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The Home Service Expert Podcast
Why This 22-Year-Old Selling AI Just Warned Every Home Service Owner
01:03:21
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- [00:00]
A
You'll have people who run platforms like we do come on here and be like, send everything to AI. You know, this is the next new thing. Like you can replace all your CSRs and just have this AI thing. That's all bunch of craziness. You've got to imagine someone's house just burned down or got flooded or got hit by a tornado or something crazy. They are picking up the phone in a moment of distress. They need to have someone come out to their home to possibly restore their items that hold a lot of memories and a lot of sentimental value. The last thing that person is going to want to hear on the other line is a robot.
- [00:34]
B
Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today I got George. George is an expert at AI Call Center. Specifically his last name is Paul. It's a tough one, George, but he's 22 years old, just graduated from college and built a million dollar AI company serving 100 plus franchise locations. His biggest client is recovering two and a half million dollars a month in revenue from missed calls. Today we break down how AI is changing call handling for home service companies and when it comes to implement it and what to do and what not to do. Every owner needs to understand that before they get left behind. George, how are you, brother? It's a pleasure to have you on.
- [01:13]
A
I'm doing good, I'm doing good. Thank you for having me on. It's kind of surreal to be here, but I'm excited.
- [01:18]
B
Yeah, I love podcasting, man. Podcasting for me has really changed the game. I get experts on from everything from call centers to HR to how you buy trucks, do you name it. Yeah. So you were, you're 22 years old, sounds like you went to Boulder, is that right?
- [01:35]
A
Yes, sir. CU Boulder. Scopus.
- [01:38]
B
Awesome. And you were a barista for a couple years at Starbucks.
- [01:42]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked for majority of my time in high school and then a little bit in college. I was a, I was a barista for like two and a half years or so.
- [01:52]
B
And now you're running a, an AI company in the call center realms. Let's, let's walk through your story.
- [01:59]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So, yeah, I started my entrepreneurial journey, I guess you could say, when I was 18. The day I turned 18, I went ahead and filed my first LLC. Cause I was legally allowed to sign the paperwork that day. And it was kind of crazy. I was getting into wholesale real estate because that was kind of like the new hot thing, I guess you could say. Yeah. In, in that Time. And I had no idea what I was doing. Like, I see. I zero clue. I literally was just like, I see a bunch of people on the Internet making a bunch of money from this. I like real estate. Like, I've always been a fan of real estate. I love looking at property and kind of the numbers behind it. And so I was like, why don't I? What's the easiest way I can get into that? And wholesale kind of came up from there. So I did wholesale real estate for probably like six months or so, and I didn't make a single dollar. It was terrible. I didn't realize that you actually had to, like, go out and talk to people and like, pick up the phone and like, call property owners and stuff. Like, it was. It was crazy. I didn't know what I was getting myself into at all. It was my first kind of dive into the business experience. But I let it kind of die out naturally as I went into college, because that was my senior year of high school. And I was like, oh, I'm going to college. Let me do the college thing. Let me kind of follow the collegiate path, as you will. I got a full ride to. To see you. And so I was like, you know what? Let me take the most of my time here. And I was still into real estate, was looking at actually becoming a commercial real estate broker. That's what I was originally going to college for. And then about halfway through my freshman year, I stumbled across Josh Nelson, who is. Who runs Seven Figure Agency. He also has his own agency, Plumbing H Vac SEO. And stumbled across him because I wanted to get into something that was a little bit more online. I was like, wholesale real estate stacks. Real estate sucks. That's for old people. Let me get into something else. So I was like, what can I do online that I can leverage my technical skills in doing? And so I stumbled across the digital marketing world and was like, okay, this is great. So I learned a lot from. From Josh Nelson and kind of his groups that he has there and what he teaches. And I actually did digital marketing for quite a long time. I think it was almost three and a half years is when I had an agency. Went through obviously different variations of said agency, but it grew. Like, I actually started making money and started having clients producing results. And it wasn't a bad gig. You know, it got me through kind of my solo years in college, paying rent, paying bills. It taught me probably more than I think any of my college classes ever did, to be completely honest. And I think that that time Period in my life was really, was really formative. But towards the end of my junior year in college, I was looking at the market and I was realizing like, you know, if I really want to grow this agency thing and be different, I've got to figure out a way to differentiate myself. And through talking to a lot of my mentors, the way to do that was through offering some sort of automation or, you know, more technical software service on top of your agency, offering to kind of drive home that value. And so I started looking into that. I really got into the whole SaaS game, learning about software as a service and learning about what I could do to improve my marketing results for my clients using software. And so in doing that, I discovered conversational AI, which is kind of what us fancy people like to call AI that will just talk to your customers, right? So I was like, okay, great. I'm driving leads for some of these businesses. A lot of them aren't necessarily getting to their leads quick enough. So how can I use this new thing, AI that came out recently, right? Or at least what we thought came out recently to make that easier, right. To maybe reach out to some of their customers for them. So I started dabbling in that and then I got into a partnership with another really big agency who I ended up actually selling my previous agency to. And we started this company to pretty much sell this service, right, as kind of that speed to lead type of service. And that partnership didn't work out. Not necessarily because of the people were bad or anything like that. More, more, because that's not really where I was at in my journey. I don't think I was ready for a partnership like that. I still had a lot to learn and a lot that I wanted to do on my own. And so I ended up leaving that partnership and jumped straight into nail, which is what we are running now. And that was about a year ago. Exactly. So I left the partnership almost a year ago, I think last week, and then started nailing and then immediately just got to work. And we ended up focusing mostly on AI voice. AI voice receptionist, call handling and kind of merged into the franchise industry once we started to gain some traction there and learn a lot more about that space. But yeah, in kind of a long winded answer, that's where I came from, from 18 until now.
- [07:14]
B
So no, it's a great answer. I love your ambition. It sounds like make a lot of money in real estate for sure. It's. It's a tough game though. I mean, I was in the real estate. I Was in the game for a long time, actually, but I love home service. So your biggest client, Superior Fence and Rail, is the largest franchise in the country. You're recovering two to two and a half million dollars of revenue a month from missed calls in tracked all the way through those closed jobs. You know, walk us through how that's happening.
