In this episode, John Wilson sits down with Daryna Kulya, co-founder of Quo (formerly OpenPhone), to unpack one of the most underappreciated growth levers in home services: how you communicate as you scale. What starts as “one tech, one phone, one truck” quickly becomes a bottleneck once you’re trying to hire CSRs, build a call center, and stop missing leads. Daryna shares the real story behind Quo’s rebrand, why they’re building for the long term, and how modern phone + text workflows are evolving with AI.
They dive into the hard operational truth most contractors learn too late: you don’t feel the communication pain until your customers already do. From missed calls, speed-to-lead, shared inboxes, and staffing by the hour (not the day), to AI call agents that outperform voicemail 3x, this is a tactical conversation for any operator trying to grow past the owner-operator stage. If you’re scaling HVAC, plumbing, electrical, restoration, or any service trade — and you want to stop leaking revenue through missed calls and messy handoffs — this one’s a must-listen.
What You’ll Learn
- Why Quo rebranded from OpenPhone — and what that signals about the future of communication
- The hidden scaling trap of using your personal cell number
- When contractors hire CSRs too late (and step out too early)
- Why staffing by the day hides the real missed-call problem
🎙️ Hosts & Guest
Host
John Wilson
Guest
Daryna Kulya — Co-Founder, Quo (formerly OpenPhone)
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More Ways To Connect with O&O
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OAO 264
Daryna Kulya: [00:00:00] We are here to build a business for the very, very long term. You know, we, we wanna really help our customers challenge the status quo. You know, closing more deals, having happier customers. That is what drives your business success. And that's been the North star for us since day one.
John Wilson: So that like real core for.
First customer was like the one man in a truck.
Daryna Kulya: Exactly. At least I think in home services, the businesses we work with are a lot more innovative than what the myth is.
John Wilson: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host, John Wilson. Today I'm joined by Jina Coola. The co-founder of Quo, formerly open phone. Today's a wide ranging conversation going from rebranding, communication, home service companies as they scale, and how to continue to upgrade your tech stack. Thanks for joining and make sure you like and subscribe.
Darina, welcome to Owned and Operated. It's awesome to have you on today.
Daryna Kulya: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about about talking to you and being on the show.
John Wilson: [00:01:00] Yeah, this will be, this will be fun. Um. I I want to just, we'll do like a quick snippet on what you guys, uh, do, and then you really served me up like a great topic, uh, right before we got on.
So we're, we're gonna, we're gonna dive in. So, yeah, how about you start us off with like, wait, what do you guys, what do you guys do?
Daryna Kulya: Absolutely. So Quo, formerly known as Open Phone, we're a business phone solution for small businesses, uh, startups. Mm-hmm. Um, and we really help you not just communicate with your customers, so all the things like calling, texting, but we really help you build stronger customer relationships so that.
You can make more money at the end of the day. Um, we started this company about seven years ago. Um, have grown a lot, serve over 90,000 customers, and, uh, we think that, uh, a lot. Uh, one of the big problems for businesses is that they don't necessarily like need more leads. They just need to make sure that the customers they have and the leads they are [00:02:00] getting, uh, they're really great at following up.
Um, to lead and we wanna help, uh, our customers, uh, be a lot better at serving their customers and growing faster.
John Wilson: Yeah, that's amazing. Uh, you, right before we got on you, you brought up an episode that I think just went live last night, which was, um, we did an episode with Rich Jordan. He's a good friend of mine on like rebranding, and I think that like you guys are pretty far along.
You're seven years in. And you rebranded from Open Phone, which is kind of a fairly straightforward name on like, here's what we do to Quo. And I'm sure a lot of questions, uh, we just did this whole big episode from Rich of like, here's why. Here's the philosophy like. Why, what's the philosophy? Yeah,
Daryna Kulya: totally.
Listen, it's, it's, I've been asked many times recently, uh, you know, we just did this about, uh, two months ago and, uh, a hundred percent a very risky move and something that [00:03:00] got a lot of people wondering, you know, if we are really crazy over here. Um, the thing is, well, first of all, I start off. Open phone is an amazing name and I am so grateful for, um, you know.
I, I think that when we got started it, it was like perfect name. I, I actually think we could not have found a better name for the company when we got started. The thing is that as communication is changing, uh, with, with ai, with a bunch of things, uh, you know, we are here to build a business for the very, very long.
Term. Term. And you know, I think maybe right now it feels like a crazy, crazy decision, right? To go from open phone to dropping phone and sort of having a name that's more abstract, like Quo. Um, but for us it is an opportunity to, you know, be building for, for the very long run. I think that. I, I was thinking about, you know, businesses, entrepreneurs, starting companies in like 10 years, you know, gen Z Gen mm-hmm.
I dunno, alpha, whoever, whatever generation is gonna be starting those businesses in [00:04:00] 10 years. Uh, I mean, I don't know what's, what the concept of phone, what it would actually be in 10 years. And we wanna be very flexible and we wanna have the opportunity to really shape, um, to shape that and not have the name sort of like really limit us.
Yeah. The other thing is that, you know, we, we wanna be very different, I think. Um. I actually wonder if in your episode, rich sort of was talking about it, sometimes you actually really just need to be different and a lot of, uh, competition in our, in our space, you know, I don't wanna be naming, naming folks.
Mm-hmm. They have names that are really descriptive. Um, and we wanted to kind of like go away. F from that to hopefully have a name that we can shape, like a meaning around. Um, and, and that really stands out. I also think that Quo, you know, it's quo.com. It's a very short name.
