
- [12:26]
A
Like, for example, when we're, when we're tracking our metrics, and maybe those metrics are being reported on some dashboard somewhere, and those are automatically being created and put into a dashboard that nobody looks at or, or nobody actually owns. Like, I see this in business all the time where, like when we automate ourselves out to the point where no good strategy or decisions being made inside the, in the business. And so then we're not identifying issues. Nobody has ownership or accountability across the board. So like one of, one of the things, just like that I, that I see is like for example, total sales, if there's a sales manager that owns total sales and it's only being reported in an automation to maybe the CEO or whatever else, and that, that owner of that metric doesn't actually input like in a manual process. They don't, they're not actually aware of how many sales were made. So there's no ownership of it. And so because there's no ownership, there's no accountability. And it's just like, man, we are. We're automating ourselves into a hole in 2025.
- [13:34]
B
And Chris, amazing point, right. Where ultimately, if you are servicing a local market in good times, when your order backlogs are two months, it's not as big a issue. Right. But what happens when that either for rough times generally in the market or the drop in conversions and the backlog drops to a month, you're still competing with the business owner across the street. So in that sense, those who are very cognizant about the balance of automation versus people power, we believe will end up doing better. But in good times, it's difficult to uncover that one mishandled call, we don't lose sleep over that. Right, right. It's only when it starts showing up in the results.
- [14:40]
A
Right, right. And the other thing is like, you could even be on budget, right. Like, like you could be making money.
- [14:48]
B
Yeah.
- [14:48]
A
You could be having all these things, but you don't see the bad part associated with the brand damage that's taking place in the back end.
- [14:55]
B
Right.
- [14:56]
A
Like, I mean, I can imagine as a CEO, if, if I have all these AI bots in place, right. And I'm getting 20,000 calls, you know, fielded by my real people and 10,000 fielded by my AI. And AI is damaging 130 people.
- [15:12]
C
Correct.
- [15:12]
A
A month that we're expecting appointments. That's not going to show up in the P and L. Yes, but I.
- [15:20]
D
Think it's important because you're not just damaging new customers. Right. So you are damaging your relationship with a new customer. You're preventing them from ever doing business with you. But we see it all the time where they're also damaging relationships with your existing, like, existing customers. I was talking to a business owner the other day and his CSR had fumbled a call where they had 25 years working with their family, and she completely butchered the call. Tells him that his Parents had just died. She shows no empathy for him and he's like, I can't deal with you. I'm done doing business. 25 years, what do you do with that? And I empathize with them as support leaders. Right. They have a shortage of being able to hire CSRs, keep someone in that seat. So they've accelerated this AI timeline. But there's gotta be a balance. And if you don't learn from the mistakes that your people are making, how do you improve your business?
- [16:10]
B
But the AI is learning from that call. Nothing about the problem for the AI, then there is no need to show empathy. That's what they're thinking right? Behind the scenes.
- [16:23]
A
Yeah. They got trained by that call.
- [16:25]
D
Yeah.
- [16:25]
A
Interesting, interesting. So what's, what's the solution? Like? Like that's, that, that's the hard thing about all this.
- [16:32]
B
Did we scare everyone enough? Okay, let's get to the solution.
- [16:36]
A
I mean, but legitimately, right? Like because people that don't show empathy isn't the solution. No AI fully ownership and automation isn't, you know, the right solution. So like how do, how do we create balance across the board? What are you guys seeing in the market?
- [16:54]
B
Before we address the question, I want to also address one more thing which is the AI solution someone builds and jj, you had touched on it before is only as good as the depth of data that you have fed them, right? So if you hire a AI company, provide them calls, last two months, that's not enough. So if you are going to go the AI route, which in some form every business should, I'm not saying don't use AI, but be careful. Are you selecting that company because they have the prettiest looking reports? Are you selecting that company because they have 10 years of call recordings? Are you selecting that company because they have Nvidia chips and are tapped into Amazon web services? What is the reason or is it the least cost provider? A lot of times it comes down to that.
- [17:57]
A
You know, it's so interesting and this, this applies so in a, in a different adjacent. So right now what's, what's pretty popular in the AI space in the trades is you got these ride along sales coaches, right? I mean you guys are, you guys are aware what's going on there and your exact point is like so prevalent. Like I see these 25 year old boys that, that are making these, these sales coaches that legitimately have never been in a ride along, been involved in blue collar space and whatnot. And so it's only as good as those guys. These you know, these nerds that are, that are in the back trying to guess what the best sales coaching is. And maybe they're just pulling from random YouTubes, like hoping to get like some sales trainings, but the reality is, is like, yeah, it has to be done by those. It's got to be trained the right way.