- [07:51]
A
Yeah, yeah, great question. Well, it's mainly happening because Superior. Superior Fence and Rail is so big, right? And they get so many calls every day. And so basically what we're doing for them is we've attached our platform, our software, onto the back end of their phone system so that pretty much anytime someone misses a call or doesn't pick up the phone in any of their territory, offices, it just gets immediately sent to us. And then we do kind of the traditional thing, right? We answer the phone, we qualify the person, make sure that they're actually able to serve that. Serve that customer based on certain criteria of each individual location. So each individual location has their own criteria that they can set in our platform to make sure that we are qualifying against their rules as well. So we make sure the person's qualified, we gather all their information, and then we can book an appointment straight onto that franchisee's calendar. And there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than just that. But that's essentially at the end of the day, what we're doing, just making sure that not a single customer gets left behind. Nobody goes to voicemail. No one's getting, you know, having to make a bunch of calls at a Monday morning because there was, you know, 50 missed calls over the weekend. No. Any location that's using NAIL now through Superior Fence and Rail, they have never missed a call since.
- [09:14]
B
It's expensive missing calls, isn't it?
- [09:17]
A
Way more expensive than what people think.
- [09:20]
B
You know, I love marketing, and I talk about the top of the funnel is getting leads, right? You got to be able to buy leads, you got to be able to get them organically. And then the biggest thing that's broken is booking those calls. And, you know, we get mad when a technician goes to a house and leaves with a zero. But what about all those calls? You know, a lot of people pay their CSRs 15 bucks an hour, but their guys are making 200 grand a year. Why wouldn't we want to pay the CSRs more and have a backup system to handle every call? Because even at A1 we book, you know, we're in 25,000 homes a month, we generate 34,000 leads. And every lead, you know, Potentially is worth a couple grand.
- [10:01]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Seriously, I, I don't think people understand how, like, it's. Because it's a hidden metric, right? It doesn't really appear on any dashboard or any like, reporting that a traditional marketing company or, or even a traditional phone provider, like, you know, call Rail or Ring Central, like, people don't really report on that, so they're not really getting, they're not really feeling the effects of, of having all of those missed calls. They just think, oh, they dump more money into marketing and let's get more leads or, oh, we gotta improve our sales process. When honestly, a lot of times the biggest gap is within that first contact of making sure that person actually gets answered. You wouldn't believe how many times. Like, it's crazy to see because. Because we're attached to a lot of these franchises, specifically Superior Fence and Rail. Like, any call that comes to us is effectively a missed call, right? Like, if. If we think about that logically, that is a call that they did not pick up, right? And so we get, I mean, near a thousand calls a day just from Superior Fence and Rail. And you have to think, like, if you're the brand president or if you're the guy running the, Running the show at Spear Fence and Rail, you gotta know that missing a thousand calls a day across your network has gotta hurt, right? Like, that is. That has to be costing you money. And so it's insane to see that a lot of times people don't put as much emphasis on that part of the sales process, when in reality it could be one of the, One of the factors that can make you the most. Like, it can change the trajectory of the, of the, of the revenue generate from the marketing that you're running exponentially. Like, it's, it's crazy.
- [11:37]
B
It is crazy. You know, cost per leads on Google, I'm sure you're familiar with this, are just. They're getting outrageous on pay per click and you gotta run lsa. Part of the LSA experience is just answering the phone on the first couple rings.
- [11:51]
C
Yep.
- [11:51]
B
What? What between like a, A player and a B player. Csr. Where in a C player? I mean, where does the AI come in? Because my, my business is fixed. Break. It's broken. I can't get out. You know, I don't mind talking to AI agents when I'm trying to get long distance on my phone when I'm traveling out of the country. And I wouldn't mind talking to a fencing company, but for me, it's like, I need to talk to somebody because my car stuck or my pipe just broke or the 8, the AC unit's not working in the house. You know, what's the expectations with your AI agents as far as booking goes? Hey, guys, I just want to let you know that the 250 off freedom ends tomorrow. Tomorrow night it's gone. So the prices go back to full price. That's up to 250 bucks off every tier for America's 250th birthday. If you've been waiting for a sign, this is the sign. October 26th through the 28th at Mandalay Bay. The best operators in business under one roof. Go claim your seat right now@freedomevent.com or call or text us at 602-5581-7563 and we'll get you in. Do it tonight. I don't want you to miss this.
- [12:59]
A
Yeah, I think. I think a lot of people get this mixed up because you'll have people who run platforms like we do come on here and be like, oh, you send everything to AI. You know, this is the next new thing. Like, we. You can replace all your CSRs and just have this AI thing. I think that's all a bunch of, like, I. That's all a bunch of craziness. And I think it's because people don't understand, like, consumers are not yet there, right? Like, us as business owners, we are very AI forward because that's what we. That's what. That's what we focus on, right? That's our whole jam. And we're. We're kind of in that sphere, but consumers aren't there yet. And so I always say to all of our clients, like, technically, yes, you could route all of your calls straight to nail and not have it go to any receptionist at all and just call it good. But the data shows, not only from our clients, but also across the board that your aggregate booking rate and your aggregate CSAT scores, your customer satisfaction scores always go up when you use AI or a platform like ours on the back end, right? Like, this should always be a safety net rather than the first touch, if possible, right? Because especially in home service, like, it's. It's still a very personal industry, right? Like, you are coming to this person's home, where they reside, where their family lives, where they make their memories. And that is a very. That's a very thing. That's. That's a thing that's close to a lot of people's hearts, right? And so if they can't trust Your company to take care of them and take care of their home, they're not going to do business with you. Right. I'm not saying that you homeowners won't trust you if you use AI, but if no matter what they do, they can't get a hold of a real person, that usually causes someone to not trust you. Right. So I always advocate for having an A player, an A player CSR on the front lines, answering the phones and then just using Nail as a, as a backup. Right. And especially like with a lot of the clients that we use, they just physically can't answer every single call because they have so many leads. Right. Like you guys at A1, you guys just have so many calls coming in that it's hard for one or two people in the office to just physically handle that much volume. That's when something like nail comes into play where, yeah, it's not going to be the best of the best when it comes to, you know, comparing it to like an A player csr, but majority of the time it's going to be the best solution that you have as a backup rather than letting it go to voicemail or sending it to some offshore call service that doesn't know anything about your brand, doesn't know anything about what you do, and is really just there as more of a messaging pad instead of something that can actually solve your customer's problem.
