How Service Professionals (eventually) found their AI partner
Key results
Summary
Rich Bogda founded Service Professionals in 1994 with a single goal: deliver incredible service to customers by raising the bar on professionalism in the plumbing industry.
Nothing represents this goal more than their Thumbs Up Guarantee: no job is done until the customer is fully satisfied.
Three decades later, the family-owned business boasts a 100+ employee operation across plumbing, HVAC, and electric in New Jersey. And the Thumbs Up Guarantee still sits at the heart of every business decision.
Service Professionals wanted to be tech-forward and embrace AI. But the first AI solution they tried in their call center wasn’t up to the task. It booked jobs the company couldn't fulfill, and left customers frustrated and repeating themselves on the phone.
Service Professionals needed an AI solution that could actually deliver a professional experience: they realized Netic was the real deal the first time they heard its voice agent in a live production environment. Within weeks, Netic was handling complex calls, scheduling appointments, and routing the right technician to every job.
The results speak for themselves; Netic has handled 100,000+ customer interactions and helped generate $3M in revenue growth in just a couple of months.
Now, the team is using Netic across the board (e.g. running autonomous outbound campaigns) all while keeping the Thumbs Up Guarantee front and center.
Building an iconic business on the Thumbs Up Guarantee
Rich Bogda started Service Professionals in 1994 when plumbing had a bad reputation. “The buttcrack plumber was the target of all the jokes, and nobody ever called you back,” Rich recalls. “I wanted to change that and deliver professionalism and quality.”
The Thumbs Up Guarantee embodies that commitment: no job is done until the customer gives a thumbs up.
Built from the ground up, Service Professionals is now a 100+ employee operation offering HVAC, plumbing, and electric across North and Central Jersey. That scale is made possible by their people, who show up and deliver at every job site. "I could teach people to do a lot of things, but I can't teach somebody to be a good person," Rich says.
Rich’s son, COO Evin, who worked his way up from sweeping warehouses and digging sewers, puts it plainly: “We can’t just be in home services. We’re also in the people business.”
That people-first standard was exactly why they were wary of AI.
A disappointing first try at an AI solution
Service Professionals was never afraid of embracing new technology. “We're a young, tech-forward company,” says Evin. "We like to invest in software that enhances the customer experience." When AI arrived, Service Professionals was eager to embrace it, but early attempts proved deeply disappointing.
“We have PTSD with some AI providers,” says Head of Growth Casey Timorason. “The first agent we tried went off the rails, booking jobs and promising customers things that we just couldn't deliver on.” An out-of-the-box rollout turned into disaster, forcing an immediate shut-off.
Call center manager Lauren Cano was on the frontlines, and saw the damage up close.
After rolling out an AI bot to field after-hours calls, the problems started immediately. “Customers said, 'I don't understand, why am I speaking to a computer?' They were repeating themselves over and over. A call that should have been a minute and a half was now a seven-minute conversation. Customers were pretty upset.”
Service Professionals was excited about AI, but couldn’t find a partner that could help it live up to its Thumbs Up Guarantee.
Then they found Netic.
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AI worthy of a thumbs up
After their past AI experiences, Rich and his team were skeptical that any AI tools could meet their bar.
But seeing an example of Netic live in production showed Rich that Netic could be a different kind of AI partner.
"We were taken aback by the quality of the voice technology. I've been disappointed before, but now I was asking where do I sign?" After walking through a real-world demo of Netic’s voice agent, the entire team knew that Netic could deliver the professionalism of the Thumbs Up Guarantee through the phone.
Lauren’s skepticism also faded the moment she saw that AI could provide the understanding and care customers deserved.
“If a customer said, 'My husband just recently passed,' it wasn't just, 'Okay, I can get you on the schedule.' It was, 'Oh, hold on — I am so sorry that you're going through that.' Netic was able to show that empathy.”
The Netic team worked closely with Service Professionals to get top-notch AI up and running. It went live within weeks and kept performing. “The difference that Netic has is their level of service and their knowledge level is unbelievable. Within seconds they can fix internal problems, and that ultimately translates to a better customer experience,” Evin says.
A transformed call center
As the first touchpoint for any Service Professionals customer, the call center is where the Thumbs Up Guarantee begins, and where Netic made its biggest mark.
“With old AI solutions, problems never got fixed. Customers would hit the same issue five or six times, and they would never be addressed,” remembers Lauren. Today, Netic delivers excellence across the entire customer experience.
"Netic changed the way my call center runs. I have one channel, I can reach out anytime, and things change immediately." For the first time, instead of a cookie-cutter bot that failed in real conditions, Lauren had an AI partner that adjusted on the fly.
Lauren and the rest of the team were able to ensure that Netic could follow all of Service Professionals’ operational rules.
“Adding Netic into our operations was exciting because they had so many customizations. I was able to give them all of the questions my reps would normally ask, who they'd assign to, what our dispatch team needed.”
Netic's built-in analytics also give Service Professionals a clear view of every call, so they can eliminate guesswork. Now, they use it to get more insight into their CXRs: "It allows us to evaluate the employee and coach the team better: that's what you want as a leader," says Rich.
Lauren can now spend an hour a week training her reps to better serve her customers while the phones operate smoothly. On one of the first hot days of summer, she even felt comfortable stepping away from the floor for two hours for her interview. No calls went unanswered.
The results speak for themselves. Netic has already handled over 100,000 interactions for Service Professionals. "Netic is making our service ten times better,” says Lauren. The call center that once shunned AI for failing the Thumbs Up Guarantee now embraces Netic, and we’re proud to play a role in that turnaround.
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Extending AI beyond inbound leads
Netic handles a lot more than just booking inbound jobs. Rich had always wanted to consolidate Service Professionals' sprawling tech stack, so no customer would slip through the cracks between disconnected tools.
“We needed something that would take care of a lot of different things, to eliminate three or four pieces of software and put it in one spot,” Rich says. "Netic was the first company building the one-stop solution."
That scope now allows Netic to run completely autonomous outbound campaigns.
Building a call list used to take days of manual work sorting through customer records. For Rich and his team, no longer. “With Netic, it's so easy to create a campaign, a text campaign, a drip campaign, knowing that they can run on their own and customers are covered,” says Lauren.
Now, the team can focus on serving more customers than ever.
Conclusion
“What really stands out with the Netic team is they're truly focused on their customer, the contractor,” Evin says. “That’s the fundamental difference I've seen.”
For three decades, Service Professionals has built its name on the Thumbs Up Guarantee. We're proud to help them deliver on that promise, using AI to deliver results and enhance, rather than derail, their mission.
We can't wait to see how Service Professionals keeps making thumbs go up across New Jersey.