John Wilson: Yeah. Um, I mean three letter domain, like makes sense.
It felt to me like a challenging the status quo. I don't know if that was like a [00:05:00] part of it, but like that was the vibe I got from it.
Daryna Kulya: Yeah, it is challenging the status quo. It is the new status quo. We wanna be the, we wanna be the way into which businesses communicate with our customers. Actually the name quo means in Latin, um, by which, so we are the system by which.
Businesses communicate with their customers. Mm-hmm. And actually, you know, folks might say, okay, well, like, it has nothing to do with phone. That's kind of the idea. I also, that's not a, you know, it's a feature, not a bug. Um, yeah. I also will say that, uh, just for people who are really into brand and rebranding, uh, we actually worked with an agency to, to help us come up with a name.
Because if we did this ourselves, we probably. Couldn't, you know, we've all been so used to the name open phone. So we had an agency go through the whole process to help us find a new name. And fun fact, the team, uh, in that agency that came up with the name Quo, they had no [00:06:00] idea what they were naming. And I think that just shows you that sometimes knowing too much about mm-hmm.
What you do can be so limiting. You need that outside perspective. So, so, yeah, the wild, wild idea, wild decision. But we are excited because it gives us so much room to grow. It gives us so many possibilities, and we wanna, you know, we, we wanna really help our customers challenge the status quo.
John Wilson: Yeah. I've, I've gotta ask because I, you know, I just came off another rebranding podcast episode.
What's the cost of a rebrand? Like, I mean, the domain name for a three letter URL. You don't have to name it, but it's gotta be like a lot. Plus the, we got really
Daryna Kulya: lucky. I will tell you one thing, which is kind of a fun fact, is that, yeah, uh, the domain, uh, quote.com was way cheaper than what we paid for open fund.com.
So let me just say that. Yeah. Um, is
John Wilson: it six figures? Five or [00:07:00] four?
Daryna Kulya: Definitely not four. Okay. Yeah, no, let's just say, yeah, it's, it's uh, you know, very.
John Wilson: I mean, quos good. All growth figures. It's, it's a good domain name like I would expect it to be a lot.
Daryna Kulya: We got very lucky. We got very lucky. And I think that the thing though is, you know, maybe going back to this idea of, of
yeah,
you know, you did an episode on, on branding, rebranding.
I think a lot of it is what you make it. So as much as you know, maybe now it's still feels like, you know, a lot of customers tell me. There are customers who tell me they love the new name. There are also customers, of course, who tell me they miss the old name. Mm-hmm. And I get it, we've been open phone for a long time.
But, but the thing is that this is, you know, we are two months in, um, the name, the brand is what you, it's the meaning that you give it. And yeah, we are, the work is just beginning. And I hope that, you know, we. You know, we are, we are here for a very long run, so we wanna, over time give it so much meaning.[00:08:00]
And I, and I really hope that people, if, if they don't love it right now, it will really grow on them.
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When you select owned and operated as a referral. I would imagine that it takes a lot of courage to do a rebrand. I mean, that would be intimidating when, when Rich, I'm a week into this of like thinking about this, but when Rich [00:09:00] walked me through his, I was like, I don't, I don't know that I could do. I don't know that I could do it.
Um, I think it takes a lot like we, what, so to me, this is a, this is probably a big inflection point for your journey. Like you, you're seven years in and like, hey, this is the new US for the first seven years. Like what were a couple other inflection points? I've never built like a, what you started as just to clarify was like.
Almost VoIP or was it like, how would you classify your OR origin?
Daryna Kulya: Yeah, for sure. I think that VoIP is a great way to put it. I mean tech technically, we're still in that sort of industry. I think it we're right? You just broadened
John Wilson: scope.
Daryna Kulya: We, yeah, we just,
John Wilson: yeah,
Daryna Kulya: we want to. We've always been, uh, I think that from the very beginning we never really, honestly thought about it as, oh, we are gonna start a VoIP product or a VoIP company.
That was never, never the idea. The idea was always we wanna help, uh, small businesses not lose customers and frankly. [00:10:00] This goes way back to, I think your audience will probably appreciate my co-founder prior to, uh, to working on this, was building software for contractors, invoicing software. Yeah. And he found that, uh, when he was building that product, a lot of his customers were not, were afraid to put their phone number on the invoice because they would be bombarded with calls and they wouldn.
Oh, interesting. Someone to, to answer. And all the solutions in the space were just so clunky. Um, and you know, that was like one of the interesting insights that, uh, obviously if you are, uh, you know, a contractor, you're working with clients, you are on the client side, like you are there to do the work. If, if your phone rings, you probably don't wanna like pick it up in front of your client.
Mm-hmm. But that means you're limiting yourself, right. Uh, from. All the potential business that you will be getting, and you need that to get, keep the pipeline of clients going. And that was just such a, such a huge insight. And, uh, when we started this company, [00:11:00] we never, I mean, technically we are VoIP technically, you know, business, phone, telephony.
Um, we, we wanna give you the business outcome of growing your business. That is what we are after. That's also why I think the name like Quo mm-hmm. Helps us show that we are here to deliver the business outcome. We're here less, just to be like a, a channel of communication. Because communication, you can talk to customers in any channel you want.
It's a bit of a commodity, but the business outcome that is, uh, you know, uh, you know, closing more deals mm-hmm. Uh, being a, having happier customers, that is what drives your business success. And that's been the North star for us since day one.
