Welcome to Did You Know, the ESCO HVAC podcast,
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on excellence since 1889. Whether you're just
getting started or you've been turning wrenches
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new for us to learn. I'm Clifton Beck, and this
is Did You Know? The ESCO Age Fact Podcast. Let's
dive in. All right, everyone. Thank you so much
for joining us once again on Did You Know? The
ESCO Age Fact Podcast. Today, I'm spending some
time with Winston Chee. How are you, sir? I'm
good. I'm good. Thank you for inviting me. You
know, we had a really good conversation. We've
been trying to figure out what's going to be
the best way to approach this. And I think the
way that we should address this conversation
is... breaking the status quo. And, you know,
there's a lot of things changing in our industry.
And it's not just our industry. I think it's
just society in general. You know, technology
has been advancing so rapidly. It's changed the
way people communicate. It's changed the way
people learn. You know, it was interesting for
me. I was going through a small town here in
the Midwest about a month ago. I was coming back
from our farm. I've got some property out in
the middle of nowhere. And I was coming back
through this little bitty town and just looking
for something quick to eat. So I stopped at the
local. They do have a Taco Bell. They've got
a few restaurants in this little town. And so
I stopped in Taco Bell. And as I was getting
my order, I looked around and there were 20 year
olds on their phone. There were 30 -year -olds
on their phone. There were 40 -year -olds on
their phone, all the way up into 80s. There was
a couple, there was three, two older ladies and
one older gentleman sitting at a table, all of
them in their 80s, and all of them were on their
phones using technology. And so norms that we
had from even 10 years ago are starting to look
a lot different today. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah,
I think the world is accelerating in a... very
different way nowadays i would say even compared
to half a years ago now i barely use google i
use chat gbt every day so i mean there are times
when i open the browser and start typing something
and then i just realize that okay i don't need
to do here i just close the browser and then
go to chat gbt i mean on my phone i just go to
chat gbt directly without really typing search
for things it's just much faster and easier um
that almost feels like probably 20 years ago
when you opened Yahoo, right? Try to do something
and then you realize you can use Google. It just
reminds me of that. And that was very much a
transition that happened in a short period of
time. It was a learning curve and then things
were very different afterwards. And I do believe
that that's where you're right. We are there
again. Actually, I did an episode last week where
I had Brigham Dickinson on the live show and
we were talking about how AI is... is being more
involved with the customer service side, right?
Just the call centers in general. Like when we
look at what's happening at a call center, there
are companies that are going, hey, I think I'm
going to use AI to take over my call center.
And then we have others going, well, it wasn't
a very good experience. Maybe we should have
a blend of both. And then we even had educators
that were on the live show. I asked the question,
how are you using artificial intelligence right
now? And I was surprised how many of our educators
said, well, I don't really use it. And in the
background, I'm going, you're probably using
it and you don't even realize it. And it's become
part of our culture and part of our norm. But
it does change the way we look at training and
we look at preparing technicians for the field.
That has definitely been a shift. Yeah. Yeah.
I have to say that because I live in San Francisco.
And whatever is happening in other places of
the world always happens in San Francisco first.
Because when you drive through 101 or 280, you
don't see that many billboards, but 101, you
see all the AI replaced people, AI for whatever,
AI for infra, they will be all billboards. All
over? Really? Yeah, for AI. If you come here,
you should just check it out. Drive down from
the city to the South Bay, look at all the billboards.
You will realize probably all the... hot companies
are on the billboard no kidding yeah yeah so
it's a very different place but um i would say
like one thing i really hate is that people try
to try to use ai to replace people i think it
should be a tool to augment people i agree to
replace people and plus i don't think the ai
is truly ready for a lot of call center uh i
hate it every time when i call like there were
time I just try to book something, right? And
they just keep routing me to AI and then keep
asking me questions. And it's just, all I want
is one simple thing. I know AI couldn't answer
and I cannot get it. I have to call other companies.
So that's something I've seen as big challenge
nowadays for the AI, especially for call center.
But I do agree. The cost on human beings to take
the phone call is high and it's not a good job
for people to actually rely their life. on taking
phone calls to answer people's questions, some
basic questions. So it's a dilemma for sure.
