February 26, 2024 • 39 mins
Join in on this buccaneering episode of the Service MVP podcast as we unfold the remarkable journey of Bluon, alongside our special guest, Matt Case. A budding refrigerant manufacturer turned frontrunner in the HVAC industry, Bluon is reimagining technician support and efficiency with innovative tools and services. Discover the transformative shift in their operation— from manufacturing refrigerants to designing an uptime tool becoming an indispensable companion for technicians.
We delve into the value propositions of the Bluon app, which provides instant access to crucial HVAC tools, calculators and tips while decreasing research time. Explore how Bluon's ingenuity extends beyond the app by integrating AI tech support— 'Master Mechanic,' responsible for handling a whopping 75% of tech support Q&A. In scenarios that require a human touch, they still offer real-time support from seasoned professionals.
Further into the episode, we discuss Bluon for Business, an unmatched technology aimed at making HVAC contractors' job more efficient. Learn about features like the live video function, quick access to OEM partner parts, planned eCommerce functionality for parts purchase, and a service manager dashboard for monitoring technician efficiency. Tune in to this enlightening session and understand how Bluon is not just elevating tech solutions but also enriching the lives of people in the HVAC industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Service MVP Podcast. My name is Joe Crisara, America's Service
Sales Coach, and we're here with Matt Case from Bluon. Matt,
welcome to our show. How are you doing today?
Thanks, Joe. Good here, man. Happy to be here. Happy Friday.
Appreciate you taking the time.
Well, it's a pleasure to have you here, and today we're going to talk about
three keys to increase technician efficiency.
(00:24):
Matt works with Bluon. Matt, why don't you first start talking about how Bluon came out of the blue?
It came just, I think it must have had a blind spot or whatever.
We never even heard of Bluon until a couple of years ago.
And then I heard nothing but Bluon about helping technicians.
How did Bluon start getting involved with helping technicians diagnose problems and create solutions?
(00:48):
Yeah, real quick backstory. We actually started our history as a refrigerant manufacturer.
And we thought that was kind of the be all end all. If we came to the market
with a viable replacement for R22 that was more energy efficient,
better for the equipment, better for the techs, that that would be the business model.
And so long-winded story we won't go through today, but we created that alternative
(01:09):
replacement, TDX20, our refrigerant product, and showed up to the marketplace
and realized that it doesn't matter how good your kind of widget is to fix XYZ problem.
If the blue collar service tech doesn't have training, support,
education to know how to use said new innovation, it's just going to die on the vine.
And so we quickly realized and pivoted that the only way to potentially get
(01:32):
product adoption was creating tools, tips, tricks, and step-by-step instructions
on how to use this new product that we had just created.
And so to do that, we built a mobile app and put every piece of applicable equipment
at the time, which the original focus was just on R22-based equipment,
into a simple, easy-to-use mobile app.
(01:52):
So you'd go in, you'd click the brand name you're working on,
scroll down, pick the model number, serial number, boom, and there you go.
And so the adoption of this mobile app took off like wildfire,
but the use of our product didn't follow suit. And so we were like, that's interesting.
What is all the use case of the app
for, if not for the retrofit steps and instructions that we built it for?
(02:15):
And then we realized that we were trying to solve, you know,
like a NASA-esque type problem, but the industry really needed support 101.
01, quickly, a quick way to find tools and wiring diagrams and tips and tricks
and calculators and just HVAC basics in a brand agnostic way,
because no one had ever built a tool that focused on the lens of the service tech, right?
(02:40):
Most tools are built through the lens of a distributor or manufacturer or a
specialty, you know, widget, you know, et cetera. And.
The thirst for a unified platform that could be home-based for the service techs
to just start there when they start their day in their workflow really took off.
And so as the volume of techs on the app and the platform, 5,000,
(03:00):
10,000, 50,000, 100,000 started to increase, we really leaned into this tech
support technician efficiency as kind of the holy grail opportunity.
And so subsequently, we've added, you know, all 410A equipment and new equipment
and just a litany of other things, including bill of materials and parts list
and the ability to check for replacement parts, which we'll get in here to a second.
(03:21):
But just this evolution from realizing that what we thought was a big problem that needed solving,
what really turned into is this issue of the entire industry needs way more
support, way more training, and way more cost effective tools to make the service
techs, you know, over, over more efficient.
Yeah, you know, it was like the first time this was introduced to me was about two years ago.
(03:43):
And I kind of likened it to the uberization of technician support.
Like, I know that when I grew up back in the late 70s, being a technician.
I had a guy named Jeff Barnes who worked at a place called Midway Supply in Zion, Illinois.
Illinois and he he would be like my blue on
(04:03):
I'd be like Jeff what do I do with this kind of a thing he like well Joe
you need to get this uh you're gonna order a spring cup
or you need to get a motor mount for that pump or what he'd he'd
give me the pro tip that isn't in the textbook uh and and I when I called one
I was literally astounded because I'm like it was definitely like a recreation
what I think the uberization part of it mean is that you take people who've
(04:25):
got experience in those trades who normally just kind of hang it up and don't
that they retire retire, go into something else,
people who have got a lot of experience and you match those people up with the
younger people today who need that mentoring and help and guideline.
And it's a real service. And that's one thing that was like,
it astounded me. I'm like, wow, this is like, this is what I've always said for years.
(04:46):
Everybody needs to find a college of mentors that can help you in this industry.
Because I would say that there's so much to know that you're only going to know
like a little bit of it, but finding where the answer is at,
which Bluon has so masterfully done.
And I definitely highly endorse this service that you have.
And it is interesting how you started with a different service.
(05:07):
And now the thing that you tried to do to promote the other service kind of
blew up and became a thing of its own. That's first of all, kudos to you.
And I'm very happy that it's taken foothold. And I 100% support this notion.
Tell us about how this will help. You had the three keys to increase technician efficiency.
And now we have introduced introducing a new concept called Blue On for Business.
(05:31):
If you don't mind going ahead and tell us about what's the next thing coming
up in the near future here that's going to even take this to another help,
another degree of help, if you don't mind.
For sure. Yeah, I'll walk through that. I'm just going to share my screen too
while we're talking here and give some context here.
So in our world, we've created this nomenclature Blunt for Business,
which is really trying to create a time machine for HVAC contractors, right?
(05:53):
Because at the end of the day, efficient management of your labor in the field
is make or break, right, for your contracting business.
How fast you can get guys on and off of jobs, on to the next jobs, happy customer, etc.
Is the name of the game. And so at Bluon, I'm going to skip through some of
these slides here for time's sake here.
At Bluon, we've spent an inordinate amount of time assessing the day in the life of a service tech.
(06:15):
And so for many, many years, many, many tens of thousands of service tech assessments,
we came to this conclusion.
And so Joe, I see this, you see this 35% number on the screen.
I do see it. I see it. Yeah.
This number on the screen here represents the average billable efficiency of a service tech.
And so think about what that means for a second. So 35% of the time.
(06:35):
They're doing activities in the field that are making the contractor money,
which also means 65% of the time they're doing activities that are not making
money, which is a huge, you know, kind of time suck and time waste.
And so what we've done is look at this 65%, what are those things that they're
wasting time on and how do we get that time back?
And so we've built tools to address each of those things to try to move that
(06:58):
overall 35% number to 40, 45, 50, you know, and somewhere above.
And so if you walk through a technician's day, time suck, number one,
we talked on briefly in our evolution here.
Anything to do with diagnosing the unit and finding information,
looking up a manual, wiring diagram, tech specs, service bulletin, error code, right?
All these things could take 15 to 30 minutes per tech, per job, per day, per instance.
(07:22):
And so scale that across the entire industry. When guys are pulling in and scrolling
down forums, trying to dive into a Facebook group to find this,
we've solved that issue single-handedly.
And so in five seconds or less, you can pop open the Blum mobile app.
App, there's 450,000 unique model families now in the mobile app and growing,
which equates to about 20 million pieces of equipment.
(07:43):
If you do the sub models under the model families, 5 million parts and about
100 million cross references. And we'll get to that data point in a second.
But so now imagine instead of digging around in the manual, looking for,
or sorry, digging around in the unit, looking for a manual, two clicks or less,
it's right in front of your face in the blue on mobile apps.
So that can solve this initial time suck that we're calling it.
(08:04):
And then we extended this.
Okay, so what happens next? What is the second biggest time suck relative to a service tech stay?
Anything related to tech support, right? So as you mentioned,
your ability to call your guy at the supplier who knew his stuff,
right? Not all folks have that ability.
And so oftentimes what happens, you call an OEM and you're on hold for hours
(08:25):
or sometimes days, which is funny to think that when they call back the next
day that you'd still be sitting in front of the unit as if you're supposed to
sleep there waiting for them to call you back.
But tech support in general has not been very well, I would say,
facilitated within the industry.
And so what happens is a lot of folks try to take on an internal tech support burden, right?