- [18:52]
B
Absolutely. One of the things we pride at Call Source is we are a mix of technologists, local business owners, and expert contact center managers like Tiffany. So we bring that breadth of experience in the AI tools that we develop. Right. Plus the framework we have at Call Source. We are not private equity backed. We really don't care about our valuation. What's critical to us.
- [19:24]
A
You guys have been around how long?
- [19:26]
B
30 plus years.
- [19:27]
A
Wow.
- [19:27]
B
Yeah.
- [19:28]
A
Okay.
- [19:28]
B
Yeah. And in the trades for 15 to 20 years.
- [19:32]
A
Got it.
- [19:33]
B
Got it.
- [19:33]
A
Cool.
- [19:34]
B
And so for us, what's more important than anything is to provide the right solution with the right mix of people and technology. And by technology, whether we are talking SaaS, software, whether we are talking AI, what's the most critical data points, that breadth of experience is important. Like you said, you can't just have technology nerds building things for trades. They've never picked up a hammer in their life. Right, right. It doesn't work.
- [20:08]
A
Right, Right.
- [20:08]
B
So anyhow, sorry to if I'm just passionate about that.
- [20:15]
A
So. Yeah, yeah, me too. That, yeah. Whenever you're involving AI, it's. It's not just the way it looks, it's. Yeah. What's being built in the background.
- [20:25]
B
Exactly. The cost of 100 incorrectly tagged calls are not improperly handled calls. Far exceeds your, Your, in some cases, your entire marketing budget.
- [20:42]
A
Right.
- [20:42]
B
Right.
- [20:43]
A
Now that's. Yeah, that, that's fair point. And so what? I guess. Yeah. What is, what is the solution? Like how do. Because obviously AI has got to be part of the solution.
- [20:53]
B
Yes, absolutely.
- [20:54]
A
Some. Some way or I mean, example.
- [20:57]
B
Right.
- [20:57]
A
Like in the future, you know, Alexa is going to be making a phone call for me finding the. The best plumber or the best H Vac spot. Right. And so, and if my bot is reaching out to humans, you know, it might ignore that. It might only reach out to where there is another bot on the other end that can communicate with it. So like, like what. What is the line?
- [21:22]
B
What is.
- [21:23]
A
Where is the line? What's the solution?
- [21:25]
B
Well, the good news is we have a solution.
- [21:28]
A
Oh, dude, give me the solution.
- [21:29]
B
And we have the subject matter expert to talk about the solutions.
- [21:35]
D
So we firmly believe. Right there, we use AI ourselves. Right. We score our calls with AI but then there's a human aspect and a human element. So when these calls slip through the cracks, what happens? We have a live agent who's listening to this call, observing exactly what's happening. What, did they fumble on the first call? Were they just rushed? Because they're answering call after call after call, and they just didn't give them the time that they needed, whether that's a human or an AI bot. So we hear it both ways. The AI bot just doesn't understand that they want something next month and it keeps giving them scheduling for next week. Right. We hear that all the time with things like maintenances. We review the call to overcome the objections. And I think the key importance for what we're doing is not rushing this call. It has to happen quickly, but we have to overcome what happened the first time in order to build that trust and regain the trust of the customer. Because that's, I think oftentimes when I'm talking to business owners about this process, they forget that these calls are destroying trust with the customer. Right. And then they'll give it to their CSR who already mishandled a call, and then they're calling back and not correcting anything. And so now you've really lost this potential lead versus if you're really listening to the call and understanding why they didn't book with you or what happened and just taking that time to build the relationship. That's the key part of what my agents do. It's all about building a relationship that's an extension of your brand. So how do I look like I'm coming from your company? It's unique to every company we're working with in saying, hey, I'm an extension of your company, Chris, and I'm going to make sure that they have a good image of your business. I'm not going to say, hey, my CSR totally screwed up this call. I'm going to say, hey, I hear you. I understand that you need us to get out there. How can we take care of you today and make sure that you're addressed without casting blame on someone else? Right.
- [23:23]
B
Could you also speak to some of the metrics that we looked at what kind of returns and how the program is going?
