How Speed to Lead Unlocks More Revenue From Every Lead Source
Most contractors think they need more leads. According to Tyson Chen, co-founder of Avoca, most home service companies actually need a better system for capturing, contacting, and converting the leads they already have.
In this episode, John Wilson sits down with Tyson Chen to break down the speed-to-lead systems that are helping home service companies double revenue, improve booking rates, and make channels like Angi, Yelp, Meta, Thumbtack, and Google LSA profitable. They discuss the exact follow-up cadence used by top-performing contractors, why most businesses leave revenue on the table, and how AI, outbound calling, and automation are changing lead conversion in the trades.
They also explore how private equity-backed platforms are using speed-to-lead to create entirely new revenue streams, why response time directly impacts lead quality and platform rankings, and what contractors need to do to maximize ROI from every marketing channel.
What You'll Learn:
→ Why most home service companies don't actually have a lead problem
→ The speed-to-lead process that helps contractors convert more opportunities
→ Why calling leads beats relying on text messages alone
→ The ideal follow-up cadence for lead aggregators and paid leads
→ How AI and automation improve response times and booking rates
→ Why channels like Angi, Yelp, Meta, and Google LSA work when lead handling is done correctly
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🔗 CONNECT
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John Wilson → https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/
Tyson Chen → https://www.linkedin.com/company/avoca-ai/
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💰 SPONSORS
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💼Shoutout to Avoca AI!
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🔗 Schedule a demo: [https://www.getavoca.ai/partners/oao]
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💡 Yelp — A Smarter Way to Win Leads
Google costs are up. Lead quality is down. You’re paying more for less.
Meanwhile, Yelp generated 125M+ home service leads last year—and powers results across ChatGPT, Google AI, Apple Maps, and Alexa.
Less competition. Higher intent.
👉 Book a call: https://business.yelp.com/ownedandoperated
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Peer Group: https://www.ownedandoperated.com/pro-membership
More Ways To Connect with O&O
John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC
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More than just a vendor, we want to be the trusted AI partner for ambitious, fast-growing trades companies.
If you have an effective lead capture and contact machine, anything that has a lead works.
If you're paying like multiple hundred dollars a lead, you're literally just burning that money unless you have a system in place to be able to quickly respond. If you don't have a system to catch the leads, like there's never going to be enough. 90% of home service companies just stuck at it.
Is there anything else that you think is a big differentiator on speed to lead that I should be thinking about? Um, I think the episode that you're listening to today is pulled from one of our live sessions. If you're interested in learning more about our live sessions, click the link below to join our group. Thank you. All right, sweet everybody. Welcome. Some housekeeping uh rules. First off, I'm one of I'm your host, uh John Wilson. Today I'm joined by uh co-founder of Avoka, Tyson Chen. And uh we're talking speed delete and aggregators. Tyson, you want to walk through a little bit of Avoka and what you guys are here to do?
Yeah, happy to. And uh thanks for having me on again, John. Uh it's uh it's always fun uh just uh jamming with you. But uh Tyson, I'm one of the founders of Voka Avoca. We are the AI agents platform for home services. And our core product, um, kind of our initial product was what we call the responder. Uh 24-7 AI agent sounds like your best CSR. Um, you know, handles after hours overflow at a higher booking rate uh than basically any answering service. Uh and then uh what folks have now started to use more is uh first line of defense. So using our AI agent um to answer every call immediately and then you know book the calls they can book, um handle different things, objections, ETA calls, reschedules, and then triage and then kind of route it to your agents after that. Uh beyond that, we also have a variety of other agents. Uh, but uh but yeah, that's uh that's a bit about avocado.
Something that's that's been kind of fun, and then we'll get into the content here, but um, it's been fun to like watch your guys' journey as like I I believe you've but become the platform of AI for the trades, which you know, two years ago, three years ago, you guys didn't exist. But uh, but today it's sort of like you're the known winner, which is kind of fun. Um this came up in a group chat over the weekend, and uh it was yeah, it was it was fun to like watch people just like talk about it and be like, yeah, I remember when they started. Like that was cool. It has to be a hell of a ride.
It's been great. And uh yeah, I mean, we I we're certainly in the lead, and and I think uh, you know, we're we're still as hungry as ever. So wanting to uh to to build more and and just really service uh you know, be the kind of more than just a vendor, we want to be the trusted AI partner um for uh uh ambitious, fast growing trades companies.
Yeah. Well, you guys have been awesome uh this year. I think for some context uh to the listener, we've acquired three businesses. We're about to acquire
our fourth. We close on we close on Monday.
You guys have been going on a shopping spree. It's been uh we've been going on a shopping spree.
Yeah, yeah, it's been kind of wild. I I actually think we're gonna do like eight this year, and it's been kind of fun to figure out. Um, this actually wasn't even on my agenda to talk about today, but it but it is kind of funny because so we you know we go by these companies and they're small companies, so like the smallest was one and a half, and the biggest was eight million of revenue. So we buy these companies, and every single one of them is missing like the speed delete uh like technology. And so two of them we've almost doubled since taking over because we're able to basically go in and we call Rafi and it takes a couple weeks to like you know start the process and get approved and all that stuff, but then we're able to deploy the uh speed delete, and it like half of the time they're like their phones aren't being answered. You know, it's the same problem you've probably seen a bajillion times at this point, but their phones aren't being answered. Maybe they have an answering service that's terrible. Um there's no like they get an email with the voicemails, or like that, you know, it's just a really rough experience. So we've been able to go in and we buy these companies, we add speed to lead, and then we get to turn on and we get to turn on like 10 more lead sources. So like Angus list and modernize and even just more LSA because suddenly we can catch every lead, respond to it, book them faster, book them better. And you we've talked about this a bunch on our podcast, but half of the growth that we've achieved this year so far has been just like adding speed to lead to these small to these small companies.