So you have your service manager or your highest trained service tech,
(08:48):
instead of him being out in the field doing jobs, he becomes the anchor for internal support.
And so when the younger guy now calls that guy and takes him offline for tech
support, now I have two revenue generating instances that are now cost burdens, right?
So it's a never-ending cycle of...
Double negatives from, from an economic sense. And so what we've done is built
(09:10):
a best in class third-party tech support mechanism that imagine it's like service manager on demand.
He's there when you, but you don't have to have him internally and he doesn't
get swamped and bogged down because we have a litany of guys from,
you know, your one ton resin unit to your thousand ton chillers that can answer
calls, you know, a couple minutes or less, uh, wait time and everywhere in between.
And so we really saw that waiting on hold on a job for tech support can be make
(09:35):
or break relative to that job being a profitable one or not from the contractor lens.
And so we built two tools to really solve this tech support issue and help scale
and help the service techs. And so tool number one initially was our live tech support.
So we had 30 plus best in class guys. We answered the phone 24 seven,
some, some days in the summers, it was six, 700 calls a day.
(09:58):
We became more or less tech support for the entire industry.
And so with that, we had recorded and and transcribed all of the calls that
we had taken, real-life calls in the field, over some 100,000 calls we had taken
over that period of time.
But the issue was exactly what you mentioned about your guy.
It's how do I scale the knowledge and information that that guy who had done
(10:19):
it for 20, 30 years, how do I get that out of his head and into some easy-to-access
thing to where it doesn't have to become a one-on-one conversation every time?
And so thankfully, this advent of AI and OpenAI and ChatGPT came along.
We were able to take that ecosystem, take all the library of calls that we had
facilitated, plug that data into our own large language model and create AI tech support.
(10:44):
And so now within the same blow on mobile app that I just mentioned is your first time saver,
you can ask faster mechanic as if you're talking to a real life service tech,
because the data it's pulling from is literally 100,000 questions that have
been asked and answered and solved real life in the field.
People think this part's kind of funny. When we first launched it internally,
(11:05):
you know, it would kind of cuss like a service tech.
It was a little, you know, politically incorrect sometimes because it was taking
the real conversations, right, that these guys had actually facilitated,
you know, over the years.
And so we dialed the, you know, the tenor and the temperature of the language,
you know, to dial some of that back.
But most important is that the ethos of that is still there.
So the more specific you ask it, the better.
(11:26):
It knows tech nomenclature. You know, you ask what a squirrel cage is,
it's going to tell you, right? right? It's apt to all that.
But most important, it's meant
to be the first line of defense for tech support within this ecosystem.
And so the ability to just have somewhere where they can go and confirm,
right? About half the tech support calls we were taking, the guy was on the right track.
He generally knew where to look or what he was working on, but he just wanted
(11:48):
a little confirmation, right?
And so to have something I can just quickly check and text into real-time for
confirmation is super important.
The AI is conversational. So if I say, hey, Joe, I need to to check up,
you know, how do I see if a compressor is broken?
It's going to give me eight options, you know, from electrical down.
And then you can dive into those and say, okay, I realized it's X,
right? And it will continue the conversation with you.
(12:10):
It's talk to text also, as you can just hit the button and talk into it.
It's linguistic. So in case you guys have, you know, Spanish speaking service
folks or any other language, you know, it can go any language on the data side,
which is super powerful.
But the net net here is we think that this can take about, you know,
70, 75 ish of of all basic tech support Q&A can be handled on the master mechanic
(12:30):
front, which is just an amazing thought to think about, you know, within the industry.
And it's a living thing. So as more questions gets asked, as more real calls
get serviced, the whole thing continues to grow and continue to scale.
So we're super excited about the AI function and feature of this.
And this will continue to be a super good part of what we've built here.
But in the instance, let's say that 25% I mentioned where you still need real
(12:52):
live human tech support, we have that as well.
So again, right from the mobile app, you hit the call live support button,
and you're going to get one of my 20, 30 year veteran guys in the field who
knows exactly what the heck they're talking about. out.
Two important data points on this tech support platform. You call from the unit
you're working on, which is a big time saver for both sides.
(13:12):
Number one, it routes the call to the expert. So my two-ton resi guy is not
going to answer the thousand-ton chiller call and vice versa.
And secondarily, when the guy calls in, you can see on the screen here, this is what my guy sees.
So Jim Smith, ABC Heating and Air, he's in Irvine, California. It's 72 degrees.
He's calling on about this unit. He's got this many years of experience.
So within 30 seconds, we're on the same page of who he is, where he works,
(13:36):
what the weather is, what he's working on.
And you don't have that 15 minutes of trying to read model numbers and explain
to the person on the other end of the phone, what the heck's going on.
In the instance, you need to see
something. There's a live video function within the text board as well.
So you can see on the screen there, and it's a real screenshot of us using it
all within the mobile app. So you just click video and it flips over. It's low latency.
(13:56):
So it works over a cellular. You don't need wifi. It can be be in an attic, you can be in a basement.
But now my tech support guy can just visually see and say, nope,
point to the green wire on the left, nope, move the wrench to the right.
And we can speed up that whole process as well.
Last important data point here on the tech support side is our tech support
for live support, it's issue-based, not call-based.
(14:17):
And so if you call, that opens a ticket for an issue. The issue stays open until it's resolved.
So we take the bet on our side that our guys are fast and efficient.
We're going to get you guys off fast.
If not, obviously, we're going to eat the economics of that because it takes
us all day. That's not a winning business proposition.
But the point is, it's not a nickel and dime kind of service offering.
(14:39):
If the guy has to call back two or three times, there's an easy way to do that
right from in the mobile app.
And in the issue itself, think of it like a chat function. You can text, you can send pictures.
And so the communication stays there and easy to replicate, even if the issue
isn't resolved yet. So we think this is a pretty nifty platform that we built.
We built this whole entire platform from scratch to focus really on the efficiencies
(15:02):
of getting tech support and servicing tech support.
Because if it's efficient on one side and not on the other, it doesn't really work for anyone there.
So the tech support function is really the second time suck solver, as we mentioned here.
And then, as you mentioned at the beginning, there's three things we're built
to help solve increased technician efficiency. efficiency.
Number three here is.
(15:24):
The time delay of interacting with the distributor to get replacement parts and materials.
And so historically what's happened in the industry is that you figure out or
a tech figures out, we need to replace a condenser motor.
Then the problem begins, right? Because you got to call Joe,
you got to explain to him what it is. You got to read the part number.
You got to then say, Joe, Joe then has to go to work and say,
(15:45):
Oh, I have it. I don't. He's got to look up cross reference and get back to you and call you back.
But then he got busy and people were in the store, right? It's that age old
problem of it's just inefficient on both sides.
And so what we've done here on the going for business, big evolution is we've
taken this amazing database and cross reference tool that we originally built
for the distributors and moved it over to the contractor.
(16:07):
And so when I pop this up here in a second, you'll see for the first time,
the contractor has access to OEM, OEM partner, cross reference parts and their part numbers.
And so now the contractor can make business decisions based on this data and
information without having to first go to talk to Joe at the counter to get this data information.
(16:27):
So the ability to speed up this
entire ecosystem here is really what we're talking about in a nutshell.
So I'm going to pop these tools, both of them open in real time here.
And we'll just walk through them so you guys can get a visual.
Let me go ahead and just get a word in on that part there alone.
I remember when I was a technician and I was trying to get a special order part
(16:52):
for a brand I did not sell.
I think it was for a York or something like that. And it was like,
you got to wait five weeks for this inducer motor because we don't have it.
We have to replenish the manufacturer. I'm like, oh, my goodness.
I'm sitting there trying. I'm at the phone with them for hours.
I was, like you said, it must've been three hours trying to figure the source on this thing.
(17:12):
I asked him if there's any other way we could do this. Cause,
uh, people have no heat right now. And they're like, well, yeah, that's it.
Where I just don't have it right now. It's just out of stock and we're going
to manufacture manufacturing more.
And I happened to go to, I remember I was at a Johnstone supply and I'm like,
uh, and I happened to see like the inducer motor, the one I had in one of my head.
I just, I had, I was sitting there looking at that inducer motor on my desk.
(17:33):
I put it in my truck. And so I've been looking at it for a long time,
for three hours, just looking at the motor, see if there's any way I could find this thing somewhere.
I'm at a Johnstone, and I remember I seen a part that looked just like it on
their shelf. And I'm like, let me see that thing.
They brought it over. It was the exact same part. It just was not the OEM.
It was a cross-reference part.
That was huge. That was a big discovery for me.
(17:55):
And now we had instantly heat for the customer. That was the thing.
So this is really, to me, this is the magic of the Blue Ad for Business service that you have.
Number one, the AI component is amazing. Two, the experienced people you have.
