Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the AI Edge, the show that makes AI simple, easy and practical. From chaos to clarity. AI Made easy. Let's cut the chaos.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: The lead came in at 7:14pm you saw it the next morning at 8:30. And by the time you typed hi, just following up, it was already gone.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Gone, already booked. Somebody else already had the appointment on the calendar before you finished your first cup of coffee.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: And it wasn't your price, it wasn't your work, it wasn't your reviews. Your competitor beat you on exactly one thing. They answered first. And here's the kicker. They probably didn't even answer. Their AI did.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: That's the part nobody wants to hear. While you were on a roof, under a sink in somebody's attic, or driving between jobs, your competitor's system was answering that lead in 10 seconds flat. No hands, no interruption. No, let me pull over.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: So let's talk about that, because this is the operations problem hiding inside what you keep calling a sales problem. And today we're talking straight to our home service people. H vac, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage doors, all of you. This one's for you.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Because home service is where this hurts the most. You can't answer the phone. You physically can't. Your hands are full. You're 40ft in the air or elbow deep in a furnace.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: And meanwhile, the way most of you have set up your business is honestly adorable in a sad way. You've got a phone number you can't answer, and a little website with a little contact form that dumps into an email inbox.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: An inbox nobody checks. Not you, not Jessica, nobody. That form is going straight into the digital void.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Let me describe the modern home service lead system as it actually exists.
Customer fills out a form on your website. That form sends an email. That email lands in an inbox you open maybe twice a week. And by the time you see it, the customer's already had three other companies out to the house.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: It's a beautiful system for your competitors. You built a lead generation machine that generates leads directly for the guy down
[00:02:13] Speaker B: the street and the customer who filled out that form. They're not waiting. Nobody waits anymore. They filled out your form, didn't hear back in four minutes, and immediately call the next company, because that's how people work now.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: So let's hit the numbers, because this is where it stops being our opinion. When a lead comes in and you respond within five minutes, you're up to a hundred times more likely to actually connect than if you wait 30, a
[00:02:39] Speaker B: hundred times and the average business takes over 47 hours to respond. 47 hours.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: That's not a response time. That's a hostage negotiation that Nobody's negotiating. In 47 hours, the customer's AC is fixed, the wedding's over, and they've forgotten your company ever existed.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: And here's the one that ends the debate. 78% of customers buy from whoever responds first. First. Not best, not cheapest.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: First, though, you can be the best plumber in the entire county. Master certified, 20 years of experience, and still lose the job to some guy who answered on the first ring because he had a system and you had a voicemail.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: The voicemail guy is losing to the system guy every single day. And you know what the system guy's doing while his AI answers the call? He's actually finishing the job he's already on. He's not even stressed.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: And here's call to action number one. Costs you nothing this week. Go test your own business. Pull out your phone, fill out your own website form, and start a timer. See how long it takes anyone to respond. I'll wait. We'll all wait. 47 hours, apparently.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Go be your own customer. See what it actually feels like to reach out to your business, because most of you have never once done it, and you're about to be horrified.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Now, here's where some of you tense up because we said the word AI and half of you just clutched your truck keys.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Here we go.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: AI's gonna take over my business. AI's gonna replace me. Next thing you know, the robot's running my company and I'm obsolete.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Let me calm everybody's spirit. Nobody is asking AI to be you. The AI does not want to climb the roof. The AI does not want to crawl under the house. The AI doesn't want your expertise, your hands, or your 20 years of knowing exactly what that we noise means.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: The AI wants the phone you can't answer. That's it. That's the whole scary takeover. It wants the part of your day where you're losing leads because you're busy being good at your actual job.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: You're out here guarding your throne. Like AI wants your crown. AI doesn't want your crown. AI wants to be your receptionist who never sleeps, never calls out, and never says, ugh, another customer.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: And let's be honest about the real reason a lot of owners won't do it. It's not fear. It's stubbornness wearing a fear costume.