So how do we approach it? You spend a lot of
time on the software side, particularly in the
AI sector. So walk me through some challenges
and some solutions that you are providing and
that you see in our industry. So we are working
in HVAC and plumbing. So in order to really make
sure we can empower people on the field, we need
to look at what the demographic looks like nowadays.
So people are calling it in the industry. First
of all, it's a donut shape, meaning there is
a big gap between the workforce in terms of their
age, usually 150s and then a bunch of 20s and
30s. I don't know. Where are the 40s? It's like
a generational gap. It's probably for the last
10 years, right? People are not paying attention
to that at all. As a result, there are very minimal
number of people going to that space. But nowadays
with all the policy shifting, people are going
back to the trades again. So you see a lot of
20s. So that generation gap is real. Meaning
if you don't take advantage of the people are
still there for the next five years. there will
be a huge disaster of how do we transfer knowledge
to the younger generation. And that's one part
of it, right? Another is you have to, in order
to adapt to these demographic, we have to know
what the younger people really think. I mean,
we know the 50 -year -old are already working
there for a long time, but the real challenge
is how do we adapt the younger generation people
to do the good work, to serve the homeowner good
enough. I would say another thing is also because
of younger generation people are using TikTok
or like other short video. People are not patient
at all. People's time spent attention is 15 seconds
or less. So as a result, when I'm looking at
those industries, a lot of the time people are
rushing to do a lot of things, right? Like you
don't see people taking this apprentice for three,
four years. There are. but much less. People
want to go to do the real comfort advisor job
or do the real service job right away without
much training. And as a result, in a company
that with more technicians, the work quality
is not consistent at all. And that creates a
lot of issues. Another big thing is you're seeing
so many PEs coming in this space, right? Private
equities. Yeah. yeah they're acquiring so many
companies and pe coming here for a reason first
of all it means there are a lot of value in this
space but also we have to know pe usually are
driven by probability yes and also they have
pretty good back office supporting them, right?
They always call this operating company and management
company structure. Management company going to
provide all the resources to the operating company
to do that and train them. So they're they look
at the problem. OK, those are a bunch of 20 year
old. We have program in place to train them.
And that going to give them a lot of competitive
advantage compared to a lot of smaller shops.
So those are phenomenon we're looking at. And
of course, because I know a lot of companies
already pushing AI adoption, of course, even
like the biggest player server titan is rolling
out a lot of AI features. So this is the overview
of what the industry right now is shifting as
a status quo. Sure. You know, when we look at
how do you train that technician, like how do
you keep them up to date, not only with the existing
technologies, but the new technologies that we're
introducing very quickly, very regularly. You
know, that gap that you'd mentioned, that circular
labor supply. It's really interesting when you
mention that because I see it very differently
now because it's exactly right. Like we have
this whole industry, but there's a big chunk
of it that is gone. And a lot of the older generation,
myself and older, are focusing on phasing out
of the industry, right? Looking towards getting
out of the field, maybe giving back my knowledge.
Hopefully that's what's going to happen. But
in the process, we have an abundance of new talent
coming into the field that, yes, they're going
to be learning some of this tribal, hopefully
the tribal education, things that we learned
on these pieces of equipment that really hadn't
changed for decades. But what about everything
else, right? And communication. And so it's not
like we're handing it down from one generation
to the next. typically been how the trade survived
is an experienced person passed their knowledge
down to the next generation and the next generation
passed it on down you picked up new things along
the way but when you skip a step you kind of
skip a generation well you got to make up for
that and technology is really what we're going
to have to utilize to do that Yeah. And I would
say, if you're looking at it, what matters the
most, because I'm from the technology perspective,
if you're looking at any of those companies,
80 % of the payroll goes to the field, the technicians.
And there will be 20 % of payroll go into the
office. And I see a big shift right now. Most
of the companies, I would say, nowadays are focusing
on replacing the office staff, which I think
is good, but it's not a... the real answer to
the industry. And like what you're saying, we
need to have a way to properly prepare the people
on the field to adapt themselves to this world.
And I think that's how AI can come into play
to educate them differently. Because even like
nowadays, we see a lot of discussion. People
are thinking like, how do we change the K -12
education because of AI? A lot of knowledge we
teach are not. applicable anymore. It's probably
knowledge 300 years ago. Why is it still taught?