- [15:40]
B
Yeah, no, it's great. You just want to book a call. I mean, we have 70 full time agents all the way from the east coast, all the way to the west coast to start at different times and stay. So 5am to 10pm but still, if they're all busy, we needed something to back it up. What we figured out was instead of having an ivr, we were getting so many wasted calls like, where's my guy? Where's my door? I need to change my appointment. So we built an AI kind of an ivr. If you're wondering where your door is, the agent will bring you over there and actually somebody that could help you because it sucks getting tossed around and then getting to a voicemail. So at least somebody could check on when the scheduled door appointment is and what's going on. I mean, it just seems like to me that you'd want to be staffed appropriately. I think what you're saying here is make sure you got enough agents to handle the majority of the calls, but you don't need to overstaff for that. Maybe, you know, maybe you should look at the hours you're getting. Most of the calls staff appropriately, but one's gonna slip through the crack. Then you'll get a few here and a few here. And having an agent to back it up is what you want.
- [16:45]
A
Exactly. Cause a lot of times, like, you know, I mean, it is true that AI is just cheaper, right? Like, at. At that point, I'm. And I don't see that as a valid reason to replace a csr, but I sure as hell see that is a valid reason to not be adding more than what you need.
- [17:01]
C
Right?
- [17:02]
A
Like you said, if you can properly staff your busiest hours and then just let everything else that falls to the wayside go to an agent. I. We're rarely seeing anyone have worse results if they do that. Right. Like, of course, at the end of the day, we would always want to have the. The a player available 24 7. But a lot of the times, like, especially with the franchises that we work with, that's just really, really expensive, right? And it. You can get really, really close to the exact same results for a significant less cost using something like Nail. And so that's what we, that's what we recommend.
- [17:40]
B
What do you think? Where does AI go wrong? Obviously don't use it for the. You've been involved with projects that have failed before. Walk us through one. What went wrong and what did it teach you about when AI is not the right answer?
- [17:56]
A
Yeah, a lot of times. So this is, this is actually an example that came up recently. I got in touch with a restoration franchise that focuses on damage restoration for contents, right? So instead of doing like, foundation repair or like roof repair, stuff like that, they'll do a repair of textiles or repair of electronics or things like that, right? So people's personal items. And they were asking me about, like, oh, where. Where do you see AI kind of fitting into our circle. And I was talking to a bunch of the executives at that franchise, and when I eventually met up with the brand president, we were talking about what it would look like to use something like NAIL for that first initial contact. Like, hey, I've got this issue. I need someone to come out here. Or, hey, I've got this claim that I submitted. I need someone to come out here. And we kind of landed on the fact that, like, that is definitely not the right time to be using AI because it's such a personal. That specific scenario is such a personal call, right? Like, you've got to imagine someone's house just burned down or got flooded or got hit by a tornado or something crazy, and they are picking up the phone in a moment of distress, and they need to have someone come out to their home to possibly restore their items that hold a lot of memories and a lot of sentimental value, right? The last thing that person is going to want to hear on the other line is a robot, right? Or not, no matter what. That's the last thing that they want to hear. So in situations like that, where you have an extremely personal event that has occurred that this person is reaching out to you for funeral homes, right? I. I have. I know people that sell AI or do what we do for funeral homes. And I'm like, there's. There's no way that I would ever do that. Because, like, I. Why would I ever want someone reach out to a funeral home after a passing of a relative and then be met with an AI agent? Like that is. That's terrible. Like, I can't. I just can't believe that. Right? So in moments like that, where you have a deeply personal situation happening, that's probably the last thing that you want, right? That's what it might be worth, you know, in that specific business, with that business model. That's when it might actually be worth, you know, the forking up the extra cheese to. To get real people on the line 24 7. But that's just one example of times when I've seen it go wrong. And I've seen. Thankfully, none of our projects have been gone that way, but I've seen people, you know, co workers in the past and peers in the industry who have tackled projects that involve deeply personal conversations, and it just never goes well because then they're stuck in a loop trying to justify why their service should stick around when it should have never been there in the first place.
- [20:46]
B
What do you think about. I know a lot of companies, I mean, a lot of them that talk about virtual agents from the Philippines and Mexico and Israel, and it goes on and on. When I always think about cyber security, but I also think about the experience. I remember you're too young for this, but there was a time when most everything switched to India. And you get on the phone and you were like, hello, this is Michael. And you're like, your name's not Michael. There's no chance. No offense. I mean, they're great. And I'm not trying to, like, belittle the idea, but I know people with, like, so many agents from other countries, and you can just. There's a huge barrier, a language barrier. And what do you think's better? Is AI better than that? Or maybe, I guess it depends. On the person and how well of English they speak.
- [21:38]
A
Yeah, I mean, of course it always depends on the person. I know people who live in South Africa or like you said, Israel, things like that. They talk like you and I, they're very personable and they're great. But at the end of the day, you have to remember that they're still people, right? Like they still have off days, they still have sick days, they still need pto, they still need all this other stuff. Right. Which is fine. They still need to sleep. Right. They're not working all day every day. And they also can still only handle one call at once. Right. So this is why I like to focus on franchising. Because like for a one off, let's say a one off roofing company there where you guys are doing good amount of revenue but you're not really like, you know, you got a lot of volume, but it's not, you're not spread throughout a lot of territories, let's say. Or you're not spread throughout a lot of locations. Yeah, sure, something like that could make sense for you. But when I see franchising try to go down that route, it usually ends up with them spending way more money than what they need to to get not as much coverage as what they want. When I first started working with superior fence and rail, that's kind of the route that they were exploring was like, hey, let's look into overseas agents, people that, you know, live in other countries to kind of do the same thing. And the cost was the same, if not more, and their coverage was way less. Right. Like they only covered certain hours. And then even then if they had, you know, one agent or two agents per, per office for the high locate, for the high volume ones, you can still only handle so many calls at once. And we've very frequently had times where there will be call after call after call after call come in to the same location that our platform can handle, obviously. But another, you know, a human obviously can only handle one at a time. So I think there's a time and a place, right, like depending on your business. Right. And how much volume you get. But especially in the franchise world, at least from my experience, you almost always get more bang for your buck. You get more ROI with something like an agent, especially if it's quality. Right. That's, that's always people's like biggest, like, oh, what, what if it doesn't sound good? Or what if my customers hate it? Right. That's like always the biggest gripe. And I would have Completely agreed with you like 18 months ago and been like, yeah, AI is not worth it. Go with like an overseas agent. But you would not believe the speed at which this technology is getting better. Like, it is insane. Even starting back to when we opened up nail our first ever client. His name is Dan Blanc of Fence Guys. He's down in Louisiana. You can ask him too. And we probably even have the call data. But that version of that agent sounded terrible. Terrible. Like it was bad compared to now. Right. Like we had a, we actually had a scenario come up recently where one of our, our voices, so one of our voice providers that we use to, to answer the calls, they had gone down and it had swapped back to our fallback voice. Right. So basically the other model that was speaking to the customers and it was, we, we haven't touched this fallback voice since a year ago. Right. And so the fallback voice was something that was a year old that we used to use for most of our clients in summer of 25. And when that happened, it happened only for a few hours a couple weeks ago. But we got so many support tickets, we got people calling us, being like, what the hell happened? This sounds terrible. It's all robotic. What the hell's going on? And we're like, we have no idea. Eventually we come to find out that it had swapped back to our old voice and it just clicked in my mind of how crazy this technology has gotten in the past year. And it's. I love this saying by Alex Hormozi. Like, right now is the worst, the absolute worst AI will ever get. Like, it will only ever get better. And so I'm a betting man. I like to bet on the future. And so I, I, the quality is way better than it what it was a year ago. And I would say 80% of the people that call into our franchises can't even tell that it's AI. And the ones who do are, are fairly savvy. But yeah. So if you're comparing, you know, overseas agents or things like that versus AI 16 months ago, 18 months ago, would have agreed with you said, you know what go with overseas, you know, it's going to be a better experience. Now it's like no question. Just because the technology has gotten so good.
