Innovative Plumbing Solutions: How Good Guy Plumbing Uses AI to Enhance Customer Care

TORRANCE, CA — Good Guy Plumbing was started twenty-five years ago in Torrance, CA with a single truck and a conviction that homeowners deserved tradespeople who were as honest as they were skilled. Today Good Guy consists of 12 full-time employees and eight fully-stocked service vans, serving the entire South Bay: Torrance, Redondo and Manhattan Beaches, Palos Verdes, Carson, Gardena, and into coastal Long Beach.

The company is still family-owned, and the “Good Guy” promise of integrity, upfront pricing, and white-glove care has earned more than 1,000 five-star reviews online. Day-to-day Good Guy Plumbing handles everything from emergency leak detection and trenchless sewer repairs to tankless water-heater installs, whole-home repipes, and light commercial service for local restaurants and HOAs.

The Technological Edge

Good Guy Plumbing—like almost all plumbing contractors today—has embraced the latest technology, both to better serve their customers and to get a leg up on their competition.

That technology now includes a host of tools powered by Artificial Intelligence. Their adoption and application have had a major impact in Good Guy’s approach to customer service. After extensive research, Good Guy Plumbing settled on an AI-powered service platform called Housecall Pro. 

AI on the Job (and Beyond)

“Our customer service representative AI voice agent now answers the phone 24/7, triages the issue, and books the job directly onto our calendar,” Rob Castelao, Owner of Good Guy Plumbing said. “That stopped the bleed of missed calls that used to roll to voicemail after 5:00 p.m.”

Once the call is booked, CSR AI smart scheduling and dispatch can suggest the best technician, time slot, and route based on traffic and skill match. The result has been faster service, trimmed “windshield time” and lower spend on gasoline.

Housecall Pro is also able to generate instant, accurate estimates—a huge time-saver. “Housecall Pro’s Coach AI looks at our historical labor, materials, and margins, then helps draft a line-item quote my tech can approve on-site in about 90 seconds,” Castelao said. “No more back-office re-keying at night.”

After the actual plumbing work is completed, AI lends a hand with the follow-through. Through a system in the platform called “Pipeline,” AI-driven texts go out two days after the job with a review link and again six months later with a water-heater flush reminder. The process leads to more reviews and better reviews, which is key to attracting new customers. At the same time, automatic maintenance notifications keep shoulder-season work steady.

Price of Admission

As with any new technology, there has been a learning curve for the staff of Good Guy Plumbing. One advantage of Artificial Intelligence systems is that learning the new system is less about functions, commands and keyboard shortcuts, and more about having a conversation—almost the way you would with any other new team member.

“Onboarding was quick,” Castelao said. “We spent a couple mornings role-playing calls, and another walking through estimate and job creation on our tablets and phones. By the end of the week the team was fully confident.”

Castelao offered a few considerations for other contractors to keep in mind when adopting an AI system. The first is the need for human override. AI suggestions are just that—suggestions. The dispatcher or field lead has final say about what actually happens, an essential role to ensure human judgement is never taken out of the decision-making process. One AI-generated mistake can be all it takes to destroy a customer’s trust in a company.

The next is just good advice for working with any digital system: practice good data hygiene. The old saying of “garbage in = garbage out” always applies. AI learns by analyzing a company’s data, so ensure every piece of data is accurate and correctly tagged.

Improving Outcomes

“The impact of AI team members is still a bit tough to measure directly, but we’ve experienced faster growth this year than previous years,” Castelao said. “Between our three office staff we free up roughly 10-plus hours every single week, or about 500 hours a year. That is time we now pour into same-day callbacks and marketing instead of doing other tasks that AI does for us.” 

To learn more about Good Guy Plumbing, visit www.goodguyplumbing.com.

To learn more about Housecall Pro, visit www.housecallpro.com.