- [23:37]
D
Yeah, absolutely. So in looking at five of our new customers last month, for instance, we dealt with a little over 1200 calls that were mishandled by these companies directly. In giving them a call back, we were able to recover 23% of those leads for these companies. Of those 39%, I think was the number we landed on actually turned into revenue. $336,000 was recaptured by us just making a second attempt and re handling these calls for them and fixing their brand and their image with their customers within their marketplace. It's crazy.
- [24:16]
A
Yeah, I mean, in 336,000 you said that how many clients was this? Five new clients. So I mean, you're talking about an average of like 60 to 70,000 in revenue, which for most business owners. Right, like, especially small business owners. I mean, that could be the difference between break even and losing money a month.
- [24:36]
B
Right.
- [24:37]
D
Just one month.
- [24:38]
B
And on an average, how many times do we do the follow up? Like three to four. Three to four. Right, Right.
- [24:46]
D
It's not set it and forget it. Right. So we're making a human attempt within 20 minutes of that phone call. Right. We're trying to correct that action before they get to your competitor down.
- [24:56]
A
So you guys are reaching out directly to the customer after the ball has.
- [24:59]
D
Been fumbled on behalf of the business. Right. We're not saying we're calling from call source. We're calling from Chris's H Vac and trying to correct that call.
- [25:07]
A
So I know we're not making this like a big pitch about call source, but like, but helping me, but, but, but I'm just trying to understand, okay, if what does that cost me to. To like have that? Because that support sounds fantastic.
- [25:20]
B
Right?
- [25:20]
A
Like, I don't know if it's from call source or from somebody else, like, or an employee. What it would cost me to have an employee to do that.
- [25:27]
B
Right?
- [25:27]
A
Like what, what kind of cost is the business owner looking like, looking at to get that $65,000 in additional revenue?
- [25:34]
B
Less than one person's cost.
- [25:36]
A
Less than 1% or one person.
- [25:39]
B
Right. So for example, in this case study we did five clients, was it 336 or 368 thousand? Roughly that that was on the revenue generated and the call source cost to the clients combined was $13,000. 13,028x on the return.
- [26:00]
A
Wow.
- [26:01]
B
Right.
- [26:01]
A
Yeah. I mean, So I mean 13,000 divided by five. I mean, you're at 2,600 bucks. So basically $2,600 gets me 65 to 70,000 in revenue. Dude.
- [26:14]
B
Amazing, right? And tying it back, Chris, to the AI situation, the key thing that Tiff mentioned, three to four follow ups. Your AI bot is not doing three to four follow ups. It will at best do one follow up, two follow ups. And that's it. That's where it ends up on a human based. Because we Inherently understand whether a call needs a further follow up or not. Right. It does take three to four follow ups. Like that effort is required and it has to be people powered.
- [26:55]
D
But I think there's a lot of times where this isn't just something that call source is offering. Right. We've worked with customers, I've personally worked with customers on this process for the last 13 years, one to one with business owners, CSR managers, and helping them build this process. Just like you talked about earlier, we can give you dashboards, we can give you all of this stuff, but if you don't have a solution in place and a process surrounding it, it's not going to matter.
- [27:17]
A
So give me, give me a little more depth. Like what do you mean by the process?
- [27:20]
D
So it has to be something first and foremost. The most important thing is it has to be consistent. Right. You get these CSR managers who will tell you, oh, I follow up with them, I have an employee who does this, they're going to do it. My team is already taking care of that. But how consistently are they doing it and how quickly are they writing off these leads? Because if it were up to my team, sometimes I'd write them off after one call. Oh, I don't need to call them back. They said they weren't interested. They have an appointment next week with Joe down the street and so they're going to go with him instead.
- [27:48]
A
So if I. So if I was building this process from like scratch, ground up. Yeah. What would this look like?
- [27:53]
D
Absolutely. So from this, from scratch, you would take your funnel of, hey, what was unbooked. So even if they're mistagged, like Jase talked about earlier, what happens with these? And just blanket, I need to know how many I missed and why did I miss them.
- [28:07]
C
Start with an Excel sheet. Start with an Excel sheet. Right?
- [28:10]
B
Start old school. Yeah, don't start with AI. Start with old school. Right?