- [26:07]
B
What about outbound? How do you feel about Inbound versus Outbound?
- [26:14]
A
Great question. I actually get this, I actually get this question a lot. Um, and Outbound is tricky, right? Because the, I forget the name of the organization. It's like the TSCPA or the TCPA or something like that. Yeah, those guys, compliance, they got some crazy regulations with outbound right now. And it's not impossible, right? Like with outbound, if you have extremely clear consent from the customer or the person who you're sending the call to. Much like a 2P. If people are familiar with a 2P, like that little checkbox that says I consent to receive messages from this business, you have to have a very explicit checkbox or a very explicit way for them to provide consent to receive AI calls. So that's roadblock number one. Roadblock number two is it depends on what the use case is, right? So like we have people come to us all the time where they'll say like, oh, we want people like if they submit a form on our website, we want AI to be able to then call them immediately to schedule the appointment. And I'm like, you're right. That sounds like a great, that sounds like a great use case. Right. Nine times out of ten though, in that specific case, you're going to be better off with using something like sms.
- [27:22]
C
Right.
- [27:23]
A
Because the response rates on SMS are so much higher than on outbound calling.
- [27:30]
B
Right.
- [27:30]
A
Think about the last time you got a call from an unknown number. Did you just like pick it up out of nowhere?
- [27:35]
B
No, no, I never pick up those Exactly.
- [27:39]
A
Like, and most people never pick up calls. Like I, I got a call from one of our real estate agents that I'm working with because we're, I'm moving to Austin. And so I got a call from the, from the brokerage, from the broker that we're working with and I didn't recognize the number. I knew it was coming, I saw it was coming from Austin, but I was like, I don't know these guys. It's literally the broker that like we are moving to Austin in three weeks and like they are calling me to get something done and I didn't answer the phone because it wasn't saved in my phone. I didn't know who it is. Right. That's the same like your customers are doing the exact same thing. So if they don't have your phone number memorized, they're not going to pick up the phone. But if you send them a text and you're like, hey, this is so and so from a one Garage Doors saw you just submitted a form on our website about, you know, XYZ service. Let's get you scheduled for an appointment. Right. Someone is way more likely to respond to that than to even call back that outbound phone call. So I definitely think there are use cases for it for outbound AI calling. Most of the time I see them in the B2B case but even then like I've just never really seen it. I've never really seen it work better than SMS when it comes to B2C and in B2B like man, that's not my world anyway. And so I don't really, I don't really pay attention to that stuff. But yeah, it really depends, you know, we automate. What do you think? I want to hear your, I want to hear your thoughts on that too.
- [29:04]
B
Well, yeah, outbound, I don't love it. I do think for the lead ads, text messages is better. But what I do think is a great idea is to send a vcard to every customer automatically after you finish the job of the number they need to call. Save my number, save my number. So that way it pops up on their caller ID number one. Number two is they don't click on my ppc normally they're going to go in and they're like, oh, we need that garage door company out again or we want service or whatever it might be or they need to send us the remote control or whatever industry you're in. What do they do? They search it on Google and then they click your ad and it just cost you a couple hundred bucks. So see my, my brand is so strong, it's almost like Roto Rooter. My branded keywords are just as much as non branded, which is a pain in the butt because I do all the work. I spend the money on tv, radio, billboards, wrap my trucks and now it's like Google's going to beat you to death. Either, either way it's kind of frustrating.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah. So you guys use it to like when a return customer or something like that. Instead of going to search you guys up again, like they'll just call that contact in your phone.
- [30:10]
B
Yeah, you say, you say, look, day one, garage door service, just search garage will pop up on your phone and I got a little video that goes out saying look, it's going to be, it's a special line for past customers that'll give you priority service. So call this number and because they hit save and went through the actions, they remember that they saved it.
- [30:33]
A
Yeah.
- [30:34]
B
So instead of going to Google, they're going to their contacts.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah. So then in that case, let's say an AI outbound call occurs. It's popping up with your contact page.
- [30:44]
B
Yeah. So that way it'll get answered. And you know, I never thought about some of the compliance things, but we're not doing a bunch of outbound through AI right now. I think that's. My next question actually, is in the next two to three years. I mean, I think the people need to learn. Like, I don't think people are writing checks as much as they used to. I think people are now using credit cards. I mean, at what point do people go, it's fine for an AI agent. Like, I'm just used to it at this point.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah.