A lot of you just don't want to change. You've been doing it the same way for 15 years and you've decided that the way we've always done it is a personality. It is not. It's a slow leak with a logo.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: And we've seen this exact movie before. Every single time a new technology shows up, the same people line up to swear they'll never use it.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: People panicked about the Internet. I'm not putting my business on some website. That's a fad. That fad is now where 100% of your customers find you.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: People panicked about email. I'm not emailing. I'll just fax it. Sir, where's your fax machine now? It's in a landfill. It's been in a landfill for 20 years.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: People swore they'd never put a credit card number into the computer. Now you buy a furnace part from your phone while sitting on the toilet. Don't lie. We all do it.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: People said social media was for teenagers. Now there's 70 year old H vac owners going viral on Facebook, showing before and after duct cleanings. Times change.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Technology always feels insane right before it becomes Tuesday. First you laugh at it, then you argue about it. Then you literally cannot remember how you ran your business without it.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: And here's the stat that should light a fire. The businesses that are actually growing right now, most of them have already adopted AI in some form. The businesses that are shrinking, barely half. So when somebody tells me AI is just hype, I just quietly check which list they're on.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Because your competition is not sitting around scared. Your competition is setting up an AI agent to answer every call, every text, every form, every Facebook message while you're still arguing with us in your head about whether robots are going to take your job.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: They're not taking your job. They're taking your customers. There's a difference, and it's a big one.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: And here's call to action number two. If the scary part is just not knowing what this actually is, go remove the mystery. Go to Thehello LLC I.O. and talk to Izzy. Izzy's our AI agent.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Message her like you're a customer with a busted water. Here, ask her a question. Watch how fast she answers, how normal it feels, how she's not some creepy robot voice from a movie. She just helps instantly.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: At any hour, go bother our robot. At midnight, watch her book an appointment while you're in your pajamas. That's the exact experience your customers should be getting. And right now, they're getting your voicemail and a contact form. Going to an inbox where hope goes to.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Let me paint the before and after. Because this is where it gets good. Here's the old way. H Vac owner, hottest day of the summer. Phone's ringing all day. He's on a job, can't answer. Six calls go to voicemail. Three people fill out the website form. All of it lands in an email. He checks at 9pm, exhausted, when every single one of those customers already books somebody else.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: He lost six jobs that day. Six. And he doesn't even know it. He just thinks, slow day. It wasn't slow. It was a massacre. He just never saw the bodies.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Now, here's the new way. Same owner, same hot day, same six calls. Except now an AI agent answers every single one in 10 seconds. Hey, thanks for calling. Sounds like your AC's out. I can get a tech to you tomorrow between 8 and 10. Does that work? Books it. Pecks the customer, a confirmation, notifies the tech. All while the owner is still up on the last job, not even knowing it happened.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: He comes down off the roof and he's got four new appointments booked instead of six missed calls. Same day, same business, same him. The only thing that changed is something was finally awake when the customer was ready.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: That's not the AI replacing him. That's the AI catching the money he was dropping on the ground every single day.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: And the form on the website? Gone. We don't do fill out this form and wait. That's a relay race where you drop the baton on purpose. Now it's a conversation that happens the second the customer wants it.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Because the customer doesn't want to fill out a form and wait two days. The customer wants an answer. Now they're comparing you to Amazon, to Uber, to the pizza app that shows them a little map of the driver. That's the bar now.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: And your business is over here. Like, please allow 24 to 48 hours for a response. Nobody is allowing that. The customer allowed that for exactly zero seconds before calling the next guy.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: So here's what this really comes down to. It's not about the gadget. It's not about AI being cool. It's about the system underneath your business. The foundation.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Right now, most of you have no foundation. You have a phone, an inbox, and a prayer. That's not a system. That's three disconnected things and a vibe.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: A real system means every way a customer reaches out. Call, text, form, Facebook, Instagram, all of it gets answered immediately, captured in one place, and followed up on automatically. The AI agent is just a part that answers first. The system is what makes sure nothing ever falls through Again.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: And that's what we actually build inside. Hello, Nexus. Not a cute chatbot you slap on a website to look modern. A connected operation. The agent answers the system, books it, the follow up fires on its own, and the customer info stops. Living in six different places and one person's memory.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Because answering first is step one. Never dropping a lead again. That's the foundation. And that foundation is the difference between a business that grows and a business that just stays busy losing money politely.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Here's the honest gut check. If a customer reached out to your business right now, this second, while you're driving to your next job, would they get an answer? Or would they get your voicemail and a form and then call your competitor?
[00:10:54] Speaker B: If you're not sure, that's not a knock on you. You're good at your trade. That's why you're always busy and never by the phone. But that's exactly why you need something answering for you.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Which brings us to the big one. If this episode described your business a little too well, book a discovery call with us. This is the discovery meeting. A real conversation, not a 50 slide pitch.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: We look at your actual setup. We find every place leads are slipping through. We test your real response time, and we show you exactly what an AI agent and a connected system would do for your business. Specifically whether you're H vac, plumbing, electrical, roofing. We build it to fit how your business actually runs.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: No pressure, no tech jargon, just a clear picture of how much you're losing to slow response and what it looks like to finally answer first every time.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: So here's your homework in order. 1. Test your own response time this week. 2, go talk to Izzy at thehelloloc IO and feel what fast actually looks like. 3, book the discovery call and let us show you your real numbers.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Test it, talk to Izzy, then fix it. In that order.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Because your competition isn't smarter than you, they're not more talented than you, they're not better at the actual work than you.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: They just set up a system that answers first. While you were still scared of the word robot.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: AI isn't here to take your business. It's here to make sure you stop losing it to the guy who already said yes to it. You didn't know you were in a race. Now you do.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: This is the AI edge. Keep pushing the envelope. Drop your worst I saw the lead too late moment in the comments. Home service crew. I know you've got a good one.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: And go find out how long your customers are really waiting on you. We'll see you next Tuesday, Same time, same mission. From chaos to clarity.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Catch you next week.