John Wilson: Yeah. I, I think that makes sense. We. I know, um, on one hand, like phones aren't something that I like going to just like the baseline of like, here's why we started, like, I'm just gonna give a snippet on like voiceover IP products.
It, it's [00:12:00] like needed, right? Like there's not much of a choice. You need something and, and ideally you need something that, uh, gives you data And, um, I it's just been, uh. It's fascinating how often this, like, backbone of your industry comes up in conversations that I'm in, like group chats or, or whatever. I, you didn't name any competitors, but I will name a few competitors that people are having negative experiences with.
Uh, so like it Dialpad comes up in like half of the conver like group chats that I'm in because, uh, shockingly I don't know why, but Dialpad seems to crash once a week. Uh, 'cause at least my group chats tell me that we don't use dial. Um, but, um, it for like such a backbone of the business, like it has to work.
It just has to work and it's, um, yeah, I, I, I think it, I would imagine that that's a big thing to overcome and I can see like where it fits in, uh, to like small businesses. Is they like one, is someone picking up the phone? Are we delivering good value? And two, like is it consistent and [00:13:00] is it working? A
Daryna Kulya: hundred percent.
And, you know, yeah. I think that is obviously like the, the, the backbone, like it has to work. It's, um, I, I think that's like non-negotiable. Yeah.
Uh,
but then on top of it, I think there is so much value that any product, you know, I think that there is still so much value that is not. Delivered. If you think about it, you have so much insights in those conversations.
We have customers that run their businesses on top of Quo where their calls and messages, all of that history, all of their customer interactions are, are in the, in the platform. And, uh, what I'm really excited about and, you know, happy to tease maybe some things we are working on. I'm really excited about giving you, as, as the business owner, as the operator, giving you like, really unique insights about, um, about how, uh, how your team is talking to customers, what, what they're actually saying.
Mm-hmm. Um, I just the other day connected my quo workspace to Claude and I, [00:14:00] you know, we use Quo, obviously I connected our sales number and I started asking Claude like, tell me what are the top 10 objections that we can't overcome? It took me, you know, a couple of minutes. Yeah. And right now that's sort of like the workflow, you know, you kind of, uh, you can connect quo to chat GPT to Claude.
Yeah, of
course we wanna bring more of these insights directly in the product as well. Uh, but I think that as the owner, if you, if you know that listen, like, uh, if you know that your team is maybe not able to overcome a certain objection, um, without a solution like this, you would be kind of like flying, flying blind.
You, you actually. Don't know what's the, what's the blocker to your business growth, um, but we can give you those insights and really show you that, hey, maybe this team is crushing it because they're able to do this versus the other team needs more training, needs more coaching.
John Wilson: You said that you put it into Claude and it served you back the objections that were challenging.
Oh, yeah. [00:15:00] Yeah. Like what, what were the objections that were hard to
Daryna Kulya: count? Well, I, yeah, I think some of the objections, uh, some of the objections that we saw were, you know, a very classic one is that, you know, we don't support desk phones, for example. Our solution is on, oh. Yeah, we don't, we don't,
John Wilson: I'm shocked that that's still an objection.
I mean, in 2025, I feel like
Daryna Kulya: in some industries, in some industries, maybe not home services, I think, uh, home services, uh, you know, you, you guys are ahead of the, ahead of the curve. Yes. We're now ahead of the
John Wilson: curve in 2025.
Daryna Kulya: I love home services. You guys are actually pushing the boundaries in many ways, so, yeah.
Not in, not in home services, but we also, you know, we have clients in, in other industries and yeah, sometimes when it's. Things like maybe healthcare or, or legal in some of those cases. It's a bit, it's a lot of change management, right? Um, and it, it's sort of like what we need to do is, is perhaps instead of just like, cool, like, we don't support desk phones.
We, we help you understand why and what, what is the benefit. And, [00:16:00] um, you know, we wanna, again, we wanna be building for the businesses. Mm-hmm. Like five, 10 years from now. And I think that there's just so much to build that, uh, we, you know, never say never. Listen, maybe I regret saying this and we support desk phones in a year, but, but we wanna be really future, future looking and, and help you like.
Solve the challenges and, and make your business future proof as well.
John Wilson: Yeah, technology. Technology, uh, adoption I think is really interesting. I, I remember you mentioned Twitter before we got on, so I'm assuming you're, uh, somewhat active in that space. But, uh, I remember in like 20 19, 20 20, 20 21, uh, a lot of the conversation on Twitter was like, go buy a plumbing business, an HVAC business.
You're competing against people that are using a fax machine. And I'm just like. Where are those guys at? Because that is not how plumbing and HVAC works. You're competing against like the most funded competitors in the us.
Daryna Kulya: Yeah. I also, by the way, I still hear that [00:17:00] sentiment and I do wonder where it's coming from because, you know, um.
We serve a wide range of customers. And I think sometimes, you know, when I share that we serve small businesses, people assume that like, oh cool, like you are ripping and replacing, you know, like pen and paper and fax and you know, maybe a spreadsheet. And frankly I think that is, uh. That is not the case.
Uh mm-hmm. We see actually, you know, uh, I'm sure we're gonna talk about AI because everyone does these days. Mm-hmm. But I'm seeing people really experimenting. I'm seeing businesses building their own workflows. Um Yep. They're not just even buying software off the shelf. They're like connecting things, connecting tools, sometimes building their own tooling.