It's crazy how how I mean most companies don't uh like manage their marketing and lead sources like first, like first of all, it doesn't even make sense to spend money there unless you can handle them well because paying like $50 a lead or uh multiple hundred dollars a lead. Yeah, you're literally just burning that money unless you have a system in place to be able to quickly respond and obviously get into it. But um, but yeah, it is so funny to me. It's like there's uh I do think that you know just by doing a few of these things, um, you can get like pretty high incremental gains. Uh and the the honest truth is like 90% of home service companies just just suck at it. And it's not by any bad, like you know, they're they're great operators, they're just good at what they do. Um, and it's so funny. I mean, this is across industries too. I was just talking to I was interviewing uh a girl for kind of a new role, and she was she spent four years in the law space, it's the same thing. Lawyers are just terrible at marketing and lead capture, and it's like even with agencies, they're just so terrible at it. And so because that's not what they're focused on. And so um, yeah, I do think like to your kind of true story, it's like if you just spend a little bit of time and energy, um, there's a lot of juice there, uh, yeah, just to get started.
Yeah, we had um we had uh one more anecdote and then we'll we'll dive in. But we had uh two events so far this month. We had our breaking five, which we have twice a year, and then we had um we're part of a certain path and next art, and we had a peer group come in uh last week. And RJ was there. Uh so RJ, I'll tell him that guy. Yeah. And uh so he was there, and then we had like I think five or six businesses, and it it is kind of funny because you get in a group of contractors, especially the last few years, and like it's like, hey, what's your biggest issue? And everyone's immediate biggest issue is like not enough leads. And then it it's exactly what you just said, where like uh if you don't have a system to catch the leads, like there's never going to be enough. Like you'll never like you need the I don't know, like you you just have to actually solve the real problem, which is how are you lead handling, how are you calling back, how are you uh continuing to drive um like efficiency in your marketing. And uh it was funny that like a million dollar business and like a fifty million dollar business, and like they had the same problem and they both still weren't chasing right solution. I talked to a ton of home service owners, and if you're anything like the one to five million dollar shops that I know, you're probably getting hammered with AI pitches right now. Most of them sound great until they hit the real world and just completely fall apart. The one that we keep coming back to is Voka. What stands out is they actually understand how contractor businesses operate. This isn't just another AI answering service. Avoca handles inbound calls, outbound follow-ups, text, web leads, even dispatching, all in one system built specifically for service companies. If you're on Service Titan, then this is a big deal. Their integration is deep, so you're not duct taping together five different tools and hoping that nothing breaks during the busy season. I also respect that they're realistic about AI. When a call needs a human, they've got a 24-7 live transfer built in, so nothing slips through the cracks, and your customers don't get stuck in a bad experience or like an AI loop. Owners using Evoka are seeing hold times basically disappear and booking rates jump, some by 30% or more. If you want an AI partner that actually helps you book more jobs without creating more chaos, this is worth checking out. Book a demo at the link below.
And the funny thing about speed to lead, and and I should have a question for you. I'm actually I've always been pretty curious about. Um, but like when we help with call centers, like you can have a shitty call center, but even a shitty call center you can be booking at like 40%, and like we can get you to 80%. So we can kind of 2x your call center conversion rate. Yeah. But for speed to lead, if you're not doing it properly, you might be at like 2% overall. Totally. So the magnitude of difference between being able to do speed to lead decently um and the before and after, that can be more like a five or 10x versus even like you know, a really bad call center, like you're still it's you're still gonna be performing decently. So it's like it's really interesting to to think about uh kind of the magnitude of change there.
But the question I think it I think it's huge because I think when you and we'll define speed delete here in a second, but it's exactly what I said at the start of the call where hey, we bought these businesses, we doubled them because we were able to add lead channels that they were never able to get to work. Yep. Like, hey, if you have an effective lead capture and contact machine, Meta works, Angie's works, Yelp works, anything that has a lead works. And so I I think it's more of like I think instead of looking at it as like a booking rate change, like hey, we took your booking rate from two to whatever, the change is almost unlimited because you get to start using channels that you are never able to get to function in the first place. Yeah, like the the oldest joke in the trades, or at least over the past 15 years, has been Angie's list doesn't work. Yeah, and it's like, well, Angie's list actually is currently our highest producing channel. It's our highest producing channel. It's kind of ridiculous. It beats Google every month, but it works that way because we have the system to capture and contact and book that lead.
Direct mail, too. Like for uh like direct mail is perfect, yeah. I mean, for our business, like people didn't think cold, they're like, oh, cold calling doesn't work anymore. It's like, well, no, cold calling doesn't work for your businesses, but it literally like cold calling now, like generates over a third of all of our leads, right? It's like these actually crazy. Yeah, you just take something historical, people like don't think about it anymore. That that's actually where the alpha is because then if you do it well, like there's actually a lot to be gained from there. I'll give you one uh example of one of our customers. Um, maybe you know him, uh, Sam Mutzuk at uh Top Line Air over in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Yeah, yeah.