And then this element, just this alone, I think, would pay for the whole thing,
pay for itself in getting the right part at the right time to make the job more
(18:20):
efficient and get the client the service they're looking for.
Go ahead, Matt. I didn't mean to step too much into this. You're spot on,
right? Just the idea that a distributor would even.
Tell you five weeks right it's like your guy needs
it today or tomorrow right so that that's you
know not uh not palatable so to your point what
we've built helps really solve that and help scale it from the contractor
side so on the left of my screen here this is the blue
(18:42):
on mobile app and so we'll just walk through kind of the formats and
function of this and to be clear this is i'm actually in
the app so this is not you know like a demo or a test thing
here because it moves pretty fast relative to all the
data information here so this is the search tool we'll
walk through this example in a second the comms tool here this
is where i mentioned the tech support would be so if an open issue on tech support
it would just be like a text chat here we'd be communicating with our tech support
(19:05):
folks there's a forum so community interaction here guys post tech to tech here
which is pretty cool to just see communal interaction in the more function this
is where a lot of the tools are so the master mechanic the ai component right
here in the mobile app is mentioned,
tools and calculators as well super cool sub heat super heat calculators etc
all that are easy to fine.
(19:25):
But let's walk through a real life example. So let's say I'm a tech in the field,
and I'm working on this 116A.
As soon as I start typing numbers here, the litany of data information and models
that have that in there are going to start to show up.
But let's say it's this three and a half ton character.
And in two clicks here, as you mentioned, there's the manual.
(19:48):
It's all scrollable and zoomable, super user friendly.
But how many you know, tens of millions of hours have been wasted in HVAC history
looking for basic product data and information.
If I hit get support, that's going to pop open the real live tech support function
and the ability to call into one of my folks as mentioned.
And then we have all the parts for this piece of equipment right here and the specs.
(20:11):
So, I mean, how much time have you wasted looking to confirm and look up specs,
right? Relative to motor or other.
So, you'll see here, here's the OEM part number and it says part match has found 25 replacement parts.
So, So whoever now internally at the company is responsible for,
let's call it air traffic control, they have access to this desktop version, which...
(20:33):
I will pull up the same exact unit here in the same two clicks and the same condenser motor.
And you'll see 25 known replacements. So not only do I have,
again, OEM part number here, but the 25 applicable replacements and the relative replacement score.
Right. So in two clicks or less. Oh, I see the one that matches or, oh, GE.
(20:56):
Well, they have this one at local supply. So I'm just going to go there.
Or maybe it's a Mars universal one. And we carry that on the truck,
and it's a spec-based match. So we've got to see if there's any other tweaks
relative to installation there.
But point is, for the first time ever, the contractor now has access to this
data information on the front end, which is going to allow them to navigate
their business as far as speed to acquire these parts and materials way more faster and efficient.
(21:22):
Now, I will mention, Joe, one important part that's coming here is the ability
to acquire parts and materials as well.
We are integrating with some folks out in the field. And so there'll be a purchase
option coming as well in the Q2 timeframe, which is pretty exciting.
So you can imagine how that will just further the loop of a,
you know, an e-commerce type experience to just click buy, order and have delivered.
(21:43):
But for today's purposes and what's actually functionally live in the field,
this is the tool that the contractor will have on the Blumberg business side.
So last point I'll show here before I flip back over to the deck is this slide here,
the screen that's loading, is really the culmination of what we've built for
all of our tools and giving the contractor a dashboard view of the time savings
(22:08):
and increasing the technician efficiency of each of these things.
And so HVAC is a funny world, right, where everyone knows the bookings,
right, how much revenue you do, but no one's really looking at opportunity costs, right?
How much more efficient or more profitable could a job have been if XYZ thing
happened or didn't happen?
And so through the use of our tools, we're quantifying these things and saying,
(22:31):
hey, the app got used XYZ times, AI questions got used XYZ times,
our tech support got used, the search tool, etc.
All these instances gather into hours and hours and hours per tech per week
or per month relative to time savings. And so this admin dashboard is kind of
a first of its kind within the industry to really see and quantify opportunity costs.
(22:52):
And also, it's going to allow you to see, hey, I got some guys that are using
the heck out of this thing and some guys that aren't, but they do the same job.
Why is Joe not leaning into just using the app to find the manual?
Why is Joe still looking around in the model or in the physical unit for 10
minutes before he uses the app, right?
It's going to create a lot of proactive behavior relative to using these tools.
(23:13):
So we're excited to launch this dashboard as well because it's really going
to give the contractor this unique air traffic control ability to measure overall
technician efficiency.
That is amazing. I mean, what a great time it is to be a service manager in
this world, having all these tools.
These are all the things that literally took every single frustration in the
(23:36):
service management and service technician point of view and created a solution.
People must have like a warm feeling of comfort when they see this information.
This is amazing. Amazing.
It's super cool. And what's awesome about it, you know, Joe,
is that because we've been in the industry now for some time.
The technicians, it's like Bluon has been the secret weapon kind of in the pocket behind the scenes.
(24:00):
And so now what we're doing is closing the loop with the owner,
operator, service manager.
And when someone signs up for Bluon for business and we go to roll it out,
half of their staff has already tried it before, already likes it, already loves it.
You know, there's this internal validation that really no other software can say.
It's like, If something else new comes to the table and owner-operator goes
(24:20):
to force it down the lens of the tech, another thing I got to download,
another thing I got to do.
And it's like, we've already got the adoption at the technician level.
We've got over 170,000 techs now have come through the app, registered,
signed up, name, account, where they live, all that stuff. stuff.
And so it's kind of coming at it from a unique way. We already have the approval
(24:41):
and support from the boots on the ground.
Now we're just showing and quantifying the value to owner, operator,
service manager, et cetera, as you mentioned.
And so, yeah. So one good point, though, as far as that goes,
is a lot of folks ask, well, what's changing, right? It's like,
well, some of my techs already have the app, right?
So do I need to do this, for business and all that stuff? And so short answer is yes.
(25:01):
The app, the mobile app in its its current form is moving to a freemium model,
meaning the access will be limited to a lot of these tools unless you're a Blue
On for Business customer or subscriber.
And so that's the big data point here is if you're a contractor,
service manager, owner, operator,
you want to make sure you and your team are on Blue On for Business.
Otherwise, the usage and instances of these things that your techs are currently
(25:24):
using it for are going to become really, really limited downstream.
And so, okay, so we walked through all this, what it is, what it does,
the time savings component, And then everyone's favorite question on all of
this is what does it cost, right?
So is it your firstborn child? Is it second mortgage on your home?
What big sticker price are we going to put on all this?
And the short answer is it's none of those things.
(25:45):
We price this to be relatively inexpensive, almost a rounding error.
It's on a per bucket basis. So depending on size of shop, right,
you can see the monthly prices there.
But let's say you're a 20 tech infrastructure and it's 600 bucks a month.
So, you know, 20 into 600, 30 bucks a month per tech ecosystem.
(26:07):
And so $30 per month,
do the billable hours math on your own company, that's 15 minutes of time.
If I save 15 minutes of time per month, that's that $30 billable efficiency gain or thereabouts.
And so that's really bad. It's like from our estimates and averages,
it's going to save anywhere from one to five hours per tech per week.
(26:29):
And so if I can save 15 minutes per month and you'd be at a break even relative
to the cost here, then it's all upside from there.
And so we wanted to price this this to be very cost effective,
very affordable, and most of all, prove it, right?
It's like the dashboard, the use case, the instances are going to prove this.
We don't sell a big expensive thing all up front that you have to commit to
(26:50):
some long period of time and then hope it's valuable. It's like,
sign up today, roll it out.
For folks in your ecosystem, you know, Joe, we're happy to do a one month free
trial on the software side, just to get everyone in the game and up to speed
and see it, like it, love it before you commit to anything, you know, downstream,
which is important Horde does because it's like if it doesn't work for you,
we're not here to like lock people into software just to lock people in.
(27:13):
It's like we'd much rather you see it, you like it, you love it,
and then commit to us downstream.
But the point is, we felt this was a very cost effective offering relative to
the benefits and the values that we provide.
To me, it's a no brainer. It's like if you took a service manager,
and here's the biggest thing I see here too, Matt.
(27:35):
That it's you know the service manager's job the primary
job to me is to train service
technicians proactively uh but most
of the time they spend is on the functions
what blue lines is doing so so they're spending time being the support desk
finding manuals trying to cross reference parts all the things that blue line
(27:57):
is doing so here you got a guy making 80 000 a year uh doing this work where
he could be proactively training the team.
Another element of efficiency.
The service manager doing their job now, which is to train the team proactively,
will eliminate a lot of the support questions and things like that,
(28:18):
but they don't ever have time to get to it, right?
So Blueline handles this element while they're able to be the proactive element
now and be an actual manager where they can, instead of just talking to machines
and finding cross-reference parts,
they can actually manage the people and have that relationship with their own
techs and talk about the things that the human side of it, it,
which is really why a real service manager today would be needed.