Um, like we are kind of living in crazy times. So I think that. At least I think in home services, the businesses we work with are a lot more innovative than what
John Wilson: Yeah. Uh,
Daryna Kulya: perhaps the myth is
John Wilson: Yeah. I, I think so. And I [00:18:00] like we're, we've designed a number of like internal only use apps using like lovable, like it's kind of crazy.
There you go. What you can do, we, uh, like we were shopping, um. This was like six months ago. But we were shopping for a fleet management software to like manage the backbone of our fleet. Like how do you tag repairs, how do you track VINs, how do you do all this stuff? Kind of a complicated software. And it was gonna be 20 grand a year and it was like, hey, hold my beer.
And we put it together on lovable and like a day. Like it's crazy. And I'm hearing more and more people in this space. Yeah, exactly. To your point, doing this experimenting and like figuring out how to drive this.
Daryna Kulya: A hundred percent. And I think that this is what I think is so fun. Right. I also know there are people who have like left tech to join, you know?
Yes. To buy a business like you said, right. They're kind of coming in, uh, from maybe tech industry and sort of applying those principles. I think that's, to me, I think it's really fun and I think that we can, uh, we can all [00:19:00] like learn from, from what they're doing. Yeah. So, uh, it will be really interesting.
Maybe, maybe we can come back to, uh. Look back on this conversation like years from now and say, okay, like people are like just building their own software stack from scratch.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, I, I think it, um, it's probably obvious. To, to you, but like similar to, uh, it's hard to disrupt the plumber in the home.
I feel like for a technology company being the backbone, being the VoIP gives you a lot more control than like the fleet management software. I just talked about displacing. Like I'm, I'm not gonna go design a VoIP program. Right. Like, and I think that like you're, you are sort of this backbone that insulates you from.
A lot of the drama.
Daryna Kulya: Well, we have a lot of complexity. I think that maybe something to, yeah, there is a lot of, um, there is a lot of complexity to our business and a lot of nuances. I would imagines being able, [00:20:00] uh, you know, we, we have a really big engineering team. We have, you know. Yeah. Very, uh, when you look at what we do and sort of like our, the depth of product development.
Yeah. Um.
It, it takes a very, it, it takes a lot to be able to do what we do now. Um, things like integrations for example, right? We, we've released our API, um, we did this like, uh, last year at, at this point, yeah, last year. And we've, we have people who can build things on top of our platform, which I think is amazing.
But of course, like the backbone, the core, uh, all the clients working on all devices. Um, keep in mind that like. A lot of our customers really need, and for them it's not about just having the app on their computer.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, they are out and about. We actually started out as a mobile app, so our, our iOS app, we, that was actually our very first thing we Interesting.
Years ago. So we started as a iOS app [00:21:00] and then we expanded into desktop web everywhere. Um, which I think like a bit of, so that like real
John Wilson: core first customer was like the one man in a truck, in in mind, mind guy. Interesting. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Daryna Kulya: Well, I'm telling you, my, my co-founder, you know, he was, he was building, you know, he was building tools for contractors and Yeah.
Um, you know, the first, like the first version of, uh, quo at that time Yeah. Called Open Phone was, was just an iOS app and we got a lot of customers and a lot of demand just for that. Um, and I just remember how, uh, be because, you know, for that customer, like to your point, if you're a contractor. Um, one man show type of thing, right?
Doing, uh, there's not a great solution.
John Wilson: Like even today there's not price. Yeah. Even today, like I, I hear people, um, I have a friend and he runs like a small plumbing company local to me, and it's like, it's, it's either carry two cell phones or like, there, there wasn't a good solution to your point.
Daryna Kulya: Well, you can send him quote.com [00:22:00]
John Wilson: I'll, I'll, you know, but, uh, but yeah, I think, um, yeah, that's a good point, pain point.
And I think on one hand I feel like, oh, that's not a pain point anymore, but I, I can definitely like. You know, the guy that is coming out to clean my, uh, like upholstery tomorrow, like he's a one man show and I'm sure he doesn't like me texting it. His personal number probably. Yeah. Well,
Daryna Kulya: but here's, here's actually something that is, that is kind of interesting because going back to this idea that, and you know, we're kind of going back in the day, you know, when we got started, we started as an iOS app, obviously built.
Now we are available all devices. There is, we support teams. You know, we have, yeah. Uh, teams of hundreds of people using us, uh, sort of like together. Uh, what's very interesting is that the, the, the kind of like a problem with that is when you're starting out, and you might be just, it's just you, here is the limiting mindset, li limiting mindset is that Oh, that's fine.
I'll use my cell phone. Yeah, that's okay. It's just me. Who cares? I, I love my business, I love my customers. Text me anytime. Mm-hmm. [00:23:00] Which is great, but here's what happens. At some point you, you're not gonna be able to keep up. You're gonna wanna hire. EA and va an ops person, you're gonna need to, if you wanna scale that business, you wanna be able to not be like the, the blocker.
And what happens, and I see this all the time, is that people decide like, cool, I'm just gonna hire someone to help me manage my business. But the customers are still calling and texting the the owner. So their personal phone becomes like, they actually. They have sometimes even handed over to, to, to, to their ops person.
Um, and I think that's just such a, you know, we see this all the time. Yeah. For me, I always commend like, listen. Uh, just get a, get a separate phone number. Um, you know, of course I will tell people to use Quo. Mm-hmm. But even if you get it somewhere else, it's, it's better than having your personal number become like that limiting factor.