They literally scaled from zero to 25 million in revenue. They didn't even have a brand, no brand. He created the brand literally like three or four years ago and scaled from zero to twenty-five almost exclusively with speed to lead. Yeah, all they do is installs. So if you can nail down speed to lead and marketing, like it actually, to your point, like there's there's a lot of potential there. Yeah. Most people don't don't realize. Um, but then uh no, my question to you was like, how did you uh because we work with a lot of different people? I think you guys are at the top one or two percent in terms of the number of aggregators you use. You use like 10 different ones. I was always curious, like, how did you guys come to that as opposed to like you know, usually there's this Pareto principle of like, you know, 802 you can get a lot of this juice with just like three aggregators. Like, how did you guys figure out to get to to use like 10 or 11 of them?
So we we started with uh like we started with this like, hey, what's the system to catch a lead? Because what we kept finding was in the trades, everyone is like, Angie's list doesn't work, or Yelp doesn't work, or whatever doesn't work. And um I'm convinced that they all work. It's just like the system, the system that you have doesn't work. So so we went, we basically went the opposite way. We're we're like, hey, how do we how do we meet people outside of plumbing HVAC and electric? Because if you go talk to someone in uh bathroom models, so I was talking to a friend who runs a huge and like I think they're 250 million now bathroom model business. And how like that lead is so valuable to them because every lead's a $50,000 job or $70,000 job. So like the way they handle leads is so intricate and valuable and high touch. Um, so I I talked to those guys and then I talked to a couple guys doing garage epoxy, and it was similar, like there's just not that many leads. Whereas if you compare that to plumbing HVAC Electric, you almost drown in leads in because things break. But because of that, you never figure out how to build a real system. So what's kind of funny is you you'll walk into if I wanted to go see a world-class lead handling system, a $10 million or $5 million garage floor repair business would have a better system than a hundred million dollar HVAC business. Like hands down, that's their livelihood. They have to. Whereas like an HVAC, you can just rely on, oh, it's gonna be hot. So shit's gonna break. Um, so yeah, so we started basically interviewing companies that were external to plumbing HVAC and electric and finding how do you build a best in class system, and then trying to rebuild it inside our business. And then once we did that, which that took like six months or a year, then we started testing every single thing that potentially had leads. Um, but I I think you're right, like the top line guys, they built their business off of meta ads, which I thought that was kind of a fluke at first. I have now seen three other businesses north of a hundred million dollars that half of their leads come from meta, like just freaking Facebook ads. It's crazy.
Insane. I was I was shocked. I was like, this isn't real crazy. It's crazy. Literally, Sam just the whole industry's like sleeping on it. He's just he's a selfie, he's looking at like that. The the meta ads is is like they'll work the best. He's like in front of all these things, like we have too many like AC units, like we need to move them, and it just it just doesn't number. So um, yeah, yeah, we really impressive, and and I think it's slept on. I think so many companies, yeah. If they could just do one thing better, it's like
you know, could very easily. I mean, you've you've already done it with three three of these add-ons, like yeah, you can very easily add a few million in revenue, if not more.
Yeah, no, it's crazy. Uh, all right, let's get into speed delete a little bit. So, like who on the platform like do you think has done some really good stuff to drive to drive that incremental improvement over their time work with you guys? Like, what can we clone and take away from this?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I can um we yeah, I think the most exciting development is uh, and yeah, I won't uh uh not at liberty to name names, but like three of the top 10 private equity platforms uh we started rolling uh this out around six months ago. Results have been insane. Like uh tripling, sometimes 5xing response rates, just exactly like adding a completely new uh line of of revenue that wasn't even there. And these are like mature, sometimes billion dollar plus businesses that we're working with. So a few few key learnings um to share with this group. One is that um, you know, however much you think uh you should be following up uh is probably far, far too little. Yeah, that's like that's like yeah, yeah.
Well, everyone's like, um I hear this one all the time. We heard this at the at the breaking five thing. They're like, Well, I called them. And I was like, Well, how many times? They're like, like one time. How many times should I call them? I'm like, until they say no, like 20 times. Like you paid $80 for that lead.
That's exactly right. We we've seen that uh the ideal is like anywhere from 15 to 20 times in the span of three days. And total contacts, right? Like call voicemail, contacts, all of that. Yeah, voicemail drops. And so there's and if you think about it, there's no downside. It's not like this person isn't is they're not a customer, totally, you're not gonna piss them off. You paid for the lead already, they clearly have a problem. Um, so just keep on following up.
Uh and uh so you you said 15 to 20 in three days, yes, 15 to 20.
So frequency three days, yeah. And and and more importantly, also is you need to have two to four touch points within the first two hours, and ideally, uh you at least try to call them twice in the first 10 minutes. That is actually critical. And so the way that we typically like kind of see best practices is the moment the lead comes in, immediately call and and text in parallel. Um, because you know, every everyone's gonna go after it. Um, with the call in particular, it's actually pretty important, you know, even though we're an AI company, uh, you know, outbound calls, even for speed of lead, they you get significantly higher conversion rates. Yes, it's a huge and we've we've seen this too. You guys probably see it too, and that's why we actually did a partnership with uh elite call. Uh, because we have humans, but the elite call humans are like they're like proper SDR level, like they're very like engaging sales. Everyone's a good team type. Uh and so uh obviously you yeah, you don't if you if you have like a service like us, great. If you don't, you wanna make sure that you have a dedicated team of sellers, yeah. Of actually like charismatic salespeople that are calling those leads within five minutes.