- [28:14]
C
Because at the end of the day, if they're unbooked calls, you got that, that Excel sheet. And this is old school, old school on there. And how many missed opportunities are there? Right. You can have some key metrics that are in place, number of missed opportunities, daily, weekly, whatever that process is, how many outbound attempts are being made by your callback team from there, how many jobs have been created ultimately? What was that? Total new revenue gained. Lastly then, out of the ones that weren't booked, why weren't they booked? Is there something else that you need to do internally? Make some more changes? Availability is always a big one. Do I need to hire more technicians to do more maintenance calls and service calls. Because the largest gap that I have in my process and why I'm missing an inbound opportunity is my own internal capacity. That's a huge issue, right? So if I can hire two or three more technicians and I can fill that capacity, well, I'm going to get an exponential return on that inbound side because my inbox inbound call center can actually book more appointments. Right? So it's understanding what those key metrics are. And if you don't write it down on a piece of paper, if you don't input it into an Excel sheet, if you don't work with a company that can create these dashboards with you, you have to start somewhere. And once you start standing where those gaps in that process, only then can you fix the issue at hand and focus time and energy and potentially resources and money on the number one problem that you have within your business.
- [29:47]
A
I love it. So one thing I just want to point out for any of the viewers or listeners on this is just the importance of creating a manual process to begin with, with anything inside your business. Too often we turn to a tool, an automation, and we apply it to a broken process that doesn't exist in the, in the first place. And we hope that this is going to be our savior. But at the end of the day, if you do not have like a paper or spreadsheet type like whiteboard and show like how does, how does someone progress? When should we call them? What should we say? What is the script, what is the checklist, what is the things that we have to go through in this part of the customer interaction. Like at the end of the day, if you haven't built that out, I don't care how good your tool or your system or your automation or AI bot that you go and apply to it, the thing is going to be absolutely broken. And so you take the time, build the system and then you're going to be able to go and do stuff like.
- [30:49]
D
But I think that there's a key thing that we see that happens all the time. Right? You're always well intentioned. You build the plan, you put it in place, you build the scripts and then you don't communicate it effectively to the people who actually have to deliver that job. Yes, right. So the training aspect, the training aspect is huge. Because if you. Great. I spent hours creating this. I use chat GPT to create all this scripting and told my team exactly how to follow up. 1. We have to communicate that effectively. But we also have to remember that because we don't want to be too reliant on AI. We've taught this for years when we're working with customers. You can't sound like you're reading from a script. You can't sit here and go, okay, I'm supposed to tell you exactly what we're going to do now and not have an actual conversation with you, right? That's the difference that's setting this apart is we're calling every consumer and having a conversation, understanding that they're stressed out because their toilet's over flowing and they've got kids home and, or their mom is elderly and doesn't have heat and she's in southeast Michigan, right? So how do we correct that and rebuild that human element that they're not getting from AI right now? And that's why it's so important to have this human touch after the AI.
- [31:53]
A
And I just want to point out like the importance of the human touch coming up in 2026 and beyond the, you know, we live in a world where people are so disconnected from humans, right? We scroll through our phone, we like post and share, you know, we, we legitimately sit behind, we work from home, we do the, we do these zoom calls and people yearn to have human interaction. And so the, the yearning that we have is not being fulfilled by these AI bots. And, and we see it happening like literally in big cities where people will like rent a hugger or a, or a cuddler, right? Like, because there' this need, right? And so one thing I see it in, in, in my space is like people are excited to come to live events because a lot of their work is being done remotely. And so like all their training, everything. So when they come and they, and they participate in a live event, it, it fulfills a completely different need. The same thing applies in this type of thing where, where customers like you, you know, you may not be the one person that does full AI voice, but if you can be the differentiator with human being interaction that preserves the brand or whatnot, people in the future are going to pay a premium for that.
- [33:15]
B
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more, 100%.
- [33:18]
D
You're also trusting them to come into your home, right? And if you're at work and it's your wife and kids at home and you've never made a human connection with someone else, you've only talked to robots, right? Or someone was rude, something, right? I don't know that I would want that for my parents. Right, right. Like, I. But I guess I'm on the other end of that spectrum because running a support organization, I'm full. Give me a live person. I don't want to talk about it.
- [33:41]
B
That's it.
- [33:42]
A
This is the AI dilemma, right? We need AI to automate and reduce costs. The cost of labor is going up or whatnot, but we need the human touch to be able to preserve brand and be able to preserve value. Like what the freak.
- [33:56]
D
There's elements to save time, right? There are things that can be done to help you optimize the use of the technology. But I think it's still, especially for this industry, I think it's still going to be extremely important to have that human element to it.