So you can't delegate, you can't, um, [00:24:00] really scale your business. Uh, it's, it's something people don't realize. They only realize it after and they wish they did it differently.
John Wilson: Yeah. We, my anecdote is we've bought nine other companies, and in every single instance, the owner's phone number, their cell, their personal cell phone number gets leads.
So we have to acquire the personal cell phone number when we acquire the business, otherwise we lose leads. So it's sort of like. Uh, you know, cell phone numbers to me at, at this point are almost like social security numbers. Like I've had the same cell phone number for like, I think 19 years. So it'd be very odd to change it, and I think that's how most people feel.
But like, yeah, it'll, you'll have to sell your personal cell phone number in a business transaction because it's getting leads. Yeah.
Daryna Kulya: And it probably, I mean, just think of the pain of that because it probably pain. Oh yeah. You
John Wilson: have to, you have update all your contacts. It's a, yeah. Pain, big pain. Oh yeah. It
Daryna Kulya: crazy.
It's crazy. Um. No, I think it's like a simple thing to do it To me it's [00:25:00] like, it's like getting, I don't know, it's like getting a business email address, right? You start a business if you're really serious about it, like, don't use your Gmail. Right? It's, it's pretty simple. Get a, get a separate email, get a, get a business phone number.
It's the basics. Um, but yeah, but, but obviously, you know, there's so much. So much that happens after. And I think that, um, yeah, we are, we are excited to not only solve this problem, but of course then help our customers. Yeah, as they scale, a lot of other problems come up. So
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That's paper call.io. Get more calls, not excuses, click the link in the description to get started. [00:26:00] Yeah. So I, yeah, I think it sounds like you guys have a, uh, a lot of visibility into like that, that inflection point for these customers of like, Hey, I'm a contractor. I'm stepping into the office, or I'm hiring my first CSR, I'm building a call center team.
Um, you, can you give me any like, perspective, what it's like from your angle to look at these companies as they expand their office?
Daryna Kulya: Well, a couple of things. First of all, uh, people do this too late. I think that, um, the one thing that, uh, I see all the time is that, and I, I get it, you know, uh, as a founder, I totally get it.
I think that,
mm-hmm. Uh,
most, uh, most, most people who start a business, they, they care very deeply about their customers, and they, they are very, very, um, they think that, that they're the only one who can be serving their customers. I get the feeling, I felt the, the same way to a degree, but um, you know, they just do it too late.
Right? So whenever you [00:27:00] hire your CSR, the that first person you bring on to help you, uh, serve your customers, whenever you do it, it's already too late. So, yeah, that's one thing to consider. You probably wanna do it right before you feel the pain, because when you feel the pain, the truth is your customers already feel the pain.
Yeah. Because you're not. Responding, uh, fast enough. Um, I mean, we talk about speed to lead. Um, if you are a sole business owner operator, um, you know, you have to worry, you have to wear like way too many hats. Yeah. So, um, being, being sure that. You are picking up, responding to calls, you're not let, letting those leads go to your competitor.
Uh, like that is non-negotiable. So, so, so one trend we see is people do it when it hurts, but you kind of have to do it sort of like mm-hmm. Before it hurts so bad. And also hiring, right? Like, uh, when you wanna hire, I mean. Um, you know, we are in a, you know, [00:28:00] we're in a different space. We're in tech, but we see this as well that the moment, you know, you need to hire, there's the whole recruiting cycle.
You wanna yeah, find the right person who is, who is great for your business, who is the right fit for the team, and, um, it takes a while. So, so I think that is one insight. People do it, um, have a bit, a bit too late. And the other second piece we see is that when they do it, sometimes folks. Sort of feel relief.
They're like, oh, great, we, we just hired maybe two CSRs or an ops person. They're like very excited, but they step out too fast. And what, what that means is they great. This person is gonna be handling calls, amazing, but they don't really think about cool. How are they talking about the company? How are they positioning the services back to the idea, like, are they handling objections?
Mm-hmm. Ha have you as the owner, done a good job really training them, enabling them to be, uh, you know, be, to be talking about what you [00:29:00] do, the same way that, that you would've, and this is where, where I'm so excited about things we're building because we wanna give you visibility into those calls, into those.
Conversations. So you say, Hey, like these kind of calls we need to, to train the team better on, or these kind of calls we seem to not be able to book. Um, and I think this is where it's still a black box, and I think that as the business owner, you need to, don't, don't like disconnect from that the moment you hire your first or second person.
John Wilson: Yeah, I think that's the phrase. I think it, uh, is, uh, delegation versus abdication where I think, uh, you know, people are like, oh, I delegated this. Uh, but delegating is like, yeah, setting a framework, setting KPIs, setting targets, and abdication is, Hey, you got this. I'm, you know, like, I'm, I will never look at this again.
Which I, I would assume that probably is a big problem with sounds like what the customer base is 'cause like. They're totally slammed at all [00:30:00] times. So they finally got someone to take over. Like this challenging thing, like keeping up with the administrative burden every day. I would imagine they do just Yeah.
Yeet as fast as they can. Yeah.
Daryna Kulya: But I think there, there's also a question of, you know, listen, I think that of course it, it varies a little bit based on. Um, perhaps the size of the business and how, how fast they're growing, like what, what tools they use. Because, because frankly, again, uh, if you think about various ways to solve the problem we solve, uh, like one thing you could do is you could, um, you know, you, you could perhaps get, get like, uh, various phone numbers or separate phones for your, for your team.