- [31:12]
B
Where are we going in the future? The next two to three years
- [31:17]
A
in terms of AI voice or call centers, AI receptionist, that sort of thing? The technology is only going to keep getting better, right? The voice quality is going to keep getting better. The tone is going to keep getting better. The cadence at which it speaks is going to keep getting better. I mean, we're already seeing this. Like we have the, the fluctuation in voice and the emotionality and the way that it delivers specific sentences based on the context of that sentence is completely different than what it would be a year ago. Right. Like saying, oh, I'm so sorry to hear about that. You know, let's get you taken care of. It recognizes that that should be a more empathetic sentence than something like, I don't know, something else. Right. Something that's not as empathetic. And so that type of technology is only going to keep getting better because there's a lot of companies out there spending a lot of money to make it better. Right. Because they're making a lot of money. Like all the voice providers and even the models themselves. Gemini Anthropic OpenAI those guys, they, they have a vested interest to keep making this technology better. So in that regard, it's going to get harder and harder to recognize AI versus real human on the phone. And I think a year from now, like, it's already pretty damn hard. Like, if you're not, if you're not trained on, on this sort of thing and you don't listen to calls like that every day like I do. Right. Then it's, it's hard now to even tell, but a year from now, I think it's going to be completely indistinguishable from the average Joe. So I think people will get used to it, but not because they're like giving over. Right. But because. Exactly it's.
- [32:56]
B
But you have to declare, I don't know if there's a rule about this, but I know we do it. Do you say thank you for calling a one garage or service? You're talking to Claudia I'm the agent. Do you do. Are you supposed to say that or is that something you have to do?
- [33:14]
A
Great question. So there's no law that requires you to, that requires you to do so, yet Colorado was trying to pass some sort of law where you had to disclose that it was talking to AI or there was any sort of AI interaction between the customer and the business. You had to disclose it no matter what. That bill was still in progress, I think like four, three or four months ago when I last looked at it. And it had got shot down the past two times that it was going through. So. And Colorado is the only state that's really passing something like that right now. So as of right now, no, there's no like, legal requirement to do so. Sometimes it can help with kind of bringing that wall down for some more sensitive customers. We have people in markets that are part of predominantly older generations. So if for whatever reason they do end up figuring out that it's AI, they can get a little bit aggressive or abrasive. You could say, finding it out, and then they're like, oh, this, I don't want to talk to a robot. And then I just hang up. So kind of like stating it up front can give them a chance to kind of bring that wall down. So yeah, you don't have to. It really depends on your market. What we found based on all the data that we collect is usually people are more apt to talk to the AI once they've already gotten some sort of value out of it, Right. So a lot of times we actually tested this with one of our franchises a couple months ago. We implemented a statement like that, like, hey, this is an AI assistant, but I can still help you do all the same stuff. Pretty much, right? Our hang up rates within the first 30 seconds 4x. Like we had four times the hang up rates within the first 30 seconds. And we were like, cut that immediately. Right? Like that is terrible. Take that away. And when we put it back and we kind of moved up some of the qualification, I guess you could say, or maybe the diagnoses of their problem, we moved some of that up. In the script, what we found was that people were much less likely to hang up or to, to disengage from the conversation when they were getting their, when they actively were getting their problem solved by the agent before they realized that they were talking to AI, right? So like, that first 30 seconds is so crucial because if you can come on and, and answer the call and then immediately start to diagnose the person's problem, figure out what's best for them. You know, do they need to get transferred to another rep? Do they. Can they just get an appointment scheduled? Are they looking for an answer to a different question about insurance or financing or whatever it might be? Right. If you can provide them with the answer to their question or their problem as soon as possible, they're way, way, way more likely to stay on the phone for the whole conversation. Even if they do end up realizing that it's AI later on because they're like, oh, hey, you know, this thing isn't that bad. It's helping me out. So, yeah, I think that this kind of goes along with my point of where does it go in the future? Like, as this technology keeps getting better and better, people are just going to keep getting more and more value from it before. Before they realize that it's AI So they're going to be less likely to hang up. And we see this trend continuing as we change our models and things like that.
- [36:29]
B
You wouldn't happen to have a call handy that you could play, would you?
- [36:33]
A
I might.
- [36:35]
B
What industry so I can play along?
- [36:38]
A
This one would be junk removal.
- [36:41]
B
All right, here we go. Should I give it an address? What state is it in?
- [36:47]
A
It's just a demo, so you can give it any address that you want.
- [36:49]
B
Okay, let's try it out.
- [36:52]
C
Thanks for calling, Bets. Junk removal, this is Sammy. How can I help you today?
- [36:57]
B
Hey, Sammy, I got a mess in my garage and I need to get this stuff moved out as soon as possible.
- [37:06]
C
Got it. Sounds like you need help clearing out your garage. Is this for your home or is it a business or rental property?
- [37:13]
B
This is from my home.
- [37:16]
C
Okay, so you need the garage cleared out as soon as possible. Can you tell me what kind of stuff you've got in there? Are we talking furniture, old appliances, boxes, or just general clutter? And is it a few things or more like a full clean out?
- [37:30]
B
Yeah, it's about half the garage. I've got some old appliances and a few boxes.
- [37:37]
C
All right, can I get your full name? First and last?
- [37:40]
B
Tommy Mello.
- [37:43]
C
Thanks, Tommy. Is the best number to reach you, the one you're calling from, which is 1-480-4301573.
- [37:53]
B
Yes, that'll be the best return call.
- [37:57]
C
All right, Tommy, what's the full address where you need the garage junk picked up?
- [38:02]
B
Oh, that's pretty good. I don't need to go through it all. I don't want to give out too much information. No, that's freaking killer. I Liked it that you didn't say it's an agent. I'm wondering, I'm wondering what works better now that's interesting.
- [38:16]
A
Like I said, it really depends on the market too. But like I said, we found that if you can just give value up front or start solving their problem or just get right into the juice of things as, as quickly as you can before they realize it's AI, like way less likely to hang up statistically.
- [38:33]
B
So I think what do you tell a company that hasn't taken advantage of this yet? I mean, where do you think there's no reason not to. It's missed calls, it's after hour calls, it's where you don't have live agents. Where's the best place to get started?
