In June 2022, ServiceTitan looked at the call leads coming into more than 3,000 US and Canadian trade businesses on its platform and measured how many turned into booked jobs. A typical shop booked 42 percent. Plumbing had the highest booking rate at 43 percent, electrical was at 41, HVAC at 38, and garage door and water treatment at 31.
- Plumbing: 43 percent of call leads booked into jobs
- Electrical: 41 percent
- HVAC: 38 percent
- Garage door and water treatment: 31 percent
- Typical shop across trades: 42 percent
Two more things sit in that data. HVAC booking rates ran higher in the shoulder seasons and lower in summer, which is the month the HVAC phone is busiest. Plumbing barely moved across the year.
That is vendor data from 2022, measured on ServiceTitan's own customers, and it is not your number. It does say two useful things. The first is that trades are not comparable to each other: an HVAC owner should compare summer to spring, not to a plumber. The second is that the busiest HVAC month is the one where the fewest calls turn into jobs. More calls came in than the office could turn into work.
So before buying another lead, pull one number. Last July, how many of the calls that came in ended with a technician on the schedule? If the answer is near 38 percent, the question is what happened to the other 62, and the first place to look is the calls nobody picked up.
What ProxMedia does about it: an AI receptionist for HVAC companies answers the calls the office cannot, books the visit and sends the summary. It does not change the booking rate on its own. It changes how many of the calls get an answer at all.
Source: ServiceTitan, "Typical call-booking rate for ServiceTitan users? The number might shock you into action", October 25, 2022 (data from more than 3,000 US and Canadian trade businesses).