Yeah. You could use one of our competitors, which listen, I, you know. I always, you know, I'm not gonna say anything bad about our competitors, but, but the truth is that not all the products out there actually give you the level of insight you need. So it's very easy to kind of like set it and forget it. Um, but I think that for your business to scale, you are really [00:31:00] missing those key insights to say, Hey, like, are we staffing the team the, the right way?
Do we have the right. Hours of coverage. Yeah, like even the basics, like how many missed calls are we getting? Because you'd be surprised, you know, you have a phone number on your website, you have a phone number on your Google profile. Mm-hmm. Sure. You have a tool set up, you have your team, you are all set, but like, are they missing a lot of calls?
Uh, maybe you're getting calls at 5:00 PM after hours and you don't have anyone to respond and, uh, you just don't know that you need to, like to make changes to the way you staff.
John Wilson: Yeah, I think I, I wanna expand into data a little bit. I know when we, this was probably three years ago for us, um. But we started e exactly this journey of like, where are we missing?
And it was 'cause a friend of mine, a fellow contractor, uh, told me I was missing calls. And, and it's kind of funny 'cause like I'll tell that to people now and like, no matter who it is, no matter [00:32:00] who's saying who, what to who, everyone's like, I don't miss a call at all. I've never, I've never missed a call.
What are you talking about? And they like very like, you know, defensive mode because I think they're like, they think, oh, I put a lot of energy into this, or like. Mary Beth in the office, like, picks up everyone or like, you know, whatever the sort of mindset is. But you, we missed a ton. Like it was sh it was shocking.
Uh, and um, I know there's a joke of like, oh, just pick up your phone. Yeah. We were shocked at how complicated just picking up your phone is, uh, it was, it was, you know, 'cause again, that's one of those Twitter jokes is like, yeah, all these, all you have to do is a plumber is pick up your phone. It's like, okay.
Here's the scenario. Yeah, it's very nice. You have the phone. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good, it's a good soundbite, isn't it? But you know, we, when we started looking into it, it's like, oh, okay. So on Monday from eight to nine, we get 300 phone calls. Then for the next two [00:33:00] hours we get 20 total phone calls. Then at noon we get more, and then at four 30 to six we get more.
And it's sort of these like very peak and valley, uh. Troughs where it, it gave us a ton of insight into staffing shifts, whether or not we support our team with, uh, like external call centers or external tools. And, and, and it was, it was. It sounds so dumb because it, everyone makes it sound so easy. Just pick up your phone.
But it was very complicated. It was a very complicated problem to solve. An expensive problem to solve. That is right, but after solving it, we, we grew like 50%. From, you know, air quotes, just picking up the phone, but it took about a million dollars of investment to just pick up the phone between like staffing and call centers and tools.
And it took a lot. It was kind of incredible.
Daryna Kulya: Yeah. But you see, I think it's like all [00:34:00] the redundancies that you have to create in place. And going back to your point, if you have one hour when you're getting so many calls, but then it gets really, um,
John Wilson: flatlined. Yeah. That
Daryna Kulya: flatline how, you know, obviously you need external help.
Uh, getting and, and
John Wilson: we were staffing by the day. So the idea was, okay, we get 80 phone calls a day. Okay, well that's not enough information. You actually need to know by the hour. And sometimes by the minute of like, when are those 80 phone calls coming in? 'cause it could be that 30 of them are from seven to 8:00 AM and you only have one CSR working, which was our, so it's sort, yeah.
I think it was interesting. So the extra data, like just totally agreeing, like it was really formative for us. Uh, as we sort of grew from that 10 to 20 million range. It was the call center was our biggest project.
Daryna Kulya: You see what's so interesting too, is like you're talking about, and this is what gets me so excited is, so, sounds like for you, like you were fairly far along when this.
When you, when you started looking into, we were
John Wilson: eight figure [00:35:00] business when we started really diving into this problem, like we had looked at it, glanced at it, but like, yeah, we were doing $10 million a year, which is like, you know, that's bigger than some, smaller than others.
Daryna Kulya: No, no, no. I mean, it sounds incredible, but just think about this.
Imagine what gets me so excited is that. I want a business when they're doing 50 KA year. Like I want them to, yeah. I want them to have this data right away. Yeah. Because,
yeah,
because I think that, uh, and this is, um, obviously you, you guys, like with, at the stage, you're, you're at. Like you said, this was a massive project.
You invested so much into it. I'm sure you had help across the board to do this. Yeah. Um, our, uh, our goal is to give these powerful tools to every business. So they, yeah, as they're getting started, they get on the right foot and they, they see this right away. You know, uh, we do have the same, like the dashboard you're describing.
I can see. On our business when we're getting a lot of calls. [00:36:00] Mm-hmm. Also helps with things like messaging. We do a ton of SMS. Mm-hmm. And, you know, you're like, hey, like, uh, you know, we get super, super crazy busy early hours of PST. And that also, you know, that that is definitely kind of, uh, relevant because we, uh, you know, we know kind of how our customer base is spread, so, so we know we need to staff for those hours.
Um, but I, yeah, but I think what you mentioned, it's like having those redundancies. I also wonder if this is when we talk a little bit about, about ai because, because listen, like. The one, there's, there's one solution there. If you, if you really don't want any missed calls mm-hmm. You can, you can have AI as a level of defense.