- [38:52]
A
Usually if someone hasn't kind of looked into this technology yet, it's usually because they have some fear around the quality, right? Like that's the number one reason why I see a lot of people, at least our clients, right? Like larger franchises, franchise executives being a little hesitant, right? Like they understand, yeah, missed calls, they get it, they know that they're probably missing money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but they're not really 100% sure if it's good enough to handle their customers, right? So the first thing that we do, just like me and you just sat down and did the first thing that we do is give them a demonstration, right? Like we will, we'll build them out a full demo for their specific brand, right? Trained on all of their information, trained on all of their processes, their services, etc. So that it knows who they're speaking for. And then I'll be like, you know what? I completely get you. Give it a call, Try it out. Just break it if you can, if you can break this thing and like make it go off the rails, I will buy you lunch. And then usually they come back to me just like you did. They end the, end the call before they even finish. And they're like, hot damn, that is crazy. I've never even talked. I haven't even heard something like that before. And I'm like, exactly right? And you know that it's AI and your customers don't, right? Like they're not coming in with this preconceived notion knowing that it's AI. So they're, they're going to be even less likely able to figure it out. So that's usually what I tell people first off is like if you, if you have some sort of fear around, if it's good enough to Handle your customers. Try it out for yourself before you make that decision. That's kind of the first thing that we do. And then the second thing we do is, well, I guess this would be the first thing that we do. But the second consideration that we have to make is, is this even something that's worth it for you guys? Like, I have it in my notes here. I wanted to talk about this. I have like, three common pitfalls, people. Three common pitfalls a lot of companies go through when rolling out some sort of AI project. And the number one that I've seen over and over and over again is solving for the technology and not the problem. They're implementing AI just because it's AI, right? Like, oh, everyone's talking about it. Everyone said, my consultant says that we need to figure it out. Or, you know, someone says we need to get some AI in here. And so they're just implementing it just to implement it, right? Like, we had a company reach out to us. They were a franchise, interior, home improvement, remodeling, kitchen remodeling, things like that. And they were like, you know what? We. I want to get some AI in here. I know that I need AI, but, you know, I just want to see what this is all about. I've heard great things about you guys, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah, great, thank you. First off, let's. Let's talk about your guys needs. So how many, how many leads do you guys get per day? Or how many. How many calls you guys getting per day per location on average, do you think? And he's like, oh, yeah, let me pull it up in my dashboard. And they were getting like five or ten calls a day per location. And I'm like, you are solving the wrong problem way too late or way too early. Right? Like, you need to be solving your traffic problem before you solve your. Do we need AI or do we need to fix this conversion issue problem? Right? And so a lot of times, I
- [41:56]
B
guess those average tickets could be 60 grand. I mean, you know what I mean? But, yeah, you should be answering those calls in person if they're that big of opportunities.
- [42:05]
A
Exactly. And that's what I told him. I was like, I know your tickets are high. And so the natural instinct would be like, oh, let's get something that. That makes sure that this gets handled all the time. But if you're not already, like, if you're missing calls on 10 calls a day, like, you have a different problem, right? Like, you have, you have a. You're. You're not. Your problem is not like, oh, my gosh, we get so many, so many calls that we can't answer that. And your call, your problem is either your people are lazy and they're not answering the calls, or you have a staffing issue, right? And I'm like, you got to solve one of those before you come to us. So that's like the other thing that we think about first is like, do you even need this type of stuff or are you just trying to implement AI, just for shits and giggles?
- [42:47]
B
I love it. So the next. So how long does it take? So I sign up? How long does it take to train the model?
- [42:55]
A
Yeah, great question. So we go through two stages, especially since we work with majority home service franchises. The best way that we found to test if the technology is going to work for your brand is to roll out a pilot program. So our pilot Programs are usually 30 to 60 days, and that can involve between 15 and 30 days of build time with 45 to 30 days of testing. And what usually happens is you sign up with the pilot program, we get about five or 10 locations of your brand together that are willing to participate, that we're going to roll out the initial service to and use to kind of gather all the data and then train the model based on that data. So I'll actually fly out to a lot of these people's headquarters, whether it be the brand headquarters or maybe a corporate store, and spend a whole day just learning about their system, learning about their franchise, learning about their brand. Give me everything that I can know about your brand so that I can give everything, all of that to our models to help build this agent. So once we do that, we get, like I said, about 14 to 30 days of build time. And that's includes not only building the agents, training them initially, getting the scripts and all of that set up, but also the integrations. Right. One of the biggest things that I see people miss when it comes to implementing a technology like this is the integration. Like, the integration is what makes it so valuable. Like, yes, of course it can answer the call, but if answers the call and then adds like three tasks per call onto your office manager's plate, because then they have to go in and input the lead to the CRM and then schedule the. Make sure the appointments sync to the calendar and then make sure that all the tags are there, right? Like that's adding complexity and adding work instead of reducing it, which is our whole goal. Right. So that includes all the integrations and everything that we need to get connected into the system. And then we run the test for like 30 days. And usually the brands that we work with at least have so much volume that we don't really need to run it for longer than 30 days. But we like to get a lot of volume in there because I like my. One of my favorite sayings is live data is the best data. So the more that we can, the more live data that we can feed into the machine, the better it's going to get. And after that pilot program happens, we kind of finish up, we say, great, here's the results, here's the final product that we've kind of built out. Here's the aggregate results from the pat from the 10 locations that we rolled out. And here's what it would look like going forward to roll this out to the rest of the brand. And then we usually will do something like maybe a webinar or an event or do some sort of big launch to the, to the rest of the brand to commemorate the launch, number one. And then also get as much adoption as we can early on into the service. So pilot programs, about 60 days and then adoption after that just scales with time.
- [45:50]
B
Have you tried male versus female and old versus young at all? Have you a B tested any of that?
- [45:57]
A
Great question. So early on we did. We don't do that much anymore just because it's kind of been solidified that young female is the way to go. But the early on we did a lot of testing when we just had a few clients male versus female and it's like not that big of a deal, I guess like the percentage points and at least from our data in difference between booking rate and, you know, CSAT and all of that stuff really wasn't that crazy. But I think naturally people are just a little bit more responsive to a female voice over the phone. They were, they were a little less rude as well, a little less abrasive when they were on the phone when they were speaking to a girl voice over a male voice. And then old versus young, young voices. I have no idea why, but young, higher pitched voices seem to work better with the AI model than older voices. I don't know what it is, but like the tonality and the inflection and just the pronunciation of words seems to be better or at least to my ears seems to sound better when it's coming from a younger voice than maybe a middle aged or an older voice. Again, no idea why. Yeah, but yeah, so we don't do much a B testing about that anymore. Just because we don't really see the need to, but in, in the beginning we did and kind of landed on young female.