- [34:07]
C
And you got that on both sides, right? For the customer, you know, there's, there's calls that I've listened to where the customer has zero idea that it's an AI bot, right? It's like the perfect call. You're going back and forth. Customer at the end of the day says, you know, thank you, Sam. I appreciate it for, for helping me out. Look forward to seeing you on Tuesday. And Sam's like, okay, thank you.
- [34:28]
B
Right?
- [34:28]
C
It is what it is. But then on the other side, you know, because everything, it doesn't matter if you're calling your credit card company, your bank, whatever, and whoever that is, you're going to get some sort of IVR AI response up front. And nine times out of 10, when they do see, do say live agent, a real agent answers the phone and they say, are you a real person? And the person's like, yeah, I work for, you know, Truck and Truck here in the call center. She's like, oh my God, thank gosh, I finally got to someone who's live, right? So it's just really interesting to see both sides of that AI bot question, which is, can they handle that customer? On the inbound side, is your brand being affected, as you mentioned earlier? And then ultimately, when they do make that human connection, the relief that customer has when they finally talk to a.
- [35:17]
A
Lot of human, you know, which begs the question, is this going to be different based on the generation? Like, because like my parents for sure want to, want to talk to, to people and yeah, I, I do as well. But then there's a generation that's younger that literally has never talked to somebody on the phone in their lives. They've only text message, right? And so like, will that change? Right? Like, will, will.
- [35:44]
B
I don't know.
- [35:44]
A
Is this something you guys have thought about for sure?
- [35:47]
B
I Mean and, and, and possibly. Right. However, I'm not betting on it. The reason being, Chris, there are fundamental problems to be solved. If I have an issue with a flight booking or something, I like texting. I prefer texting or phone calls, but I don't mind getting on a call for that. Again, depending on what area of the problem. You, you still have the need for the human connection.
- [36:23]
A
Yeah, no, right.
- [36:24]
B
Whichever generation, for sure.
- [36:26]
A
And the reality is, is humans are. They tend to be more emotionally connected and able to help you better than say, a bot. Like, I mean, I was coming home on a flight on Saturday and I got to the gate a minute late and the gate was still open, but they told me it's closed. It's closed. Right. Like, I'm like, I see it, I see it.
- [36:48]
B
That's not true.
- [36:49]
A
Yeah. So. So I was able to go find a supervisor and plead with her. Yeah. To, to be able to. But like, had it been an AI bot, there's no way. Right. Like, this is the system, this is the process. The gate is closed. Instead she calls up to, you know, air traffic control, says, hey, can you open, open it back up? You know, here, all of a sudden I'm able to get on.
- [37:09]
B
And the airline that makes that extra effort is going to win your future business.
- [37:14]
A
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [37:16]
B
Applies to trades. Yeah.
- [37:18]
A
It makes, no, it makes, makes a lot, a lot of sense. So, like, if somebody were wanting to, like, I mean, obviously it sounds like Call Source has an incredible solution regarding these type of things. Like, what does a solution like, look like from a. So you guys kind of already went over a little bit of cost, but like, what does it actually look like as far as what kind of support am I getting? Why would I use Call Source? That type of thing?
- [37:42]
D
Sure. So everything is hands on. Right. So it's obviously still a fundamental belief of Call Source is having a relationship with all of our customers. Right. Understanding their needs, how they want us to represent their business. So everything that I do when we onboard a customer is really understanding their playbook. How do they want us to sound when we're calling out? What does their brand need to look like when we're engaging with them? Or what are things that we can offer to correct behavior from the first call? Right. Sometimes that's just a simple coupon or discounting your trip charge. Or is it units that are over 10 years old? I don't care. Waive the fee. Just get me into the home. Right. And we have a full gamut. Everybody has something different that they want us to offer so we understand and build out a playbook from there. I work with my team and they have dedicated reps who will call specifically for their accountant for their region to book on their calendar directly. Will book directly within their CRM. So put it directly on your calendar, get you out to the job. My goal is to make it so that the client doesn't have to touch it. After I've contacted them, I've reached out. We've rebooked this, we've put it on your calendar and you shouldn't have to deal with them again other than going out to the home. Right. And really building that relationship. From there, it's just a matter of consistent outreach of here's the progress, here's how many new installs we booked for you today. Here's exactly how full your job board is because of what we've been able to see on your calendar and what was available and get rebooked for. Um, I firmly believe in highlighting key things. Right. We talked about process earlier and building out process, but to Jace's point when he was talking earlier, are we spending too much on marketing? Are we booked out four weeks? You'd be surprised how many of the customers we work with who have no idea how far out they're booked. Hey, did you know that we can't book on your calendar for three weeks and we've got people calling in with no heat? It's crazy. I'm like, how did you not know that you were booking for three, three weeks and you've got people calling for no heat. Wow. So we're able to work hands on with customers to get them. We had one client the other day. Thank you so much for giving us this feedback. We're hiring four more technicians going into January.