Maybe it's not the immediate la uh, layer of defense. Yeah. But if nobody is picking up, if your team is slammed, what do you do? Do you let it go to voicemail or do you let it go to an AI agent? And I'm sure you know my answer there, but I mean, that's like a, that's a question. That's interesting.
John Wilson: Yeah. I think it's a no-brainer.
At least in this, [00:37:00] in my section of the industry, it's kind of a no-brainer now. Um, but you know, a couple years ago it was these external call centers or, uh, we had utilized overseas staffing like a, we still do. Um, but at the time that was a big part of our solution was when we first started diving into our data.
We went from I think four or five people in call center because again, we were like doing this by the day. So if we get a hundred calls a day. 20 calls each or something like that. Uh, now it's, I think we get a thousand phone calls a day, and I thou, tens of thousands of texts. I have no idea. Like, it's, it's a ridiculous amount And, um.
But it, we kept overflowing the external call centers, so like they also couldn't take on the demand. So we ended up beefing up overseas staffing to like 10 to 15 overseas staffing and like building our own external call center and then pairing that with ai. And obviously it like changed a lot over the last few years, what it looks like.
But, um, yeah, [00:38:00] it, it was a, it was a tremendous undertaking.
Daryna Kulya: Definitely. Oh man. Well, you see, I think the, uh. I'm, I'm so curious to see how it, like, how it evolves because, uh, because you know, the other day I was just thinking like maybe, maybe still right now, it's still the early days and people think of AI as your.
You know, that layer of defense? Yeah. Like, cool, like this team can't take it, this team can't take it. AI is better than voicemail, but as things are getting better, as, uh, the models are getting so much, so much more accurate. Um, so see, I see two
John Wilson: distinct camps from the people I talk to. So one camp, and I don't know which is right, like I, and I don't know that anybody does, but like one camp is, uh.
Human is now a differentiator, at least in plumbing, hvac, electric, in other industries, potentially not. But plumbing, HVAC electric is a developed technol, technologically developed industry. Uh, so, [00:39:00] uh, human is now. Becoming the differentiator. Probably same with pizza. Like if I called a pizza place that's like half a mile away from my house, they have gluten-free pizza.
Gotta get it there. Uh, it's ai so like, and they always tell me they don't have gluten-free, so it's kind of annoying. Um, so human's a differentiator. And on the other side of that is, let's go AI first 'cause we can, so AI first is, uh, I mean there's companies that are nine figure revenue. Trade businesses that historically that would've required 50 to 70 CSRs like 24 months ago, that would've required 50 to 70 CSRs that now have three like it.
The difference is so stark. So yeah, you've got human first, which like, Hey, this is a differentiator. Let's like make customers happy. Let's do all that stuff. And you have, hey, let's, like, let's drive efficiency. Can we do this with as much AI as possible? Like how, how, what's your customer base like looking and [00:40:00] feeling like?
Daryna Kulya: So our customer base. Uh, so one, just for context, you know, we launched our AI agent, our voice AI agent. Now, it actually was earlier this year. Uh, it actually hasn't been that long. So, um, since we've launched our voice AI agent, I, I would say that we're seeing pockets of, of, of customers that are. Diving in like big time.
And then there are obviously pockets of customers, like you're mentioning, where they, uh, they're, you know, just, uh, letting it kind of play out. The one thing that I like to think about is that like no matter what camp you're in. The truth is that like our data, we've, we've looked at the data, our data shows that an a our own AI agent is three times better than voicemail.
So, oh yeah. When we look at our, yes, when we look at that, I think that's, that's a, that's a no brainer. Now, um, I think the rest kind of depends on your business. It kind of depends on. You know, obviously for our own AI agent, we're constantly, like, we're shipping updates all the time. We're constantly making it better [00:41:00] so it mm-hmm.
Um, so it can do a lot more things, but I feel like it, it sort of depends on the job profile. If, when you're hiring a CSR, like really, like what are the things they do on the phone? The truth is if, if your CSRs are just answering very simple questions and. That's kind of it. Maybe you outsource to a, to a call center and that call center, all they do is just like basic questions and let me get back to you.
Yeah. Um, then AI can do that and, and maybe can do that even better. Uh, but if your CSRs are doing, you know, very, they're. Deeply trained and there's a lot of things they do on the phone, uh, then perhaps, you know, there's a little bit more time that's needed. So I think it kind of depends on your use case and the complexity of what you expect for the, for the caller to be able to get on, uh, over the phone.
I would just say that frankly for me, the way I think about it is what makes a better customer experience. Yeah. Um, so. I think that's like our lens is [00:42:00] we, we wanna get you to deliver the best customer experience you can provide. Uh, so that's like what we are optimizing for.
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They just need a little help. Remember. Okay. I've got some quick fire questions for you. Yep. Um, I have four in front of me. Uh, first one, what is one communication process that contractors fix too late?
Daryna Kulya: I really think that [00:43:00] it's the, uh, the handoff between like sales and sort of like implementation or delivery.
Um, yeah. It's just like so much information gets lost if you, if you don't take notes, if you don't have a tool that help helps you just have that. Yeah. Um, it's just a mess.
John Wilson: Yeah, I can confirm that. That is a nightmare. And, uh, we still don't totally have it solved despite how far along we are. Uh, what is one thing that most owners are getting wrong about scaling revenue?
Daryna Kulya: I think it's the two parts here. The first part is. Not hiring a team around you soon enough, like doing it too late. Mm-hmm. And then the second part is when you finally do, you step out too early. So, um, you feel the pain, you are ready to hire, um, and then you get excited and you just. Remove yourself entirely.