(28:41):
Because if this can be handled by AI, experts in the field, cross-referencing
the parts and all that kind of stuff,
I mean, all the service managers who are watching this right now have to have
like a shoulder rub feeling right now they're getting.
Because it's like, wow, if I didn't have to do all this stuff,
(29:04):
I could literally manage manage the team, and help my people with the skills
they need, the human skills, the soft skills,
those kind of things that they could take on that they're currently wasting
the time on this kind of thing where it's already done.
And if you look at it for $30 a month, and I'm sure the AI can handle 90% of
it, but when you get into a tough one, you pay that $40 extra for that support call.
(29:26):
And that support call, $40, you make that one incident,
it stays with the whole incident, no matter how many times it takes
to uh handle that same problem uh
with that same customer that's going to be you're going to stick with it i mean
that literally you know because i think about when i mentioned the jeff barnes
thing i eventually had to stop with jeff because his boss said you kind of stop
(29:49):
taking joe grossera's phone calls because because you got a job here to do too you can't just.
Can't just be mentoring Joe, right? So he was told to stop helping me.
That's all the end of that story.
Although we still remain good friends. The bottom line is that you found me on that.
It was like the supplier realized they couldn't scale that kind of help.
(30:10):
And I had nobody to go to who really had this kind of information.
Matt, this is so well done. I mean, serious, if I could give Blue on the Blue
Ribbon Award for things that people must have in today's environment,
I would definitely award you guys that blue ribbon for things for HVAC service companies, for sure.
Whether it's commercial or residential, I can't believe that you guys are also
(30:32):
doing the commercial, too, and things like that. That's amazing.
Well done, Matt. I appreciate that. And a couple more instances or a couple
more points that you just mentioned. So, yeah, it's not just residential.
So it scales commercial up the ladder. We're working with a lot of commercial
folks, a lot of large commercial folks as well. Well, most importantly,
the way we've structured everything is that it has to work for the user and
(30:55):
it has to work for the owner operator to get it rolled out.
So this is not like a multi-month training and onboarding and in one 30-minute
meeting with service manager and the service techs, everybody gets linked and
they're off to the races.
Our internal team handles the onboarding, handles training videos and little
nudges about how to use certain tools and whatnot. not.
(31:15):
But the point is in literally in a day, like starting from zero,
if we have technician name, phone number, we can get the entire ecosystem up
and running in a day. It's that simple and seamless.
And the tools are intuitive. Once they use it for one instance in their day
and their workflow, well, then the idea of it is cut and paste,
right? There's no downstream nuance to either that or the search tool.
(31:36):
So it had to be built in a fashion where it can't sound great on on paper and
then take six months to roll out and be super burdensome to management or operations.
So it's super simple, super easy to do as far as getting everything up to speed and up and running.
Well, definitely, you know, I'm a boomer. And so I had it at a seminar.
I had probably 60 people in a room.
(31:58):
And somebody brought it to me. I was like, I'm going to put it to the test in front of everybody.
So we had 60 people. I'm like, well, let's go ahead and try it out.
And I'm going to look at this thing. Okay, I got to do this.
So even I, as a boomer, worked through it.
So if I can work through it, any of the younger guys could. And I worked on
it. I did it live. I said, let's do a live support situation.
(32:19):
Instantly connected to somebody. I asked them a question. It would be a common
question about a TXV or whatever type of a thing.
He gave me the exact answers I needed. He gave me advice on what to do.
In front of the whole group, I had it in a group there.
And I tell you what, definitely blew on past with flying cars.
And, you know, actually, you have one of my clients, Logan Marshall,
(32:39):
who took on the service and now works with Bluon.
And that's what that's really got me even closer to you guys.
And definitely it's an honor to have an association with you.
And I can see a time at our seminars.
We're just going to use Bluon and make sure that everybody has this tool because
it's a super simple way to get that support you need.
And definitely I think it's I think you're changing the lives of people.
(33:04):
Another element that I want people to understand, the other standpoint,
service techs, not only is it more efficient from the work and money process,
but this is time that you would be able to spend with your family at night and
with your children and the things that you love doing and you're passionate about doing.
So you're not having to, maybe it would take you from work until 6,
(33:24):
6.37 every night only to 5, 5.30 or whatever, right?
And this is time that you could spend with your family. I mean,
that's why I think I want everybody to know how I really believe this is making
a positive difference in the life of everybody in the service industry.
We've got Joe to that exact point. I can't.
Hundreds of stories of our tech support over time doing exactly that.
(33:47):
Hey, I really appreciate that you guys took my call at 530 on a Friday to get
me on and off this job to get home and with my family for dinner because our
guys are here. here, our guys were those guys, right?
So they all have that same lens and purview and been in that situation when
there was no one call, right?
So for us to provide that service from a human to human perspective and get
(34:09):
that real feedback that, you know, Bluon's here and Bluon's got your back,
that's what makes the whole thing work here. So I appreciate you noting that data point.
Yeah, that's why I think it's, you know, we got to figure out to make sure people
understand the the positive splash that's gonna happen,
because of the technology information at your fingertips, how it gives you more
(34:31):
time and gives you more life, right?
Because nobody ever got an award for fixing more SJC problems.
When you're on your deathbed, you're not going to think about,
man, I'm glad I solved that TXV problem.
You're going to say, man, I'm glad I had that more time with my daughter and
my son and things like that.
Those are the things that that's what BlueEye kind of brings to the marketplace
is helping technicians have more time for the real part of their life.
(34:56):
I think that's the unintended consequence, which I think is really amazing.
So, thank you, Matt, for bringing this solution to us and letting us help promote it as well.
By the way, I don't get anything out of this at all. I want everybody to know
this is not a paid infomercial.
This is just something I really believe in, and there's no endorsement fees or anything like that.
If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't have Matt here. And I believe not just
(35:20):
in Matt, but also the other people who are in that organization that are just
at the heart of service, and that's really the number one thing.
Matt, how do you find great people like that? that? What do you do to find great
people like that? It's tough, man.
It's tough. But there's, so what we realized is the guy that's been doing it
(35:40):
25, 30 years in a normal contractor business,
he kind of goes for the value curve, right? So he's expensive.
He can't get on roofs anymore, right? There's that whole kind of like,
some of them get sent out to pasture in a relative sense.
And so what we found is those same guys to be able to work with us,
(36:01):
they get to work from the comfort of your own home. Your day is problem solving all day.
You know, you get on the phone and you deescalate, you train,
you teach, and they genuinely get a thrill out of helping and problem solving.
And so it's just a reorientation of, you know, they have the skill set to do
all those things, but having them in a third party tech support network,
it's like a two part rejuvenation.
(36:23):
I can't tell you the, some of the, you know, the older guys that we brought
on who are now younger, right?
It's like, they look younger, they feel younger, the energy's back, the vitality's back.
And it's all just because of our tech support team and our ethos and how we
go about, you know, handling that side of it. So. Yeah.
Well, Matt, thanks so much for that. Thanks for changing the lives of so many
people, both the tech support people who now have a useful purpose,
(36:45):
the service, young service techs out there who would just be unguided.
I can't imagine the chaos.
Definitely everybody who has an HVAC business or if you're seeking to go into
an HVAC business, this would be one of the first calls I would make would be
to Blue On to make sure that we could download.
Do you just download the app and sign up for it? How does it work there,
(37:07):
Matt? Yeah. So on the Blue On for Business side, you can just go to blueon.com.
There's a whole self-service workflow depending on what size of shop you are.
If you're a smaller shop, you can just sign up and check out right there from the website.
And as a function of that, you'll download the app. It'll link to your online
account and all that fun stuff.
It's like, think of it as signing up for a cell phone plan.
You go to AT&T, you sign up for the plan, and then you get your device and off
(37:30):
you go. If you're a larger shop, so call it enterprise level 20 and above,
then there's a functional reach out.
And we do like a whole white glove onboarding and pitch and presentation service
that's mostly handled by me and my team on the sales side.
So it really depends on what size shop you are, how that workflow gets handled,
but all of it goes through the website.
One point that I want to echo that you mentioned that was super important for
(37:54):
the smaller guys, even the one man guy to call it, you know, 10 and under.
It's like you can gain having a service manager for that thousand bucks a month.
Your point on if you're a bigger shop and you have a service manager who can't
do what he should be doing, you can now add a service manager for a thousand bucks a month.
(38:14):
Right. So it's a cool way to think about the deltas and differences on costs relative to scale.
Smaller shop, you might not be able to afford that $80,000, $100,000 guy until
you get to that relative scale.
But if you're a four-man shop for $200 a month to roll out the blue on for business
ecosystem, you're going to get that equivocal sense of having access to that person.
(38:35):
So it's just a cool way to think about the industry at large,
how to scale it, and most importantly, how to make everyone faster and more
efficient, which is happier lives, happier customers. Everyone wins in that equation.