Yeah. So this uh I don't remember when we figured this out. I I want to say it was um I want to say it was late last year, but but yeah, we had we had the same like learning in our business. So we we were we were like tr tweaking our speed to lead, and we got our booking rate. I want to say like let's just pick Angie's list. Uh, but we got our booking rate with Angie's list from like the lead comes in to like we would text them and like run the process. I think we got to like 19 or 20 percent, which I think for a for a lead aggregator like that, I think you're supposed to expect like 30 is like really good. Um and we just like could not figure out how to go from 20 to 30. And we just started calling, and like that that was the thing, which was kind of funny because you're right. Like, obviously, you said it too. Like, you're an AI company, but like I mean, the the call mattered a lot because the call is what I mean, it it added 50 to our book rate, and it made it so much easier to ROI on those channels. But uh, but yeah, the outbound call was humongous. I don't know if we do it twice though, so I'll have to look at that.
Yeah, that the yeah, it's very important uh to to kind of hit them twice. Uh, and then um the other thing that's also really important, uh, the final final uh really the final thing uh is uh uh you have to use a local number. So a lot of times people don't get this right, they're just using some type of dialer uh or their company, like you know, they don't uh use the local number, but using the local number is paramount. Um otherwise you're gonna go right to spam, people aren't gonna pick up. Um, so um, yeah, those are kind of the key things. But but yeah, it and again, it's not rocket science. I think it's just operationally, if you're running a $3 million, $5 million shop, it's just hard. It's hard to be able to at every hour of the day respond within five minutes with a call, remember to follow up that many times. Um, and so that's why like you know, automation platforms, I think in this case are are actually really uh uh powerful. And you can also set up a lot of uh like triggers and stuff as well.
Yeah. We're doing the local number, like that one I feel good about. As far as the as far as the outbound call, you guys have an AI outbounder.
We do, yeah.
But in this case, like you're really determined, and I I think I agree that like the human component at that stage is better.
It is better. Um, you can always, you know, like in the course of the 20 touch points, you can throw in a few AI calls um as well. Uh, but I do think uh especially in in the first like 10 minutes, yeah. Um to have a strong salesperson call them is the best. And yeah, like you, you know, and it's it's worth it, right? These jobs can be 20,000, 30,000, 10,000. You know, like these are massive jobs. So if you get if you get that right, like you know, it's it's very important.
Yeah. I'll say that this was. probably as we thought about our business last year and like working on this exact thing, this was probably the hardest thing to do for us, anyways, because it took um like a plumbing HVAC electric business. You just get so many inbound leads for no hot water, no heat, no cooling, no power, like whatever it is. It's it's very hard to like retrain the call center to think critically and like a salesperson, like you're saying, about each and every lead. And it it it took a ton of work for us to like basically rebuild the call center around uh driving every single lead. And um yeah that this was the hardest part. Like the technology was kind of like easy. Like you just hook up the technology and you know it it works, which is really great. But it's the part of like in order to drive alpha it's the stuff above above the technology.
Exactly. Yep. And you know if you have different lead sources you'll you can get into more advanced things uh analytics around like okay for certain leads uh if you know that the this lead is um you know much higher ticket size you know uh much higher quality leads you can route those to your top salespeople for you know leads that are cheaper you can have the AI call it instead like there's there's optimizations but I wanted to just lay out a few fundamental principles that are applicable to everyone um that you know for people that are just looking to get started and like yeah here's just a few things to get right so that you can actually get our a positive ROI if you want to venture into like the speed to lead game.
Yeah. What do you think of like scripting? In what sense?
Just like so sounds like frequency is a pretty big part of it but like do the words matter in those messages should it be short and simple should it be like long like what do we Yeah yeah yeah yeah totally um yeah to an extent I think uh you know it it you know it doesn't have to be uh you know you you never want it to be like too scripted um but typically for uh speed of lead we do find that making it a lot more succinct just because you already know the interest is there uh so you don't you have to do less like qualification and especially if they're like if you already know it's like a pretty big ticket item um like a like an like an old unit for example uh we have seen that uh the call scripts can be roughly reduced by half in terms of duration so you just skip a lot of the information you already know because the lead form already provides that information and get right into booking it um I think uh yeah and then in in in terms of text as well um you know instead of doing the whole shebang if you already know it's a good lead you just be like hey like we here's here's our avail like choose an availability right like make it as easy as possible for that that's what Sarah does in cut and dry it's kind of funny she she showed me um she showed me a lead she got from thumbtack last week and like how she she's she is not signed up I I gotta get her in here but like she's she just like text them back and her response rate was actually like kind of high which was funny uh but it was just like hey it's Sarah from Cun drive today at eight or tomorrow at eight and it was like that was it and um got right to the gym dude people kind of loved it like which I think I would love to because I've been on thumbtack like as a consumer before to like find a vendor and um yeah just you know I don't I don't know what I need so come out and look at it. Other you know if I knew what I needed like to yeah people don't like to think as as as much as you can make it so that people don't have to think about it and it's just a very like easy answer um the the more that you um the the more success you'll get so all right so 15 to 20 in the first three days the manual app on call is a pretty important part of the book very important in you know ideally in the first five minutes if you can't do five minutes like definitely the first 10 minutes yeah um two to four touch points in the first two hours and also um you know uh a lot of people probably already know this but for those of you don't your Google LSA rankings themselves are highly impacted by your responsiveness yes so the better that it's kind of a double whammy you'll get the lead better but you also improve your Google LSA rankings um by by executing speech of lead well yeah is that inclusive of um I think thumbtacks that way too because they on on the thumbtack vendor dashboard it'll say like responds in eight hours responds in two minutes exactly I I thought that was yeah I thought that was pretty interesting.