- [39:41]
B
Wow. Right. You do one of two things. Hire technicians, expand your capacity or drop a little ad spend. You don't need to spend that much.
- [39:49]
A
Right, right, right. So yeah, quit putting sales in that can't. They can't be right.
- [39:55]
D
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So it's really just building this customized interaction to really be an extension of our customers, businesses and understanding what needs do they have. What's changing? Are there different priorities that are changing things that they want us to focus on, to really fill their electrical side because they know they're backed up for H Vac. What exactly does that look like and how do we better engage with their customers? Give them training opportunities. Right. That's one of my primary things, is giving them escalations of, hey, I think you need to hear this call, whether it's an AI bot and how they're handling it and where you need to retrain or your live CSRs and how rude they're being when they tell them that their parents just died and you just lost a customer. Right. And really, truly building that relationship to help them grow their business. At the end of the day, I.
- [40:41]
C
Think the hot button, I think the hot button here is automation.
- [40:43]
B
Right?
- [40:44]
C
Like you hear, AI can do automation. At the end of the day, when it comes down to that business owner, I just want to automate every everything. The interesting part is when you're on the flip side of that, where, you know, Call Source is solution in place, right. If you don't have the time, the wherewithal or the resources to put your whiteboard on the table or on the wall to actually manually write all these things out, yeah, Call Source can handle that. The interesting part, though, is it's still automation on behalf of the business owner. It just so happens we're doing it with humans and not with the AI bots.
- [41:16]
B
Right.
- [41:16]
C
Interesting part, you know, you're coming through, that is we will rebook these on the calendar. It's on the dispatch board. You find gaps in the system. A lot of agents on the inbound side, all of a sudden, we find we have canceled jobs. Why do we have canceled jobs? Our clients, their agents see how well that we're doing on the recapture side of things. They're canceling our jobs manually, creating their own jobs in their own name. And now the business owner is paying them commissions for something that they never even did in the first place. And so these are metrics that we're providing back to the client to saying, hey, by the way, I know you're paying us to do this, right? We're working on your behalf. As Indra mentioned, you have a 28x return on your investment. But unfortunately, these are some of the issues that are happening within your call center right now. You need to address that. You need to have the right coaching in place. You need to make sure that people stay in their lanes and doing the things that they need to get done versus taking from over here like Hungry Hungry Hippo. And just all of a sudden, we're going to put this all on my plate. They're not doing a good job because at the end of the month, then Call Source didn't do a good job. Business owner is going to cancel. Next thing you know, they're going to start in the same exact place that they started before Call Source because they don't have a process, their inbound team isn't doing what they need to get done. So when you have a third party solution with humans that has that engagement and that support directly with that owner, now you can understand in that process where to focus time and energy.
- [42:44]
A
So my understanding, I mean a lot of business owners, they're out there, they're spending a lot of money on marketing, getting the phone to ring.
- [42:50]
B
Right.
- [42:51]
A
And so and most people, they continue to increase that spend. So the phone rings more.
- [42:57]
C
Right.
- [42:58]
A
And call source isn't necessarily going to get the phone to ring more, but it's just going to make sure that when the phone rings you're going to get, you're going to capture as much of that as possible.
- [43:07]
B
We have that side of the services as well. We are the inventors of call tracking by the way. But what we are focusing on for today's session is the optimizing your process using people power. But we do help the phones to ring more as well. But nine out of 10 times, Chris, it's not that business owners are underspending on marketing. They're spending enough. I mean look at the market, more leads.
- [43:41]
A
They just need to take care, better care of their leads.
- [43:44]
B
Just, just in a, in a fun way. Look at the market cap of Google, right. Or Facebook, right. It's there for a reason, right. All this overspent in marketing, advertising, right. Right now.
- [44:00]
A
I mean and it makes, it makes so much sense. I mean just create more efficiency with the amount of traffic that's already coming in and, and you guys are doing it through the human element. Not, not the AI are actually a.