Matt, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you.
And definitely, Service MVP will give 100% effort behind it to support this notion.
(38:58):
And anybody you want to send to me, say, we'll just talk to Joe Crisara.
I'll close the deal for you because I think it's such a... Seriously,
people should be selling themselves on this. I don't have to sell anything.
It's already there. It makes sense. So thank you so much, Matt.
I really appreciate that.
Awesome, Joe. Appreciate you, man. man. Enjoy your weekend and look forward
to more conversations with you here. Thank you. Talk soon.
Welcome to the Service MVP Podcast. My name is Joe Crisara, America's Service
Sales Coach, and we're here with Matt Case from Bluon. Matt,
welcome to our show. How are you doing today?
Thanks, Joe. Good here, man. Happy to be here. Happy Friday.
Appreciate you taking the time.
Well, it's a pleasure to have you here, and today we're going to talk about
three keys to increase technician efficiency.
(00:24):
Matt works with Bluon. Matt, why don't you first start talking about how Bluon came out of the blue?
It came just, I think it must have had a blind spot or whatever.
We never even heard of Bluon until a couple of years ago.
And then I heard nothing but Bluon about helping technicians.
How did Bluon start getting involved with helping technicians diagnose problems and create solutions?
(00:48):
Yeah, real quick backstory. We actually started our history as a refrigerant manufacturer.
And we thought that was kind of the be all end all. If we came to the market
with a viable replacement for R22 that was more energy efficient,
better for the equipment, better for the techs, that that would be the business model.
And so long-winded story we won't go through today, but we created that alternative
(01:09):
replacement, TDX20, our refrigerant product, and showed up to the marketplace
and realized that it doesn't matter how good your kind of widget is to fix XYZ problem.
If the blue collar service tech doesn't have training, support,
education to know how to use said new innovation, it's just going to die on the vine.
And so we quickly realized and pivoted that the only way to potentially get
(01:32):
product adoption was creating tools, tips, tricks, and step-by-step instructions
on how to use this new product that we had just created.
And so to do that, we built a mobile app and put every piece of applicable equipment
at the time, which the original focus was just on R22-based equipment,
into a simple, easy-to-use mobile app.
(01:52):
So you'd go in, you'd click the brand name you're working on,
scroll down, pick the model number, serial number, boom, and there you go.
And so the adoption of this mobile app took off like wildfire,
but the use of our product didn't follow suit. And so we were like, that's interesting.
What is all the use case of the app
for, if not for the retrofit steps and instructions that we built it for?
(02:15):
And then we realized that we were trying to solve, you know,
like a NASA-esque type problem, but the industry really needed support 101.
01, quickly, a quick way to find tools and wiring diagrams and tips and tricks
and calculators and just HVAC basics in a brand agnostic way,
because no one had ever built a tool that focused on the lens of the service tech, right?
(02:40):
Most tools are built through the lens of a distributor or manufacturer or a
specialty, you know, widget, you know, et cetera. And.
The thirst for a unified platform that could be home-based for the service techs
to just start there when they start their day in their workflow really took off.
And so as the volume of techs on the app and the platform, 5,000,
(03:00):
10,000, 50,000, 100,000 started to increase, we really leaned into this tech
support technician efficiency as kind of the holy grail opportunity.
And so subsequently, we've added, you know, all 410A equipment and new equipment
and just a litany of other things, including bill of materials and parts list
and the ability to check for replacement parts, which we'll get in here to a second.
(03:21):
But just this evolution from realizing that what we thought was a big problem that needed solving,
what really turned into is this issue of the entire industry needs way more
support, way more training, and way more cost effective tools to make the service
techs, you know, over, over more efficient.
Yeah, you know, it was like the first time this was introduced to me was about two years ago.
(03:43):
And I kind of likened it to the uberization of technician support.
Like, I know that when I grew up back in the late 70s, being a technician.
I had a guy named Jeff Barnes who worked at a place called Midway Supply in Zion, Illinois.
Illinois and he he would be like my blue on
(04:03):
I'd be like Jeff what do I do with this kind of a thing he like well Joe
you need to get this uh you're gonna order a spring cup
or you need to get a motor mount for that pump or what he'd he'd
give me the pro tip that isn't in the textbook uh and and I when I called one
I was literally astounded because I'm like it was definitely like a recreation
what I think the uberization part of it mean is that you take people who've
(04:25):
got experience in those trades who normally just kind of hang it up and don't
that they retire retire, go into something else,
people who have got a lot of experience and you match those people up with the
younger people today who need that mentoring and help and guideline.
And it's a real service. And that's one thing that was like,
it astounded me. I'm like, wow, this is like, this is what I've always said for years.
(04:46):
Everybody needs to find a college of mentors that can help you in this industry.
Because I would say that there's so much to know that you're only going to know
like a little bit of it, but finding where the answer is at,
which Bluon has so masterfully done.
And I definitely highly endorse this service that you have.
And it is interesting how you started with a different service.
(05:07):
And now the thing that you tried to do to promote the other service kind of
blew up and became a thing of its own. That's first of all, kudos to you.
And I'm very happy that it's taken foothold. And I 100% support this notion.
Tell us about how this will help. You had the three keys to increase technician efficiency.
And now we have introduced introducing a new concept called Blue On for Business.
(05:31):
If you don't mind going ahead and tell us about what's the next thing coming
up in the near future here that's going to even take this to another help,
another degree of help, if you don't mind.
For sure. Yeah, I'll walk through that. I'm just going to share my screen too
while we're talking here and give some context here.
So in our world, we've created this nomenclature Blunt for Business,
which is really trying to create a time machine for HVAC contractors, right?
(05:53):
Because at the end of the day, efficient management of your labor in the field
is make or break, right, for your contracting business.
How fast you can get guys on and off of jobs, on to the next jobs, happy customer, etc.
Is the name of the game. And so at Bluon, I'm going to skip through some of
these slides here for time's sake here.
At Bluon, we've spent an inordinate amount of time assessing the day in the life of a service tech.
(06:15):
And so for many, many years, many, many tens of thousands of service tech assessments,
we came to this conclusion.
And so Joe, I see this, you see this 35% number on the screen.
I do see it. I see it. Yeah.
This number on the screen here represents the average billable efficiency of a service tech.
And so think about what that means for a second. So 35% of the time.
(06:35):
They're doing activities in the field that are making the contractor money,
which also means 65% of the time they're doing activities that are not making
money, which is a huge, you know, kind of time suck and time waste.
And so what we've done is look at this 65%, what are those things that they're
wasting time on and how do we get that time back?
And so we've built tools to address each of those things to try to move that
(06:58):
overall 35% number to 40, 45, 50, you know, and somewhere above.
And so if you walk through a technician's day, time suck, number one,
we talked on briefly in our evolution here.
Anything to do with diagnosing the unit and finding information,
looking up a manual, wiring diagram, tech specs, service bulletin, error code, right?
All these things could take 15 to 30 minutes per tech, per job, per day, per instance.
(07:22):
And so scale that across the entire industry. When guys are pulling in and scrolling
down forums, trying to dive into a Facebook group to find this,
we've solved that issue single-handedly.
And so in five seconds or less, you can pop open the Blum mobile app.
App, there's 450,000 unique model families now in the mobile app and growing,
which equates to about 20 million pieces of equipment.
(07:43):
If you do the sub models under the model families, 5 million parts and about
100 million cross references. And we'll get to that data point in a second.
But so now imagine instead of digging around in the manual, looking for,
or sorry, digging around in the unit, looking for a manual, two clicks or less,
it's right in front of your face in the blue on mobile apps.
So that can solve this initial time suck that we're calling it.
(08:04):
And then we extended this.
Okay, so what happens next? What is the second biggest time suck relative to a service tech stay?
Anything related to tech support, right? So as you mentioned,
your ability to call your guy at the supplier who knew his stuff,
right? Not all folks have that ability.
And so oftentimes what happens, you call an OEM and you're on hold for hours
(08:25):
or sometimes days, which is funny to think that when they call back the next
day that you'd still be sitting in front of the unit as if you're supposed to
sleep there waiting for them to call you back.
But tech support in general has not been very well, I would say,
facilitated within the industry.
And so what happens is a lot of folks try to take on an internal tech support burden, right?
So you have your service manager or your highest trained service tech,
(08:48):
instead of him being out in the field doing jobs, he becomes the anchor for internal support.
And so when the younger guy now calls that guy and takes him offline for tech
support, now I have two revenue generating instances that are now cost burdens, right?
So it's a never-ending cycle of...
Double negatives from, from an economic sense. And so what we've done is built
(09:10):
a best in class third-party tech support mechanism that imagine it's like service manager on demand.