Yep that that's exactly right thumbtack as well yeah I would imagine like the platforms care a lot because they want people to revisit have a good experience yeah that makes sense all that makes sense um how important do you think uh this is just a rumor I heard so I'm looking for confirmation or or denial here but I I think with like let's pick on Angie's list for a second with Angie's um a lot of feedback that I've gotten from people is oh we call once we get the email from Angie and what I I think I'm right about this but I I don't think the email's instant I think the email is like 10 or 15 minutes after the lead.
So like are do you guys API i connect or how are you connected to like drive the most speed yeah so we are connected uh uh mint to many of the platforms just natively through the API endpoints so the lead comes and we already get a hit so that's like the best like okay absolutely instantly um for a few of the smaller ones where we haven't uh finalized like the uh the kind of native level API access um we can just use a trigger um similar like a zapier does or you know when the lead comes and gets an email then that's that triggers us to to kind of make our move um and so yeah those
could have maybe a bit of of delay um but for all the main ones I believe we have the the uh like kind of native level access now.
Okay. And I yeah I would have to imagine that's the fastest. Someone told me that years ago and I don't remember who told me that but they said that there's a lag between when the lead lands and when you get the email which I think makes sense.
Like Angie's can probably only send X amount of emails exactly so yeah by having yeah the API access you would get you know a bit of a you you wouldn't have that lag. So that's definitely an advantage.
Yeah. Is there anything else that you think is a big differentiator on speed to lead that I should be thinking about your Google business profiles are either printing money or they're losing it. And that's where big reputation comes in. Big reputation turns your GPP into a true lead machine without adding more work to your plate it runs in the background with automated posting review generation and fast responses so that your reputation compounds over time. And this is huge if you're multi location. They make it dead simple to manage and scale your reputation across every branch so every location shows up and wins in the map pack. I'm actually using Big Reputation right now as I grow and scale my newest acquisitions. Plus you get real insight into what's actually happening you get to spot gaps with location health monitoring track reviews and sentiment and see which zip codes you're winning and which ones you're losing better insights stronger trust more calls from an asset you already own.
Go check it out at bigreputation.ai slash oau um I think though those are the main points I think yeah it's it's really not nothing uh too crazy. I think yeah just like the cadence the amount of touch points using a local number um one thing one new thing that we're uh exploring which I think is also potentially gonna be pretty impactful is uh uh when sending messages to iPhone users um oh yeah having it come from a blue yes blue number instead of green um and so you know something that I think we're cooking up we're probably gonna have like some early beta users probably would be yeah yeah definitely be included but we have heard that that improves uh effectiveness yeah I've I've heard that yeah I've heard that too um so that'll be uh an interesting one um well I also think it it so I I heard it improves it and I think it speeds up the approval of a phone number because I think half the problem with like speed delete is you have to go through I don't remember the who fa like who who controls that again but you have to like get the number approved and the usage for it approved yeah yeah it's like there's like uh A2P um regulation yeah a2p is the thing and you have to register the line um and then you have to say like what what what the purpose is for and the process is is very annoying.
I wish there was we we takes like two weeks and number but I yeah I think with the like the sending in blue or that's one of them but they like I think you get to you get to be approved in like two or three days instead of two weeks. Exactly.
So speed is way faster. The only thing is yeah these blue numbers um are just inherently like there's there's a lot so much more money regulatory things and so the way that this company does it which would be a broker for like what we would use it's like it's very expensive. Like they have to make new line for every like 10 it it's like it's just a it's just like a significantly um so we're trying to figure all that stuff out um but I think that'll be good. But but yeah I I really think that at the end of the day like it's it's just getting the basics done well um but operationally it is obviously it's it's it's a lot more difficult than it sounds yeah uh Brian to your question yeah those are accurate um and the only
other thing is uh using a local local um area code as well um I've got a couple more questions but in the meantime folks you can feel free to ask your questions in in the chat um A2P like how should we be thinking about that I had a friend that got in trouble from a speed I don't remember like who the lead provider was I think it was like I don't think it was I think it was like a small lead provider but but uh but I guess you have to be thoughtful of who you buy the lead from and are they following the A2P procedures.
So like how should we be thinking about A2P?
Yeah generally with all these lead aggregators they have a provision where if the customer is clicking on there um they're uh giving consent to be contacted um and usually that consent uh applies to like every medium so uh you know real person calling you're always good um you can't ever we really can't get in trouble with like a real person calling a real person um you know uh that's just how yeah that's just the way the law is structured the part where it gets a little bit tricky is using AI for calling that's probably the most prohibitive and then the medium level is AI texting. Um and so uh yeah I I would say like whenever you engage and add a new lead aggregator just be sure to kind of uh look up like the extent to which their lead leads can be contacted uh and if you're uh if you read that like pretty well then that'll uh apply uh uh uh that that'll allow you to understand like which of the means you can you can utilize usually it's all three but sometimes like you know maybe a lead aggregator might make it so that you you you're not actually allowed to AI call that person.
Yeah.
Yeah I know AI outbounding is like the most sensitive one but I think you can use it for like appointment reminders is that right it's just exactly like the the law with A2P and uh yeah unfortunately had a to go deep in the rabbit hole once it's like uh it's around like solicitation of like new business yeah so you you can if it's like an update of like hey your your uh appointments here or like just to remind you or how's the feedback that's fine but then um when it comes to solicitation of new business that's when the laws become a lot more prohibitive yeah yeah that's interesting which I mean I think makes sense I mean the the down one of the downsides of like AI is that there's no limit like you can outbound call every number every moment like there's no limit.