Yeah. When would you actually know about the business, the service, everything you do? The reason why customers buy, that's actually the knowledge your team needs to be effective at [00:44:00] both sailing and of course, supporting customers. So two. Too late, too early.
John Wilson: What do you think of email as a channel?
Daryna Kulya: Listen, I, I love email.
I know we don't support it right now. We, you know, I, I don't wanna do any spoilers here, but I think email is a great channel. It's very different than obviously like, you know, we support, uh, voice and text. Um, I think email is a bit slow though. Uh, I am, uh. I think it's a bit slow, and I think that email inboxes are
cluttered.
Just a
mess. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, to, to break through someone's email, email inbox, you, you actually have to be very creative these days. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think that as a channel, it depends what you're using it for. Um, but, uh, you know, marketers have ruined it perhaps.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm. That's funny. Uh, call or text, which is better?
Daryna Kulya: Both. I think that I'm more of a text person, to be honest. Like when I look at my Quo stats mm-hmm. [00:45:00] I just text all the time. Uh, you know, so I am, uh, personally more of a text person, but I think both because, uh, there's very different reasons, uh, for, you know, when someone needs like a quick conversation.
You can have a quick. Three minute call that removes the need for like a million text. Yes.
John Wilson: Hours of text. Yeah. Yeah.
Daryna Kulya: Going back and forth. But then if you are in a lot of meetings and if you are, I don't know, out and about and doing a lot of things, sometimes a quick text, uh, works better. So it depends. But I do actually think businesses, uh, are not, uh, like I think text is still very underrated.
Businesses don't lean into it, uh, enough still, uh, people still sometimes assume that we just do calls. I'm like, no, no, no. Texting is a, a massive part of what we do. Yeah. And I also think those businesses that use text, they have to be a little bit more thoughtful, not to be spammy. Um, so those are some of my quick things on text.
John Wilson: Text is interesting. I think one of the [00:46:00] harder problems that we've seen, and I I personally experienced this now maybe. I need to personally get on Quo, uh, like for myself, but I, what I've personally experienced is like shared inbox problems. Yes. And I think that's what businesses struggle with, with text is like, well, how do you do it?
How do you share the inbox? Um, where I personally need it, uh, which I think is kind of funny, is like, I am in meetings most days. Most of my day. Most days. So a lot happens, uh, just like in text on my phone. And it is hard to loop in my EA or it's hard to loop in my team. So like, I almost wanna share box inbox for me personally, because my life is like mostly done via text.
Now.
Daryna Kulya: I, I know someone who can set you up with Quo. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's amazing. I, and I, I think the piece you're describing that is actually. You asked me previously about our inflection points as a business. Yeah. Which brought me back to that question for a [00:47:00] second. One of the biggest, uh, things that we launched that like you can kind of look at our, our revenue and our customers.
Yeah. And it's like a before and after when we launched, ability to have a shared number, uh, for texting and calling where you can do what you're saying. Right. When you have multiple people behind the scenes. The cool thing about it, which, which is like what our customers love is that. When they, for example, I text you, let's say I'm your client.
I text you and you are in meetings you are doing, yes, you're busy, uh, but maybe your EA or someone else Yeah. Has access to that inbox and responds like. They, that person doesn't necessarily know. There's like people behind the scenes. People really love the fact that there is, it's a very like productive environment behind the scenes happening, but to your customer, it's like you're responding.
So
John Wilson: no. Yeah, I think that's amazing. And I think even the specific use case of like assistant attached to a phone number. Is a hell of a use case. I mean, my sister just did this and she's a real estate agent and she texted [00:48:00] me and she's like, Hey, this is now a shared number, like shared inbox with me and my ea.
And I'm like, yeah, that's, that is amazing. That's a great, I should have done that two years ago.
Daryna Kulya: Listen, you, you know who to talk to, but I also think that, you know, the same sort of use case like. The same use case actually applies when you, when you have, like, going back to the idea that businesses are still, um,
John Wilson: yes.
In some ways manual and, yeah.
Daryna Kulya: Yeah. It's, it's the fact that, you know, you have your, um, you know, even, even this idea that like consumers sometimes don't know, they can text you. So if you let them know it's an option, and if you have team behind the scenes sharing that number. To, to do customer service or, you know, help with scheduling people.
Um, people love it. I mean, I was just, I just got a, a text message from, uh, you know, coordinating, uh, we need someone to come in for pest control and it's a text message. If they called me, there's not a chance I would respond because Yeah,
right.
I'm in meetings, but texting. Um, you know, I can respond. It works quickly [00:49:00] and yeah, it just save so much time.
John Wilson: This was awesome. I appreciate you coming in, uh, coming on today. This was a ton of fun. I feel like we covered a bunch of really good stuff.
Daryna Kulya: Oh yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.
John Wilson: If people want to get ahold of you, uh, it sounds like quo.com.
Daryna Kulya: quo.com. That's right@quo.com. Um, yeah, I'm also on Twitter.
I mean, that's, uh, that is my per personally, I'm on Twitter probably a little too much. Yeah. Um, so Doina Klia on Twitter and quo.com. Sign up. Also, I'm doina@quo.com. If anyone has questions, ideas, feedback, super open to hearing from, from customers, potential customers, anyone.
John Wilson: Amazing. Thank you for coming on today.
Daryna Kulya: Thank you so much.
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