- [44:12]
B
Combination of AI and human element. Right.
- [44:15]
A
I love it. I love it. Well, 2026 is going to be an exciting year. I mean a lot of things that we're going to see happening in the blue collar space, in the AI space. What are your guys predictions for a few years from now where what we're going to see just with AI in the trades?
- [44:33]
B
Wow, that's a great question. Who wants to go first?
- [44:38]
C
Yeah, different aspects to it, right? The inbound handling side.
- [44:42]
A
What about robots? Are robots going to be showing up in my door fixing my stuff?
- [44:45]
C
They say it, right? They say in five years if you got the right amount of cash, you can have your own robot and a lot of people are going to do it.
- [44:51]
A
Right.
- [44:51]
C
And you're going to look at those mundane tasks for sure. At the end of the day, let your robot handle it. Same thing happens on the, on the call center side of things. There's a lot of good things that I can handle. You're looking at follow up attempts. Can I make some happy calls? Can I do appointment confirmations, Can I do membership renewals? All of that is kind of the standard process that goes through the board. Right. But on that inbound side, you're going to have a lot of different influences that are going to shape that call. Is there going to be empathy? Is there? Not everyone's day is going to be different. Are they having a good day, a bad day, who knows? And can you respond in a way that connects with that caller to ensure that your brand is being represented in the market? As the owner built that process, as the call center manager trained on that process.
- [45:40]
B
Right.
- [45:41]
C
So at the end of it, I think, you know, AI is always going to be there. Right. We're going in that direction. Large language models, it's going to improve. Great. But if you don't understand where those gaps are, is AI helping you? Is it hindering you or not?
- [45:56]
B
Right.
- [45:57]
A
Or making it worse?
- [45:58]
C
Right, that's what I'm saying. Absolutely, absolutely.
- [46:01]
B
So just very similar to that, but put differently, a lot of the digital side of things, I believe the software or AI will get to the point where a lot of inbound does get automated. Right. The tricky part is the outbound. There's regulations for a reason. You don't want your phone bombarded with bots calling you. Right. Every hour. So on the outbound juries out there, the other part, Chris, to your question about robotics, right now we are translating the software into physical stuff, right? Handling, picking a hammer. Right. So I think the software gets there. But isn't it strange that Larry Fink is saying we are going to need another 500,000 technicians, electricians.
- [47:09]
C
Right.
- [47:10]
A
And not saying that we're going to.
- [47:12]
B
Replace them with we are going to automate everything. So Larry Fink knows a thing or two more than we do. It's my firm belief. Right. And if he's saying that my belief in the physical world going out of the software, digital side, coming to the physical world, no, we're fine doing those jobs. AI will help us do our jobs better. So I'm not of the belief, let's say there is a robot that's gonna do all my household chores. I really don't care. I don't want.
- [47:44]
C
I care, Andrew.
- [47:46]
B
I care. I don't want robot to make my cup of tea. I'll do it myself. I don't need that. And same with the trades. No. The demand for tradespeople is going to go up, not lower, because of some theoretical robot. I love it.
- [48:06]
A
What about you?
- [48:07]
D
I think I'm in the same boat with both of them. I think. I don't think it's going to take over completely. I think there's always going to be a need for that human interaction, especially in places like our homes. Right. I think that that's not going to go anywhere. Do I think I'm scared for what that means for my kids and all this technology? Absolutely.
- [48:24]
B
I'm.
- [48:25]
D
I'm a little afraid and probably a little overbearing when it comes to human interaction with my kids for that reason. But I think there's going to have to be a balance. Right. Because at the end of the day, people are also going to need jobs. And as an economy, we're going to need to employ people to keep our country running and keep things functioning. And so I think we'll find ways to meet in the middle. Just like they thought with the Internet. Right. They thought the Internet was going to replace everything and it's enhanced our jobs.
- [48:49]
B
This is what, Industrial revolution number four. Right. We went through three before. The concept is that the scale of the economy grows. It's not a zero sum game. Right. So I don't believe the concept of, oh, we won't have anything to do. No, we will always have something to build. That's new. Right.
- [49:10]
A
I love it. I think the verdict is in the trades and blue collar work is here to stay.
- [49:17]
B
Absolutely.
- [49:17]
A
Human interaction is ultimately going to win out regardless of the automation or AI that comes in.