So I understand where they're coming from because I think that that could get crazy pretty quick.
Yeah exactly um but yeah I think uh I think the other thing maybe the interesting thing to mention is like kind of how good can you get it uh and that's like a very common question it's like everyone that how good can you get the AI the speed of lead like what's a good percentage because like yeah you know even like call booking rate that in itself is a whole like you know should it's a can of worms yeah like booking rate is raw booking rate true booking rate lead booking rate how do you define a lead like all this speed of lead is even more like it it's always so my number one recommendation is like obviously you'll have to define uh like kind of a benchmark um but even once you define a benchmark like different lead aggregators just based on the quality of the lead booking rates can differ dramatically and like for example one of our um you know uh these guys are pretty open about it's like golden rule um out in uh Des Moines you know they're uh they're running I think like a 40 million dollar plus shop or something like that now we've gotten their uh uh lead their speed to lead booking rates to 40 that's crazy on almost unheard of like because but they have like really good leads they have the process nailed down and this is through Google LSA I believe which is like obviously one of the the best um kind of lead providers um another company we get them to like 10 and that's like insane like they're they're they used to be at like three to four percent so yeah I would just say the booking rate for speed elite is something that can be highly variable based on a lot of factors. The important thing there when you're thinking about setting up a new campaign is benchmark what you're currently doing and then use that to figure out like where you can get to. Oh and Brian we do work with go high level actually that's uh uh yeah we have several actually uh funny enough the uh top line folks also work with go high level so a lot of experience with uh go high level yeah sweet um we uh a few of the other things big things that we think about when testing aggregators um is like the book rate's really important so like is our speeds lead process good do we get enough leads do we book them but the cancel rate is next uh have you guys implemented anything to like help save those cancels um cancel rate for those can be kind of huge like we have a few at like 30 40 cancel rate absolutely and it's good important to also track those um as well because a lot of people times people don't even think about that um we do we have a ability to um uh you know uh re try to reschedule or or again do the callbacks all of these things if you think about our are kind of they're just you have triggers and then you have like actions that that you take and they're all kind of at the end of the day like very similar right like even yeah if someone cancels or you have like someone that is that you know is interested but has an objection and you don't book them you still want to like it's it's a similar action you want to call them back with a real person and try to like get them to stay. And so yeah we have like you know cancel saving or call saving workflows um uh but yeah those are uh uh and again those have like varying level levels of effect of effectiveness yeah yeah I would imagine the trigger actually I don't know if we're doing that I'm sure we are like Lori's capable but yeah cancel rate is actually is kind of ridiculous how how much that shows up.
Um and then the big thing we use to track is just return on investment like what's ROI for the channel and I find that to be like the best measurement because then sort of like gets rid of the rest of the noise of book rate or cancel rate or yeah the ROI yeah just like did we deliver ROI for the channel or did we not?
Yeah with the speed of lead yeah that's why uh it's also important uh and and this is something that we've implemented for across especially a lot of our larger customers but getting the high priority jobs on the books ASAP because yeah you just directly use like ACP or even adaptive capacity you might especially during summer find that your next available slot is like four days out sure so a high priority job that comes in through speed of lead we have set up uh workflows where we're able to override ACP and adaptive book the job like ASAP basically saying that those are two service tighten functions right just for the listener. Yeah for the listeners the two service tight and function uh functionalities which you know based on job type uh you know it'll give you like what's your next available date and so the key here is that sometimes you need to override those and then just manually reschedule uh and again like all things that you can do yourself just a little bit easier uh with with having the AI being able to to kind of do both actions together and uh in kind of uh synchrony.
Yeah when do you think um when do you think like companies should start focusing on like a speed to lead capability and how far down do you guys support them?
Like what's the smallest company you guys support right now on speed to lead um I'd have to I'd have to check but I believe it's probably around two to three million um is is the smallest although a lot of the ones that are getting uh you know because you you really get more value obviously if you if you're spending money and have have more leads so like a lot of the five ten million dollar ones uh are are the ones that are probably a little bit more actively using it um uh but uh but yeah I'd say as far as two three million and then um yeah I think one thing is like we have this Google LSA like web scheduling form uh that uh that the smaller players love because that's just an easy way all the web traffic to just be able to have a very fast form that is able to convert those at a far greater rate than like other other schedulers on the market.
Yeah I'm texting uh texting Lori about that right now are you guys I don't know that we've had a lot of success with LSA message leads um like we get a lot of response but it's like been um spam like is that something that you've noticed in general or is that just us?
I'd have to that I I I haven't seen in general so we we probably have to do a deep dive with you guys on that one. Yeah I well I don't think it's a you guys problem I think it's just like yeah I mean people are trying to like nature yeah yeah like they're trying to advertise that happens sometimes too it's very regionalized right like we we've seen some weird things where in one area um I think in like Nevada for example like Yelp is just horrendous for whatever reason right it's like it might be just be like everyone's you know bidding up Yelp leads in an area so it's like in one region you might have just because of the dynamics you might have one channel that's just like 10 times as shitty as another channel. So yeah yeah I know um yeah Yelp's coverage seems to be primarily west coast or giant cities yep yeah I would assume it gets kind of weird uh a little bit more rural exactly exactly yeah all right Tina asked the live person touch within the first 10 minutes is that something avoca can do or something done in-house uh yes so avoca actually has both um our own in-house CSRs that are on like the Avoca payroll and then we also just launched a very um a new like very tight uh kind of almost like a pseudo acquisition with elite call so we've created a thing we've brought uh elite call and avoca we've called we now I think we call it elite response and so um that's more of like the kind of true sales people um and so we are able to provide it within the avoca uh kind of ecosystem yeah that yeah that's pretty cool but we also have uh we we can also have it where it's like the voca just gives you an alert so if you have your own like let's say you you can dedicate like one or two people um and you want them to do it like you know you can do that as well.