They can get it from Chachi BD in a second, probably
not something we need to do. And I would say
like, we see a lot of companies, I can see some
good practices and some bad practices from big
companies that are utilizing a lot of technologies.
We see things could be accelerated much faster
because they can capture the data. and process
that and give it in a training to the different
people. But I still have a lot of doubts on a
lot of the trainings because my feedback from,
I heard feedback from the big companies is, okay,
people give training for every month. One week
found out the close rate drastically improved,
right? Two weeks later, slightly slowed down.
Four weeks later, everybody forgot about it.
Right. Well, that just means. it's not natural
right otherwise you would try to bend the wood
too much and you always go back to what it's
originally supposed to be exactly so for that
part i see that the training is important but
but probably the current training is not the
best way to utilize it and what i think should
happen is train them by letting them doing it
is actually more important because because we're
in the industry of hands -on work right so you
shouldn't be like okay train them every one month
every two months you can do that but it's more
of a reminder versus try to let them sit in the
office or in the classroom give them the feedback
on what they've done or i'll pick one or two
people because as a trainer right you're gonna
be your audience gonna be maybe 50 100 people
or maybe less 20 even 20. For last month, they
will be performing hundreds of jobs. As a trainer,
you have only limited time spent to listen to
certain calls. And maybe AI can tell you which
one are good, which one are bad. But people,
it's not really that personalized. Yeah, I get
that completely. Yeah, so it's not going to provide
the best feedback to that. So what we think is,
okay, technology as a way to help people. what
we should do is, okay, how do we make sure it's
almost like companion that can help you to improve
your work on the field? Okay. Noso Labs is working
on a mentorship, really a digital mentorship.
That's a pretty accurate way to describe it.
We are more of just making things much easier
to do so many different parts of the work. Yeah.
But let's look at the fundamental issues, right?
Like the most fundamental issue for a lot of
fuel jobs is did you close the job? Right. You
don't close the job, you lose the money. And
for most of the companies, you've already spent
all the resources sending a technician out. And
technician is going to spend an hour, talk to,
or 30 minutes, talk to the homeowner. And they
leave. That's it. Right. And then by the end
of the month, if you're looking at it, you're
seeing probably 60 to 70 percent of jobs never
closed. Yeah. Of course, this is a rough status.
That's realistic. Yeah. But some companies can
do really well. For example, we know some pretty
big company doing 200 million in Vegas is doing
around 70 percent close rate because the company
is entirely focused on close rate. Of course,
they're doing really well. you're seeing around
40, 30 to 40 % close rate is pretty accurate.
If you're looking at it, that's a big money losing
part for any HVAC company, right? So how do we
make sure that you can improve the close rate
is actually pretty important. And if you're looking
at what contribute to the close rate, it's really
just three things. First is all the communication.
That communication could be like, did you prepare
everything in advance? How did you make sure
you conveyed a message to the homeowner? Did
you handle the back and forth Q &A properly before
you do any work? Right? Second is a proposal.
Did you have a proposal that truly represented
value that you're trying to create for the homeowner
based on what they're asking? Because they call
you for a reason. They don't call you, just call
you coming in to check it out. And then without,
they're ready to pay, but you are not closing
it. That's probably. you're not present something
they're comfortable with. Sure. And finally is
the process, meaning we're in the world got so
distracted. Did you properly follow up with the
homeowner for the proposal you presented? You
remind the homeowner that they need something,
right? So, but let's start from the back. The
follow -up is actually a pretty challenging piece
nowadays for a lot of technicians because It's
nobody's job. Technician is going to need to
do three to four jobs, maybe six jobs. Depends
on how they divide and conquer their work, right?
If they do six jobs a day or four jobs a day,
how do you remember last Wednesday, there was
a homeowner asked me to call back next Monday,
4 p .m.? Right. Monday came around and I had
five emergency calls waiting for me. This homeowner's...
Not on the highest of my priority, unfortunately.
Yeah, you can argue. Yeah, you can argue, okay,
that everything's in ServerTitan. Everything's
in Hotspot Pro. You can always go in. But look,
there is a big difference between a software
and AI nowadays. Yeah. Right? If you go to like
chat DVD, it has all the polls. It can remind
you everything. You can have all the calendar.