- [47:27]
B
I got a couple more questions. So how much does, how do you charge for this? Is it by the call? Is it by the. I don't, you know, there's a lot of different ways I guess you could charge.
- [47:42]
A
Yeah, yeah, great question, great question. So like I said, we have two stages, right? So we have our pilot program and then we have the continuous monthly service to have the thing keep running. So the pilot Programs range from 10 to $20,000 for the full 60 day period, depending on the size of the franchise and the size of the work required. And then after that, per location, we usually charge about 997 per month. Just under 1000 bucks a month. And that's a flat monthly service fee that just runs continuously. Typically. We will also comp a lot of their AI usage costs up to a certain minute amount. So let's say 500 minutes or something like that. And then anything over 500 minutes, we usually will just rebill one to one, back to the, back to the customer, back to the location owner. Because like I, I don't really care about making money on usage and you know, it doesn't, I'm not really trying to. That's not where I make my profit. And so whatever we get charged for usage over a certain threshold, we usually just rebuild back to the client. But it's usually negligible. I think our highest volume locations pay maybe an extra 120 or 150 bucks a month in overage and you know, maybe like 150 bucks at most.
- [48:58]
B
Yeah, so let's just say you're charging 1250. I mean, an agent's gonna cost you 800. A real person is gonna cost you at least 800 bucks a week. So that's 3200 bucks. So 3200, 1200. You're, you're almost a third of the cost for unlimited calls. It just kind of makes sense to have that as a backup for sure.
- [49:18]
A
Yeah, exactly. And that's how most, that's how Most presidents or CEOs that we talk to look at it, right? They're like, okay, well we could spend 3200 bucks and have one person who can handle one call at a time only during a certain set of hours. Or we could spend 1200 bucks a month at the high end and have something that will never shut off and will always answer the calls no matter what and run all the time. So it's like, well, when you put it like that, it's not too hard to see the value.
- [49:49]
B
So you're 22, you built something that's actually making money. You found a niche. You find your. Find your ideal client. What would you tell somebody that's younger? You know, I've got a niece and two nephews that are always building stuff. They always want to build something useful. The old thing was all over Instagram was, let me call places that don't have a website and I'll build them one with AI, right? And this is like, this is a great one. You found a niche. What would you tell somebody that they know how to build something, but they just don't know how to the next steps.
- [50:20]
A
Oh, man, I see this all the time because I'm. I mean, a lot of my friends are in that kind of phase, right, where they, like, they're extremely technical. Like, they can, they understand code. They might even be have a software developer background, and they can use these AI tools to expand that technology even farther, but they don't really know either what to build or why to build it. And that's the biggest piece that I see people get wrong is why, right? Like, why are you building this thing? For what reason? What problem does it solve? And most young entrepreneurs that I see, and myself included in my early days, like, we were just selling stuff to sell stuff. Like we didn't really know. Like, we were selling stuff to make money and not selling stuff to solve a problem, right? And the biggest unlock that I had was, well, why don't, instead of finding like a service or a product or something to sell and then going to try and sell it, why don't I instead find a problem to solve, figure out how to solve that problem, and then go sell the solution to my. To go sell that solution. And as soon as I did that, I mean, I went from making $4,000 a month to $50,000 a month in like 90 days just from figuring that one thing out. And it's like, it's crazy because you can, once you figure it out, you're like, why would I ever do anything differently? But so many young entrepreneurs don't understand that just because they haven't been in the game long enough, right? Like, they just don'. They just don't understand, and that's fine. So that's the number one thing that I would say is like, find a problem to solve before you build anything, before you even touch a computer. Like, call someone, reach out to your uncle. If I was Tommy Mello's, niece, I'd be asking him every single day, what problems do you have in your business and how can I solve them? Right? And like, yeah, so number one, solve the problem and then number two, don't. Product is really important, but don't let it trump your marketing. Right. Like I see so many people, a lot of my friends, software developers, they build really cool stuff, like the coolest of stuff where I'm like, man, that's the, that that solves people's problems but then they don't go anywhere because they don't know how to market. Right. And so especially in today's age where the barrier to entry for building a lot of these cool tools or being able to solve a lot of these solutions, solve a lot of these problems is so easy. Now the number one thing that's going to differentiate, differentiate all of these people that are now building is how to sell it. Right? And so if you can find a niche, find a, find a market, find a person and then find the message that's going to get them to buy. Like you're going to be miles ahead of the competition because no one knows how to market anything. And so yeah, those are my two pieces of advice. First of all, find a problem and then once you find that problem, build something but then market the hell out of it and you'll be fine.
- [53:09]
B
Yeah, my problems are super complex. We've been building some capacity. It's capacity planning tools because cancellations is just as bad as a, as a non booked call. I mean they canceled and they probably found somebody sooner. So we've gotten into this lead scoring because you don't want to cancel opportunities that might be massive. So if you do got a cancel because you're under capacity, someone called in. There's a lot that happens with human beings and human beings are still the ones fixing stuff. So when I got a need and I need it now and for some reason you can't get out in the time frame, it's the break fix model. You know, if I was going to cancel or reschedule somebody who do I absolutely not want to reschedule because I want the best opportunity. And then secondly, how do I get a guy to work longer hours that day and not bury them to where they want to quit because there's, you know, the machine might say just have these guys all work extra hours. Well, at what point do they get a divorce and end up like angry in life? So what's next for nail?
- [54:14]
A
Great question. Honestly just doing the same thing that we've been doing, but better and doing more of it. Right. We're not really making any crazy product innovations. We're not really building any crazy new stuff. We're not really like breaking any new ground. That's insane. I mean, we found a. We found an area that needs what we have to provide. So now the only focus for me is to provide that to as many people as possible. So what's next for us is. Is really going hard on content. I loved I saw your video or your post the other day about how you're doubling down on content because attention is the number one currency right now, and if you can have the most attention, you'll likely have the most money in a space. And so that's kind of what we're doubling down on is content. Podcasting, number one, going to events, kind of shaking up the franchise industry in a way that hasn't been done before. Franchising is kind of a lot of industry players that have been there for a long time and who haven't seen a lot of innovation and are all suit and tie and button up and cocktail hour and all of that fun stuff. And I think there's a big, big spot for us to come in and change things up a little bit, make it more interesting, make it more fun, but make a whole lot of people a whole lot of money in the meantime. So that's kind of what we're planning on.