He's there when you, but you don't have to have him internally and he doesn't
get swamped and bogged down because we have a litany of guys from,
you know, your one ton resin unit to your thousand ton chillers that can answer
calls, you know, a couple minutes or less, uh, wait time and everywhere in between.
And so we really saw that waiting on hold on a job for tech support can be make
(09:35):
or break relative to that job being a profitable one or not from the contractor lens.
And so we built two tools to really solve this tech support issue and help scale
and help the service techs. And so tool number one initially was our live tech support.
So we had 30 plus best in class guys. We answered the phone 24 seven,
some, some days in the summers, it was six, 700 calls a day.
(09:58):
We became more or less tech support for the entire industry.
And so with that, we had recorded and and transcribed all of the calls that
we had taken, real-life calls in the field, over some 100,000 calls we had taken
over that period of time.
But the issue was exactly what you mentioned about your guy.
It's how do I scale the knowledge and information that that guy who had done
(10:19):
it for 20, 30 years, how do I get that out of his head and into some easy-to-access
thing to where it doesn't have to become a one-on-one conversation every time?
And so thankfully, this advent of AI and OpenAI and ChatGPT came along.
We were able to take that ecosystem, take all the library of calls that we had
facilitated, plug that data into our own large language model and create AI tech support.
(10:44):
And so now within the same blow on mobile app that I just mentioned is your first time saver,
you can ask faster mechanic as if you're talking to a real life service tech,
because the data it's pulling from is literally 100,000 questions that have
been asked and answered and solved real life in the field.
People think this part's kind of funny. When we first launched it internally,
(11:05):
you know, it would kind of cuss like a service tech.
It was a little, you know, politically incorrect sometimes because it was taking
the real conversations, right, that these guys had actually facilitated,
you know, over the years.
And so we dialed the, you know, the tenor and the temperature of the language,
you know, to dial some of that back.
But most important is that the ethos of that is still there.
So the more specific you ask it, the better.
(11:26):
It knows tech nomenclature. You know, you ask what a squirrel cage is,
it's going to tell you, right? right? It's apt to all that.
But most important, it's meant
to be the first line of defense for tech support within this ecosystem.
And so the ability to just have somewhere where they can go and confirm,
right? About half the tech support calls we were taking, the guy was on the right track.
He generally knew where to look or what he was working on, but he just wanted
(11:48):
a little confirmation, right?
And so to have something I can just quickly check and text into real-time for
confirmation is super important.
The AI is conversational. So if I say, hey, Joe, I need to to check up,
you know, how do I see if a compressor is broken?
It's going to give me eight options, you know, from electrical down.
And then you can dive into those and say, okay, I realized it's X,
right? And it will continue the conversation with you.
(12:10):
It's talk to text also, as you can just hit the button and talk into it.
It's linguistic. So in case you guys have, you know, Spanish speaking service
folks or any other language, you know, it can go any language on the data side,
which is super powerful.
But the net net here is we think that this can take about, you know,
70, 75 ish of of all basic tech support Q&A can be handled on the master mechanic
(12:30):
front, which is just an amazing thought to think about, you know, within the industry.
And it's a living thing. So as more questions gets asked, as more real calls
get serviced, the whole thing continues to grow and continue to scale.
So we're super excited about the AI function and feature of this.
And this will continue to be a super good part of what we've built here.
But in the instance, let's say that 25% I mentioned where you still need real
(12:52):
live human tech support, we have that as well.
So again, right from the mobile app, you hit the call live support button,
and you're going to get one of my 20, 30 year veteran guys in the field who
knows exactly what the heck they're talking about. out.
Two important data points on this tech support platform. You call from the unit
you're working on, which is a big time saver for both sides.
(13:12):
Number one, it routes the call to the expert. So my two-ton resi guy is not
going to answer the thousand-ton chiller call and vice versa.
And secondarily, when the guy calls in, you can see on the screen here, this is what my guy sees.
So Jim Smith, ABC Heating and Air, he's in Irvine, California. It's 72 degrees.
He's calling on about this unit. He's got this many years of experience.
So within 30 seconds, we're on the same page of who he is, where he works,
(13:36):
what the weather is, what he's working on.
And you don't have that 15 minutes of trying to read model numbers and explain
to the person on the other end of the phone, what the heck's going on.
In the instance, you need to see
something. There's a live video function within the text board as well.
So you can see on the screen there, and it's a real screenshot of us using it
all within the mobile app. So you just click video and it flips over. It's low latency.
(13:56):
So it works over a cellular. You don't need wifi. It can be be in an attic, you can be in a basement.
But now my tech support guy can just visually see and say, nope,
point to the green wire on the left, nope, move the wrench to the right.
And we can speed up that whole process as well.
Last important data point here on the tech support side is our tech support
for live support, it's issue-based, not call-based.
(14:17):
And so if you call, that opens a ticket for an issue. The issue stays open until it's resolved.
So we take the bet on our side that our guys are fast and efficient.
We're going to get you guys off fast.
If not, obviously, we're going to eat the economics of that because it takes
us all day. That's not a winning business proposition.
But the point is, it's not a nickel and dime kind of service offering.
(14:39):
If the guy has to call back two or three times, there's an easy way to do that
right from in the mobile app.
And in the issue itself, think of it like a chat function. You can text, you can send pictures.
And so the communication stays there and easy to replicate, even if the issue
isn't resolved yet. So we think this is a pretty nifty platform that we built.
We built this whole entire platform from scratch to focus really on the efficiencies
(15:02):
of getting tech support and servicing tech support.
Because if it's efficient on one side and not on the other, it doesn't really work for anyone there.
So the tech support function is really the second time suck solver, as we mentioned here.
And then, as you mentioned at the beginning, there's three things we're built
to help solve increased technician efficiency. efficiency.
Number three here is.
(15:24):
The time delay of interacting with the distributor to get replacement parts and materials.
And so historically what's happened in the industry is that you figure out or
a tech figures out, we need to replace a condenser motor.
Then the problem begins, right? Because you got to call Joe,
you got to explain to him what it is. You got to read the part number.
You got to then say, Joe, Joe then has to go to work and say,
(15:45):
Oh, I have it. I don't. He's got to look up cross reference and get back to you and call you back.
But then he got busy and people were in the store, right? It's that age old
problem of it's just inefficient on both sides.
And so what we've done here on the going for business, big evolution is we've
taken this amazing database and cross reference tool that we originally built
for the distributors and moved it over to the contractor.
(16:07):
And so when I pop this up here in a second, you'll see for the first time,
the contractor has access to OEM, OEM partner, cross reference parts and their part numbers.
And so now the contractor can make business decisions based on this data and
information without having to first go to talk to Joe at the counter to get this data information.
(16:27):
So the ability to speed up this
entire ecosystem here is really what we're talking about in a nutshell.
So I'm going to pop these tools, both of them open in real time here.
And we'll just walk through them so you guys can get a visual.
Let me go ahead and just get a word in on that part there alone.
I remember when I was a technician and I was trying to get a special order part
(16:52):
for a brand I did not sell.
I think it was for a York or something like that. And it was like,
you got to wait five weeks for this inducer motor because we don't have it.
We have to replenish the manufacturer. I'm like, oh, my goodness.
I'm sitting there trying. I'm at the phone with them for hours.
I was, like you said, it must've been three hours trying to figure the source on this thing.
(17:12):
I asked him if there's any other way we could do this. Cause,
uh, people have no heat right now. And they're like, well, yeah, that's it.
Where I just don't have it right now. It's just out of stock and we're going
to manufacture manufacturing more.
And I happened to go to, I remember I was at a Johnstone supply and I'm like,
uh, and I happened to see like the inducer motor, the one I had in one of my head.
I just, I had, I was sitting there looking at that inducer motor on my desk.
(17:33):
I put it in my truck. And so I've been looking at it for a long time,
for three hours, just looking at the motor, see if there's any way I could find this thing somewhere.
I'm at a Johnstone, and I remember I seen a part that looked just like it on
their shelf. And I'm like, let me see that thing.
They brought it over. It was the exact same part. It just was not the OEM.
It was a cross-reference part.
That was huge. That was a big discovery for me.
(17:55):
And now we had instantly heat for the customer. That was the thing.
So this is really, to me, this is the magic of the Blue Ad for Business service that you have.
Number one, the AI component is amazing. Two, the experienced people you have.
And then this element, just this alone, I think, would pay for the whole thing,
pay for itself in getting the right part at the right time to make the job more
(18:20):
efficient and get the client the service they're looking for.
Go ahead, Matt. I didn't mean to step too much into this. You're spot on,
right? Just the idea that a distributor would even.