Yeah I think we have ours set up to somehow integrate with Slack and it drops um I don't even know what drops it just shows it Yeah, yeah. Like here's the number, and then it gives it an emoji. And um yeah. How many people are in the call center?
Uh our in-house one is a hundred. And then um That's a lot.
That's crazy. It's actually crazy.
Yeah, yeah. So that's um, but uh uh and then the elite call, we're starting with I believe just a unit of 12. Um, and that could like pretty rapidly expand uh uh you know as we get more and more people that are interested in using us for outbound.
Yeah. I had a I had a friend of the I had a friend of mine use elite call and um like he loved them.
Yeah, they're uh world club, they have very great leadership, and uh I think um it's kind of interesting the guy uh uh well Jack, his philosophy is he he recruits a lot of like high school athletes. Yes. Uh it's funny, we we do the same thing for our CR team. We have uh we recruit a lot of former athletes, and um, yeah, these guys are just like hungry go-getters and yeah, very like you know, very charismatic, like very good at this stuff.
Yeah. Uh Gavin, also, Gavin, what's up, dude? Uh Gavin was out at our shop uh week or two ago for that group. Uh Gavin said, we already work with Lee Call regularly and Avoca, but not speed lead. How do I get more information?
Yeah, easy. I'd say um uh your Avoka, uh your Avoca rep would have that uh info. Uh I'd say just reach out, uh, get a get a demo, get some more information, and they can uh they can set you up.
My question's gonna be bad, but like how paired together is everything? Because I know that it's like we're on the package thing, I don't remember what it's called. Umyx, but is like are are all the pieces sold individually? Like if somebody wanted to go to you guys for the dispatch capability or speed delete or call center or whatever, like they could just use that one piece.
Yes, yeah. We uh we've done that now more uh more recently is like yeah, if you get all the pieces, you get obviously the kind of a bundle discount, but then we've sought we've seen like so many people based on the stage of company they're at, they only need one. So you can get the a la card as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, Gavin, uh I recommend uh and I can introduce you to Lori if you didn't get her email when you were out here last week, but um she can help too on the speed delete. I she's she's invested just a ton of time with your team to like really drive results that totally works.
Yeah, yeah, she's she's been absolutely
wonderful to to work with. So um, yeah, and very, very knowledgeable, honestly. Just like one of the top like call center manager folks I've ever worked with.
Yeah, awesome. Um rounding out, and anyone's welcome to throw any more questions up on here, uh, but rounding out what's what's up next for Voka? Like, what should we be thinking about?
Yeah, um, a lot a lot of stuff. Uh, one thing is uh we are uh having a uh new just like uh sounds basic, but it's actually pretty impactful. Like what we've realized um through talking to like our customer advisory board and just a lot of our customers, which we do constantly, is that a lot of folks in the trades don't have a very good grasp of data. And so they have data in disparate places, um, service time for some stuff, you know, even another telephony system, a lot of stuff in a voca. We are um really making a push to centralize a lot of uh data as it relates to revenue, like inputs and outputs, like the revenue, uh, you know, uh, you know, your marketing spend kind of all into one place. Um, so that's something that, you know, not super kind of super high level um uh uh kind of aspirational, but it's just like a very important piece uh that we'll be rolling out. Um and then um yeah, I think uh in another one.
Is that like reporting, or how should I be thinking about that? Like better reporting or better.
Yeah, just what would be the benefit? That kind of is consolidates everything across the entire revenue journey. So from your like all the money you're spending in various lead sources, um, and showing the ROI of those all the way through the job level, uh, and based on and also based on like you know, not just the initial job, but also the revenue and like the subsequent jobs, like be able to tie all of that together.
So well, I mean, yeah, okay, that is pretty interesting. Yeah, that because be what would be um I wonder how far back you could look, but that would help to solve you guys have already thought of this, I'm sure, but that would help to solve the age-old problem of what is LTV. Yep. Because like when as a contractor, LTV is kind of a really complicated number to nail down.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's it's complicated, I think, for for a lot of companies. So yeah, um, that's yeah, that's the hope. Um, so that's the hope there. And then uh yeah, I think the the other thing that that really excites me is um we are uh uh starting to uh do some work in um uh in the uh marketing and the realm of marketing. And so the the first things are uh mainly around um kind of website optimization with AI. Uh and helping you uh figure out you know producing more SEO content. Um but how do you like organically just um optimize the website based on the different campaigns that are coming in? Uh so we're doing uh I don't want to say too much yet, but we're we're in a few design partnerships with some like really, really large like $100 million plus companies on this. And so if those results are are good, um we'll we'll release that more to the rest of the customer base.
That's really interesting. Yeah, that's interesting. Uh Jose asked the RevOps behind a company. I think he's asking what does that mean?
Um yeah, I think uh uh yeah, that I think yeah, that that probably pertains to like what I was talking about uh previously. Um, but yeah, it's essentially the RevOps behind a company uh is kind of the concept. Uh is that is that what you're asking?