- [55:42]
B
And if someone wants to reach out to you, George, what's the best way to do that?
- [55:47]
A
Yeah, of course the best way to learn more about us in general is just to go to our website, usenail.com w s E-N-A-I-L.com or you can email me georgeusenail.com there. You can obviously ask me any question that you might have, or if you're on the website and you want to learn more about how we might be able to implement a system like nail into your franchise or into your organization, then people can book a call with me on the website, things like that. But Mike Potts, one of my mentors, taught me this thing called the friendly neighbor model. And it's the theory that if you just give to people without any ask in return, then eventually it'll come back around to you, just like a friendly neighbor would in borrowing sugar. And so we live by the friendly neighbor model at Nail. And so if people have questions about the technology, if people have problems and they're like, hey, I don't know if this is the right thing for us, or they Want insight on maybe a certain problem that they're facing. We follow the friendly neighbor model. We're here to give advice, give help anywhere that we can. And if we can't, point people in the right direction. So yeah, my email, georgewusenail.com or the website, use nail.com
- [57:08]
B
finally, what didn't I ask you that I should have? Is there anything you want to close out with?
- [57:18]
A
I think one of the things that I think people fail to see, like when, when people ask me, the smart franchise executives come to me and they ask why projects fail, right? Like they'll come ask, they'll come to me and say, hey, why would this fail for our brand like this, this technology, this rollout, this new initiative, why would this fail? And I had a conversation with Joel Worthington, who used to be the brand president of Mr. Electric, who's a neighborly company and he helped grow that brand from, I mean, they were down in the dumps to, I mean, skyrocketing. It's Mr. Electric, right? Like they do crazy numbers now. And I would like to mirror one thing that he told me was no one will ever follow through with your new initiative, with your new vendor, with your new idea, with whatever you're trying to do in your organization. If you don't see the vision, if they don't believe in where they're going, they're not going to follow along. Exactly. And so improper communication, I have this written in my notes. Improper communication of the vision can destroy any new initiative, especially with AI because people, some people are AI sensitive, especially in a blue collar industry. Not everyone's all about it, right? So if you don't see the vision, if you don't put forth where you want to go and why this is important for them and not just important for the big guys in suits at corporate, you will never succeed. And one thing that Joel and I both agreed on was you have to first lead with the story that you're going to tell, right? What is the story of where they will end up. Like resorts don't sell you the king size bed and the unlimited drinks and the wagyu steak, right? Like they sell you on the feeling of the sand between your toes and how relaxed you're going to feel at their complimentary spa, right? Like they sell you on those things. So if you can't sell them on the vision of where they're going to go, what's going to change for them, how they're going to improve as a company given this new initiative, like you're Dead in the water. Then second thing, you have to back it up with results, right? So you can sell the vision all day long and you can create this big great story of what's going to happen. But if you don't back it up with real results, then no one's going to believe you now or later, because then you're going to give them another reason not to trust you in the future. So you have to back up that story with real results, proving what you said is going to be true. And then third thing is, you always want to make it stick. You always want to make it hit them in the heart with a spokesperson, right? With a peer, a colleague, someone that they respect coming out and saying, hey, I advocate for this thing. I believe in it. I understand where we're going, and you all should too. This happened to us within Superior Fence and Rail. Drew Raymond, who is like the guy when it comes to Superior Fence and Rail, his franchise, they do like 20 million a year. One of the largest franchises in the network. Everyone respects him just because he's a great guy. He came out and he said during the annual conference in February where we went and presented what we were going to end up doing, he stood up and he said, man, if this ain't the best thing since sliced bread, I don't know what is, right? Like, he believed in this system, and so therefore everyone else around him had a reason to believe because he was the spokesperson. So if you can do those three things, you can get your. Your network or your. Your organization to. To do almost anything. And that's the number one thing that I see missing from a lot of people trying to roll out new initiatives and things like that in an organization.
- [60:45]
B
George, I got some good notes. Oh, yeah, you gave me a lot of good food for thought. I love having a podcast where it just gets my brain turning. That last piece of advice is just getting the buy in. We rolled out a technology recently and a lot of the guys just are having problems with it going. We think the human's better and this has to do with dispatching. And the fact is no one's better than AI. It's impossible to be better if we're feeding it the right information. As long as you're getting the right stuff into there, there is still human error going in that's causing the AI to fail. So I'm going to get in front of this right now. You gave me some good food for thought, but excellent podcast, my man. I know you're new to this stuff, but thank you And I do know Josh pretty well. Josh Nelson. Tell him I said hi.
- [61:33]
A
Yeah, I will. He's a great guy. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. Seriously. I appreciate it, and I appreciate getting the chance to kind of spread the knowledge to a wider audience.
- [61:45]
B
Yeah, it'll be a big audience, so you'll probably get a lot of feedback. So I appreciate you doing this. And, yeah, anytime you want to reach out, touch base, let me know.
- [61:53]
A
Cool. Sounds good. And if you want any deeper insight or better insight on that last point that I made, Joel Worthington, man, reach out to him on LinkedIn. He's like the guy when it comes to getting kind of that adoption and kind of building up that story and building up that. That initiative, man. Like, he's insane when it comes to that sort of thing. So, yeah, tell him. Tell him I sent you.
- [62:18]
B
Joel Worthington. Yeah. You know, I know. I know the CEO really well of Neighborly. Neighborly, yeah. His name's Mike Davis. He's a good guy. Those guys are. They're smart. They're on the cutting edge. They're private equity backed, and they're. Yeah, they're rolling out things. They're doing it the right way. It's a big company. So is Authority Brands.
- [62:38]
A
They're.
- [62:38]
B
They're also PE backed. Great company.
- [62:40]
A
Yep, Yep. They're my two favorite. Obviously, we work a lot within Power brands because the Superior Fence and Rail and some of the other brands under that umbrella, but, yeah, Authority and Neighborly, man, those are like my guys. If I could have a. An hour to sit down with. With Mike, I'd be like the happiest guy in the world because they're.
- [62:58]
B
I haven't reached out to him in a while, but I'll see what I could do.
- [63:02]
A
Yeah. Hey, man, if you. If you have the opportunity to drop my name anywhere, I would be eternally grateful.
- [63:08]
B
All right, well, I'll see what I can do, George. I really appreciate it.
- [63:11]
C
My.