Sloan Electric Saves 10+ Hours a Week With Podium

As a solo electrical contractor, Mark Sloan split his day between completing jobs in the field and handling customer calls, estimates, scheduling, invoicing, and lead follow up. Before Podium, every interruption meant stepping away from work and slowing down the business. Customer information, scheduling, and communication were spread across multiple tools, making it harder to stay organized and respond quickly.

Mark needed a simpler way to keep customer communication moving without putting down the tools every time the phone rang.

The Challenge

Before Podium, customer communication and business operations were spread across manual processes and multiple tools.

Customer responsiveness competed with billable work

As a one-person business, Mark had to balance field work with answering calls, responding to leads, and managing scheduling. Staying responsive often meant stopping what he was doing to handle customer requests.

“It's just about nearly impossible to be able to work, answer phone calls, answer emails, and still be profitable."

Estimating and admin work extended into evenings

Creating estimates and invoices often meant finishing field work, then spending additional time at the computer at the end of the day. Too often it would take more than 24 hours to send an estimate out to a potential customer.

“[Before Podium,] I’d have to say I'll get an estimate to you…give me a day or so, and I'll get back to you."

Information lived across too many places

Before Podium, scheduling, customer notes, invoices, and communication were spread across multiple tools and manual processes. Without a centralized system, staying organized and responding quickly required more time and effort.

“Before I was using one or two different programs and everything else was with pen and paper."

The Day-to-Day Impact of Podium for Sloan Electric:

The Solution

With Podium, Mark started using an AI Employee and connected his phone, scheduling, estimating, invoicing, and automated reviews into a single workflow.

Instead of stopping work to manage every customer interaction manually, customer conversations, scheduling, and business operations could continue while he stayed focused on completing jobs.

Faster customer response without interrupting work

The AI Employee helps ensure every lead gets a response, managing incoming calls and messages so customer conversations can start even when Mark is actively working.

“The AI Employee sends a preliminary message to every lead within one or two minutes and that’s huge. If you’re not the first one to respond, you’re not going to get the job.”

More time back each week

Once estimates, pricing, and invoicing moved into Podium, administrative work became significantly faster and reduced after-hours work so much that Mark gained at least 10 hours every week.

“Podium is definitely saving me a lot of time. I would say over the course of a week, I'm saving 10 hours.”

Estimates and invoicing completed faster

Using the price book and invoice workflows reduced manual effort and made it easier to turn around customer requests.

“I input every material I use into the price book and now I’m saving hours. I can send leads an estimate in 10 minutes now. 

Everything stays in one place

Call transcripts, schedules, invoices, and customer information are accessible in one system instead of spread across different tools.

“I think the biggest advantage that I have is that everything's in one place. I don't have to remember every single detail that I discuss in a phone call with a customer or in our text conversations because it's right there in Podium.”

Reviews happen automatically

Instead of remembering to ask customers to leave feedback or a testimonial, review requests now happen automatically after jobs are completed.

“Having review requests automated is a time saver. It's a stress off my plate that I don't have to worry about.”