Ben Franklin Plumbing Dallas: Finding the Keys to Growth

DALLAS, TX — Shane Jaeger, President of Operations for Benjamin Franklin Plumbing in Dallas, got into the trades—as many do—through his family. Jaeger’s father was the owner of a construction and plumbing company which exposed him to the business at a young age, working summers for his father throughout Junior High and High School.

After college, Jager spent time working in fianance. But when his father started a residential service plumbing company he asked Jaeger to make a career change and help him run it. Jaeger has been growing the business ever since. Currently the company covers a service area of more than 19,000 sq. miles and more than 50 zip codes.

Benjamin Franklin

Part of that growth involved turning to the franchise model via the well-known Benjamin Franklin plumbing brand, a part of the Authority Brands group of companies.  

“The biggest thing was getting the knowledge,” says Jaeger about going the franchise route. “You know, my dad had been in the new construction industry for 30 years, trying to figure out proper pricing and see what other people were doing—that was always a challenge, and we didn't want to have to face that when we moved to the service side.”

Jaeger has found the Benjamin Franklin framework to be not just effective, but immensely supportive. “Other franchises will bend over backwards to help you, and you do the same for them—you just want everyone across the country to succeed.”

Growing Pains

Starting out, one of Jager’s biggest obstacles to growth was finding enough skilled hands to do the work. Texas has strict licensing requirements, meaning two to four years as an apprentice just to make journeyman, and typically a much longer period to become a master plumber.

“It's a challenge,” Jaeger admits, “but we've overcome that. We've been ‘growing our own’ in-house, through our apprenticeship program. We have connections with local trade schools, and we’ve been careful, attentive to our people, bringing them up and getting them licensed and to the point where they can run trucks for us. That's been the most successful way we found, getting our technicians brought on that way.”

In the past six years Jaeger’s company has seen between 10 and 11 of its apprentices licensed. And he credits onboarding and training programs supplied by Benjamin Franklin for a lot of that success.

The Tech Advantage

Along with hiring and developing their skilled labor force, Benjamin Franklin Dallas uses the latest software to get the most out of their team. They use ServiceTitan’s suite of products tailored to the residential service trade, including the Schedule Pro scheduling and booking platform.

“The level of control that you have over it, where it can actually look at our schedule and present available appointment windows to the customer, then letting the customer book right then and there, that's pretty neat,” Jaeger says, calling it a huge improvement over the old system of online booking where a customer had to fill out a contact form, submit it and then wait for a reply.

“Now it's completely contactless. If customer doesn't want to talk to someone, they don't have to, they can schedule right there and get booked and they'll get a text message when the technician's heading their way,” Jaeger says.

The customer can then track the technician as they are in route—a feature that is practically demanded by customers in this day of apps such as Uber and Lyft.

That same dispatching platform now incorporates artificial intelligence—juggling hundreds of calculations automatically—to ensure that the right technician with the right skills and the right parts is the one that gets assigned a particular job. Jaeger finds the system goes a long way to set his technicians up for success, to get the customer satisfied, and then get the tech quickly on their way to their next job.

Planning for Growth

As the Dallas metro area expands, Benjamin Franklin plans to expand along with it. Increasing market share is Jaeger’s big goal for the next few years. And helping with that mission is ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro.

“In the trades, you used to just buy a yellow pages ad and call it good. But that doesn't happen anymore,” Jaeger says. “Marketing Pro really gives you an upper hand.
It was probably the biggest reason we looked at ServiceTitan.”

The software allows Benjamin Frankin to gather information on every phase of the customer relationship, from first contact (who, what, where, and when) throughout the entire service history. It allows the contractor to put solid numbers on what that customer cost to acquire, and the rich data captured has been vital in the company’s expansion plans.

To aid that expansion, ServiceTitan has been there for Benjamin Franklin with training and support at every stage. “The level of training that ServiceTitan provided was substantial.
I was really shocked,” Jaeger says. They're not just throwing you to the wolves.”

Three weeks of intensive onboarding followed by daily, weekly, and then monthly contact helped ensure the system was working and delivering value. “They don't just walk away”

For Shane Jaeger, the combination of support and expertise provided by ServiceTitan and Authority Brands has helped create a clear pathway for his company as it works its way towards the next level of success.