It's supposed to be something on your calendar
to tell you it's a push, not a pull. The way
I'm thinking about the older generation of software
is it's always a pull. We need to go in and then
dig it out. It's a pull. It's very unnatural.
Right. The difference between AI and non -AI
is it can be a push. It can remind you what you
need based on the right timing and everything.
Just come in. Okay. Hey, Jack, like you've talked
about it last week for this. Do you want me to
do this for you? You can say no, but that's the
biggest difference. It's more responsive. compared
to more passive approach of the software because
previous software is just a UI and we rely on
our own ability to go in and check on it. Sure.
It's like that whole mentorship aspect where
you have an assistant that is helping you see
things that maybe you forgot. Or maybe you didn't
see. And that's really what I enjoyed about being
in the field and having a mentor is that as I'm
learning, I'm getting tips. I'm getting recommendations
along the way that I might not have thought about.
And AI is getting to that point where it can
actually do that in this process. And I really
think that's kind of where you're focusing in
on is being that push for what we're doing on
a daily basis. Exactly. And it's not just a ride
-along, right? If you think about it, all the
previous time, a lot of technicians relies on
the ride -along person to help things out. But,
I mean, to be honest, what AI is doing is more
than that. It helps you with all the trivial
parts of the work. The ride -along usually means
it's a mentor. in the truck, try to do the high
-level thing, you still do all the nitty -gritty
details. But a true companion is a system that
has a lot of superpower that know the industry
pretty well, and that would do all the nitty
-gritty parts of the work so that it helps you
alleviate yourself to focus on more fundamental
thinking, and you can do a lot of back and forth
Q &A with it. Walk me through what an average
day for one of your users is. So our long -term
goal is to help them boost the close rate. So
for the close rate, we're starting working from,
in the very beginning, we start focusing a lot
of time on diagnostics. And we actually gather
a lot of the industry manuals. Most industry
manuals is trained using our AI in the system.
But later on, we figured out, okay, what are
something just super easy for people to immediately
get value out of it? So we spent some time building
this follow -up feature that worked really well.
It is as simple as an easy reminder on your mobile
app to tell you, hey, Jack, this is the time
follow -up you need to do today. And you just
need to click a button. We compiled a text message
for you already. Because writing a text message
where you're on the field is still tough. If
you need to think about it, yeah, what I did
last Tuesday and then write a proper text message
is just not easy. And doing a phone call works,
but unfortunately, because a lot of spams nowadays,
no one really take phone calls. That's very true.
Yeah, so you kind of have to rely on the text
message to go out. And I'll say the work. um
we're saying for a lot of technicians they still
do whatever the work they're doing nothing really
changed except that they can spend maybe three
minutes to make sure they do the follow -up for
the whole week everything done swipe clean it
up and it will pop out again for the next uh
we would remind them to do around three follow
-ups and that's it if it doesn't convert for
a week probably it's never got converted because
we run stats over 95 of the job got converted
in seven days. By somebody. Yeah, by somebody.
So if it is not converted by you, it's already
gone. So don't waste your time on it. So that's
how our system needs to look like. And then the
technician can also coordinate writing notes
on it to coordinate with their service manager
in the office. Service manager can write more
notes on it. That's how we see this is utilized
right now. We're expanding more into other pieces.
Right now, the proposal piece, I mentioned it
because if you remember what I just mentioned,
there are three pieces, the communication, the
proposal, and the procedure. The follow -up fit
into the procedure piece. The proposal piece
is actually much, much harder because every businesses
want to run proposals slightly differently. Sure.
We are building that piece, but I wouldn't. share
too much detail until it's really working well.
It's very challenging, but it's very great problem
to solve because at the end of the day, the proposal
matters more than anything else. I agree. If
someone wants to learn more about your product
and get in contact, what's the best way to reach
out to NoSoLabs? Usually, it just go to our website.
noso .so, N -O -S -O dot S -O. And then you can
book a demo with us and then we can chat about
it. That's probably the easiest way. We also
have LinkedIn page, have a lot of followers.
If you go there, reach out to us, that also works.
Fantastic, Winston. I sure appreciate you joining
us today and I encourage everyone to rethink
your learning process and look at tools when
we start moving into these new software. Just
remember, it's a tool to help us become more
efficient. We appreciate you joining us today.
Thank you.