Or I think he's asking what does RevOps mean?
Oh, what is even RevOps? Yeah, revenue operations is is uh uh just the general field where um it kind of relates to understanding and also figuring out, like um, you know, for our company, we our RevOps leader figures out, you know, the um uh uh strategy behind like which reps get which accounts, figuring out what is the TAM to go after. Um, so yeah, I think for for contractors, I think that's just like around hygiene around like how your revenue moves and and understanding uh the different levers that you have to pull it. So like you know, you can spend more on this marketing channel, you can hire another CSR, you can spend more on uh you can leverage, you know, filling your board with with previous members. It's like understanding all the levers on how you can like move revenue in your company.
Google keeps getting more expensive and affiliate leads are getting worse. And somehow you're paying more for fewer lower quality leads, and that's pretty much the game right now. So here's something that most operators are missing Yelp. I know what you're thinking, but Yelp is way more than just a restaurant rating app. Last year, over 125 million home service leads were generated on Yelp, and almost 50 million homeowners are searching there every single month. Here's the real kicker though. Their data powers answers across ChatGPT, Google AI, Apple Maps, and Alexa, basically everywhere people are searching before they even know your company name. So instead of fighting over the same expensive Google clicks, you're showing up where customers are actually discovering and deciding who to hire. One company fused service out in the Bay Area, HVAC Plumbing Electrical, does 20 million a year from Yelp alone. You're closing 75% of their Yelp leads, and about 70% of their entire customer base comes from the platform. So if you're serious about leveling up your lead gen, go to business.yelp.com slash owned and operated and book a call. We've started to do some work on this. Um our canvassing and like uh field marketing manager Solomon started pushing on this and just like naturally inside the business. Um, it's been like a five to six percent uplift over the past couple months as he's basically found revenue in places we didn't even know existed. We didn't even know existed. Like he has these new programs. I frankly, I don't even know what half of them are called, but what one of them is proximity marketing, and I think he made that up. Uh but it's like he finds somewhere. I mean, he yeah, he he finds like proximity. So for like for your business, it might be like, hey, I have two contractors in Cleveland, so like let's go send a team to Cleveland and get 50 contractors in Cleveland and like let's get density there. Um so I I think it's like a similar concept, but he's hitting them not just through canvassing. He's doing like events, email, text. He's like he's built like a whole structure around it. That's impressive. And it did 300 grand last month.
Well, uh, I remember at Rhino, one of the most interesting little tidbits uh that Tommy was mentioning uh was that uh Tommy Mello was that he has this strategy where he looks at what neighborhoods he wants to really service and that are um kind of uh he he looks at the um where there's areas uh where there's not other garage doors physically near those like you know amazing neighborhoods. And then he'll just buy like a little plot of land or something, uh or a little like little shop so that on Google that they that can be an A1. And basically, um because the Google the algorithm prioritizes proximity quite heavily, yeah. So if you have this like a giant batch of like you know, five like mega neighborhoods, and there's no like garage door company anywhere, and you just like boom get a pin on Google Maps for your company, like apparently that does one.
It's been huge. We we do something similar. Huge, yeah. We have like 20. Jeez. I mean, across like I think we have five in Nashville, nine in Cleveland, and then a couple in Fort Wayne, and like and these are these are just true, like kind of like random. Yeah, we lease them sometimes. We own the building, but yeah, no, it I mean it works, it works.
That's hard, yeah. Because yeah, if even if one can generate you like a few hundred K revenue a month, like well the the ROI is ridiculous.
I mean, if yeah, if you pay like a thousand dollars a month in rent, like a thousand dollars is very easy to get back.
Like if you get like four leads you know, like three leads is like a thousand dollars. Um, yeah, right.
Like, so I I actually saw I saw a marketing scorecard for a hundred, I think they do a hundred and fifty million and it's HVAC and it's out in the south uh southwest, and they measure ROI in their GBPs and exactly like this. And dude, it's like a 50 times, like it's crazy, and it's like rent signage, they amortize it over like two years, and then yeah, they measure ROI against it, and it yeah, it it's ridiculous.
Yeah, so a lot of cool uh things uh you know all over the map for for for which um there's opportunity, you just gotta find it.
Yeah. All right, last question. Uh Jose's asking, Tyson, the capabilities you were speaking of sounds like you're becoming a smart CRM. Is that the future of Avoka?
Uh yeah, great, great question, Jose. Uh, you know, we we are um uh we are not planning to uh you know uh join the CRM race. Uh obviously we have many great partners, uh very, very good partner to service Titan. Um the way we think about it is uh we want to be the agentic company for the trades. And so um, you know, instead of being the system of record uh for which you know CRM companies are, we're playing more in like we want to automate a lot of the workflows and processes. And so starting with one of the most important ones, which is call taking, which is where we kind of you know started and and really focused and perfected, like now to out workflows like outbound. Uh, you know, we're talking about speed of lead today, uh, but then like uh, you know, there's things like rehash, like follow-ups and unsold estimates, like all of the things where um you would otherwise be losing revenue or needing people to like, you know, do these things. That's kind of like that's the system that we want to build. Um, not really directly competing with Service Titan to be like that system of record.
Awesome, Tyson. Well, I appreciate you coming on today, and I'm thankful for everyone's time today joining us. Thanks for the questions, thanks for the conversation. And I hope you all have a great one. Awesome. Great to see everyone. And uh yeah, I hope you guys learned something.