Tell you five weeks right it's like your guy needs
it today or tomorrow right so that that's you
know not uh not palatable so to your point what
we've built helps really solve that and help scale it from the contractor
side so on the left of my screen here this is the blue
(18:42):
on mobile app and so we'll just walk through kind of the formats and
function of this and to be clear this is i'm actually in
the app so this is not you know like a demo or a test thing
here because it moves pretty fast relative to all the
data information here so this is the search tool we'll
walk through this example in a second the comms tool here this
is where i mentioned the tech support would be so if an open issue on tech support
it would just be like a text chat here we'd be communicating with our tech support
(19:05):
folks there's a forum so community interaction here guys post tech to tech here
which is pretty cool to just see communal interaction in the more function this
is where a lot of the tools are so the master mechanic the ai component right
here in the mobile app is mentioned,
tools and calculators as well super cool sub heat super heat calculators etc
all that are easy to fine.
(19:25):
But let's walk through a real life example. So let's say I'm a tech in the field,
and I'm working on this 116A.
As soon as I start typing numbers here, the litany of data information and models
that have that in there are going to start to show up.
But let's say it's this three and a half ton character.
And in two clicks here, as you mentioned, there's the manual.
(19:48):
It's all scrollable and zoomable, super user friendly.
But how many you know, tens of millions of hours have been wasted in HVAC history
looking for basic product data and information.
If I hit get support, that's going to pop open the real live tech support function
and the ability to call into one of my folks as mentioned.
And then we have all the parts for this piece of equipment right here and the specs.
(20:11):
So, I mean, how much time have you wasted looking to confirm and look up specs,
right? Relative to motor or other.
So, you'll see here, here's the OEM part number and it says part match has found 25 replacement parts.
So, So whoever now internally at the company is responsible for,
let's call it air traffic control, they have access to this desktop version, which...
(20:33):
I will pull up the same exact unit here in the same two clicks and the same condenser motor.
And you'll see 25 known replacements. So not only do I have,
again, OEM part number here, but the 25 applicable replacements and the relative replacement score.
Right. So in two clicks or less. Oh, I see the one that matches or, oh, GE.
(20:56):
Well, they have this one at local supply. So I'm just going to go there.
Or maybe it's a Mars universal one. And we carry that on the truck,
and it's a spec-based match. So we've got to see if there's any other tweaks
relative to installation there.
But point is, for the first time ever, the contractor now has access to this
data information on the front end, which is going to allow them to navigate
their business as far as speed to acquire these parts and materials way more faster and efficient.
(21:22):
Now, I will mention, Joe, one important part that's coming here is the ability
to acquire parts and materials as well.
We are integrating with some folks out in the field. And so there'll be a purchase
option coming as well in the Q2 timeframe, which is pretty exciting.
So you can imagine how that will just further the loop of a,
you know, an e-commerce type experience to just click buy, order and have delivered.
(21:43):
But for today's purposes and what's actually functionally live in the field,
this is the tool that the contractor will have on the Blumberg business side.
So last point I'll show here before I flip back over to the deck is this slide here,
the screen that's loading, is really the culmination of what we've built for
all of our tools and giving the contractor a dashboard view of the time savings
(22:08):
and increasing the technician efficiency of each of these things.
And so HVAC is a funny world, right, where everyone knows the bookings,
right, how much revenue you do, but no one's really looking at opportunity costs, right?
How much more efficient or more profitable could a job have been if XYZ thing
happened or didn't happen?
And so through the use of our tools, we're quantifying these things and saying,
(22:31):
hey, the app got used XYZ times, AI questions got used XYZ times,
our tech support got used, the search tool, etc.
All these instances gather into hours and hours and hours per tech per week
or per month relative to time savings. And so this admin dashboard is kind of
a first of its kind within the industry to really see and quantify opportunity costs.
(22:52):
And also, it's going to allow you to see, hey, I got some guys that are using
the heck out of this thing and some guys that aren't, but they do the same job.
Why is Joe not leaning into just using the app to find the manual?
Why is Joe still looking around in the model or in the physical unit for 10
minutes before he uses the app, right?
It's going to create a lot of proactive behavior relative to using these tools.
(23:13):
So we're excited to launch this dashboard as well because it's really going
to give the contractor this unique air traffic control ability to measure overall
technician efficiency.
That is amazing. I mean, what a great time it is to be a service manager in
this world, having all these tools.
These are all the things that literally took every single frustration in the
(23:36):
service management and service technician point of view and created a solution.
People must have like a warm feeling of comfort when they see this information.
This is amazing. Amazing.
It's super cool. And what's awesome about it, you know, Joe,
is that because we've been in the industry now for some time.
The technicians, it's like Bluon has been the secret weapon kind of in the pocket behind the scenes.
(24:00):
And so now what we're doing is closing the loop with the owner,
operator, service manager.
And when someone signs up for Bluon for business and we go to roll it out,
half of their staff has already tried it before, already likes it, already loves it.
You know, there's this internal validation that really no other software can say.
It's like, If something else new comes to the table and owner-operator goes
(24:20):
to force it down the lens of the tech, another thing I got to download,
another thing I got to do.
And it's like, we've already got the adoption at the technician level.
We've got over 170,000 techs now have come through the app, registered,
signed up, name, account, where they live, all that stuff. stuff.
And so it's kind of coming at it from a unique way. We already have the approval
(24:41):
and support from the boots on the ground.
Now we're just showing and quantifying the value to owner, operator,
service manager, et cetera, as you mentioned.
And so, yeah. So one good point, though, as far as that goes,
is a lot of folks ask, well, what's changing, right? It's like,
well, some of my techs already have the app, right?
So do I need to do this, for business and all that stuff? And so short answer is yes.
(25:01):
The app, the mobile app in its its current form is moving to a freemium model,
meaning the access will be limited to a lot of these tools unless you're a Blue
On for Business customer or subscriber.
And so that's the big data point here is if you're a contractor,
service manager, owner, operator,
you want to make sure you and your team are on Blue On for Business.
Otherwise, the usage and instances of these things that your techs are currently
(25:24):
using it for are going to become really, really limited downstream.
And so, okay, so we walked through all this, what it is, what it does,
the time savings component, And then everyone's favorite question on all of
this is what does it cost, right?
So is it your firstborn child? Is it second mortgage on your home?
What big sticker price are we going to put on all this?
And the short answer is it's none of those things.
(25:45):
We price this to be relatively inexpensive, almost a rounding error.
It's on a per bucket basis. So depending on size of shop, right,
you can see the monthly prices there.
But let's say you're a 20 tech infrastructure and it's 600 bucks a month.
So, you know, 20 into 600, 30 bucks a month per tech ecosystem.
(26:07):
And so $30 per month,
do the billable hours math on your own company, that's 15 minutes of time.
If I save 15 minutes of time per month, that's that $30 billable efficiency gain or thereabouts.
And so that's really bad. It's like from our estimates and averages,
it's going to save anywhere from one to five hours per tech per week.
(26:29):
And so if I can save 15 minutes per month and you'd be at a break even relative
to the cost here, then it's all upside from there.
And so we wanted to price this this to be very cost effective,
very affordable, and most of all, prove it, right?
It's like the dashboard, the use case, the instances are going to prove this.
We don't sell a big expensive thing all up front that you have to commit to
(26:50):
some long period of time and then hope it's valuable. It's like,
sign up today, roll it out.
For folks in your ecosystem, you know, Joe, we're happy to do a one month free
trial on the software side, just to get everyone in the game and up to speed
and see it, like it, love it before you commit to anything, you know, downstream,
which is important Horde does because it's like if it doesn't work for you,
we're not here to like lock people into software just to lock people in.
(27:13):
It's like we'd much rather you see it, you like it, you love it,
and then commit to us downstream.
But the point is, we felt this was a very cost effective offering relative to
the benefits and the values that we provide.
To me, it's a no brainer. It's like if you took a service manager,
and here's the biggest thing I see here too, Matt.
(27:35):
That it's you know the service manager's job the primary
job to me is to train service
technicians proactively uh but most
of the time they spend is on the functions
what blue lines is doing so so they're spending time being the support desk
finding manuals trying to cross reference parts all the things that blue line
(27:57):
is doing so here you got a guy making 80 000 a year uh doing this work where
he could be proactively training the team.
Another element of efficiency.
The service manager doing their job now, which is to train the team proactively,
will eliminate a lot of the support questions and things like that,
(28:18):
but they don't ever have time to get to it, right?
So Blueline handles this element while they're able to be the proactive element
now and be an actual manager where they can, instead of just talking to machines
and finding cross-reference parts,
they can actually manage the people and have that relationship with their own
techs and talk about the things that the human side of it, it,
which is really why a real service manager today would be needed.
(28:41):
Because if this can be handled by AI, experts in the field, cross-referencing
the parts and all that kind of stuff,
I mean, all the service managers who are watching this right now have to have
like a shoulder rub feeling right now they're getting.
Because it's like, wow, if I didn't have to do all this stuff,
(29:04):
I could literally manage manage the team, and help my people with the skills
they need, the human skills, the soft skills,
those kind of things that they could take on that they're currently wasting
the time on this kind of thing where it's already done.
And if you look at it for $30 a month, and I'm sure the AI can handle 90% of
it, but when you get into a tough one, you pay that $40 extra for that support call.
(29:26):
And that support call, $40, you make that one incident,
it stays with the whole incident, no matter how many times it takes
to uh handle that same problem uh
with that same customer that's going to be you're going to stick with it i mean
that literally you know because i think about when i mentioned the jeff barnes
thing i eventually had to stop with jeff because his boss said you kind of stop
(29:49):
taking joe grossera's phone calls because because you got a job here to do too you can't just.
Can't just be mentoring Joe, right? So he was told to stop helping me.
That's all the end of that story.
Although we still remain good friends. The bottom line is that you found me on that.
It was like the supplier realized they couldn't scale that kind of help.
(30:10):
And I had nobody to go to who really had this kind of information.
Matt, this is so well done. I mean, serious, if I could give Blue on the Blue
Ribbon Award for things that people must have in today's environment,
I would definitely award you guys that blue ribbon for things for HVAC service companies, for sure.
Whether it's commercial or residential, I can't believe that you guys are also
(30:32):
doing the commercial, too, and things like that. That's amazing.
Well done, Matt. I appreciate that. And a couple more instances or a couple
more points that you just mentioned. So, yeah, it's not just residential.
So it scales commercial up the ladder. We're working with a lot of commercial
folks, a lot of large commercial folks as well. Well, most importantly,
the way we've structured everything is that it has to work for the user and
(30:55):
it has to work for the owner operator to get it rolled out.
So this is not like a multi-month training and onboarding and in one 30-minute
meeting with service manager and the service techs, everybody gets linked and
they're off to the races.
Our internal team handles the onboarding, handles training videos and little
nudges about how to use certain tools and whatnot. not.
(31:15):
But the point is in literally in a day, like starting from zero,
if we have technician name, phone number, we can get the entire ecosystem up
and running in a day. It's that simple and seamless.
And the tools are intuitive. Once they use it for one instance in their day
and their workflow, well, then the idea of it is cut and paste,
right? There's no downstream nuance to either that or the search tool.
(31:36):
So it had to be built in a fashion where it can't sound great on on paper and
then take six months to roll out and be super burdensome to management or operations.
So it's super simple, super easy to do as far as getting everything up to speed and up and running.
Well, definitely, you know, I'm a boomer. And so I had it at a seminar.
I had probably 60 people in a room.
(31:58):
And somebody brought it to me. I was like, I'm going to put it to the test in front of everybody.
So we had 60 people. I'm like, well, let's go ahead and try it out.
And I'm going to look at this thing. Okay, I got to do this.
So even I, as a boomer, worked through it.
So if I can work through it, any of the younger guys could. And I worked on
it. I did it live. I said, let's do a live support situation.
(32:19):
Instantly connected to somebody. I asked them a question. It would be a common
question about a TXV or whatever type of a thing.
He gave me the exact answers I needed. He gave me advice on what to do.
In front of the whole group, I had it in a group there.
And I tell you what, definitely blew on past with flying cars.
And, you know, actually, you have one of my clients, Logan Marshall,
(32:39):
who took on the service and now works with Bluon.
And that's what that's really got me even closer to you guys.
And definitely it's an honor to have an association with you.
And I can see a time at our seminars.
We're just going to use Bluon and make sure that everybody has this tool because
it's a super simple way to get that support you need.
And definitely I think it's I think you're changing the lives of people.
(33:04):
Another element that I want people to understand, the other standpoint,
service techs, not only is it more efficient from the work and money process,
but this is time that you would be able to spend with your family at night and
with your children and the things that you love doing and you're passionate about doing.
So you're not having to, maybe it would take you from work until 6,
(33:24):
6.37 every night only to 5, 5.30 or whatever, right?
And this is time that you could spend with your family. I mean,
that's why I think I want everybody to know how I really believe this is making
a positive difference in the life of everybody in the service industry.
We've got Joe to that exact point. I can't.
Hundreds of stories of our tech support over time doing exactly that.
(33:47):
Hey, I really appreciate that you guys took my call at 530 on a Friday to get
me on and off this job to get home and with my family for dinner because our
guys are here. here, our guys were those guys, right?
So they all have that same lens and purview and been in that situation when
there was no one call, right?
So for us to provide that service from a human to human perspective and get
(34:09):
that real feedback that, you know, Bluon's here and Bluon's got your back,
that's what makes the whole thing work here. So I appreciate you noting that data point.
Yeah, that's why I think it's, you know, we got to figure out to make sure people
understand the the positive splash that's gonna happen,
because of the technology information at your fingertips, how it gives you more
(34:31):
time and gives you more life, right?
Because nobody ever got an award for fixing more SJC problems.
When you're on your deathbed, you're not going to think about,
man, I'm glad I solved that TXV problem.
You're going to say, man, I'm glad I had that more time with my daughter and
my son and things like that.
Those are the things that that's what BlueEye kind of brings to the marketplace
is helping technicians have more time for the real part of their life.
(34:56):
I think that's the unintended consequence, which I think is really amazing.
So, thank you, Matt, for bringing this solution to us and letting us help promote it as well.
By the way, I don't get anything out of this at all. I want everybody to know
this is not a paid infomercial.
This is just something I really believe in, and there's no endorsement fees or anything like that.
If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't have Matt here. And I believe not just
(35:20):
in Matt, but also the other people who are in that organization that are just
at the heart of service, and that's really the number one thing.
Matt, how do you find great people like that? that? What do you do to find great
people like that? It's tough, man.
It's tough. But there's, so what we realized is the guy that's been doing it
(35:40):
25, 30 years in a normal contractor business,
he kind of goes for the value curve, right? So he's expensive.
He can't get on roofs anymore, right? There's that whole kind of like,
some of them get sent out to pasture in a relative sense.
And so what we found is those same guys to be able to work with us,
(36:01):
they get to work from the comfort of your own home. Your day is problem solving all day.
You know, you get on the phone and you deescalate, you train,
you teach, and they genuinely get a thrill out of helping and problem solving.
And so it's just a reorientation of, you know, they have the skill set to do
all those things, but having them in a third party tech support network,
it's like a two part rejuvenation.
(36:23):
I can't tell you the, some of the, you know, the older guys that we brought
on who are now younger, right?
It's like, they look younger, they feel younger, the energy's back, the vitality's back.
And it's all just because of our tech support team and our ethos and how we
go about, you know, handling that side of it. So. Yeah.
Well, Matt, thanks so much for that. Thanks for changing the lives of so many
people, both the tech support people who now have a useful purpose,
(36:45):
the service, young service techs out there who would just be unguided.
I can't imagine the chaos.
Definitely everybody who has an HVAC business or if you're seeking to go into
an HVAC business, this would be one of the first calls I would make would be
to Blue On to make sure that we could download.
Do you just download the app and sign up for it? How does it work there,
(37:07):
Matt? Yeah. So on the Blue On for Business side, you can just go to blueon.com.
There's a whole self-service workflow depending on what size of shop you are.
If you're a smaller shop, you can just sign up and check out right there from the website.
And as a function of that, you'll download the app. It'll link to your online
account and all that fun stuff.
It's like, think of it as signing up for a cell phone plan.
You go to AT&T, you sign up for the plan, and then you get your device and off
(37:30):
you go. If you're a larger shop, so call it enterprise level 20 and above,
then there's a functional reach out.
And we do like a whole white glove onboarding and pitch and presentation service
that's mostly handled by me and my team on the sales side.
So it really depends on what size shop you are, how that workflow gets handled,
but all of it goes through the website.
One point that I want to echo that you mentioned that was super important for
(37:54):
the smaller guys, even the one man guy to call it, you know, 10 and under.
It's like you can gain having a service manager for that thousand bucks a month.
Your point on if you're a bigger shop and you have a service manager who can't
do what he should be doing, you can now add a service manager for a thousand bucks a month.
(38:14):
Right. So it's a cool way to think about the deltas and differences on costs relative to scale.
Smaller shop, you might not be able to afford that $80,000, $100,000 guy until
you get to that relative scale.
But if you're a four-man shop for $200 a month to roll out the blue on for business
ecosystem, you're going to get that equivocal sense of having access to that person.
(38:35):
So it's just a cool way to think about the industry at large,
how to scale it, and most importantly, how to make everyone faster and more
efficient, which is happier lives, happier customers. Everyone wins in that equation.
Matt, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you.
And definitely, Service MVP will give 100% effort behind it to support this notion.
(38:58):
And anybody you want to send to me, say, we'll just talk to Joe Crisara.
I'll close the deal for you because I think it's such a... Seriously,
people should be selling themselves on this. I don't have to sell anything.
It's already there. It makes sense. So thank you so much, Matt.
I really appreciate that.
Awesome, Joe. Appreciate you, man. man. Enjoy your weekend and look forward
to more conversations with you here. Thank you. Talk soon.
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