Numbers Don't Lie: Real Results from Contractors Running Podium's AI

Who is Nicolina Brown, and what does she do at Podium?

Dylan Kurt: Welcome back to the Newsmakers podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Kurt. Today we've got a guest from Podium here to break down what home service businesses are actually seeing from AI, and what's making the biggest impact. So just to kick us off, could you introduce yourself?

Nicolina Brown: Hi, I'm Nicolina. I run product marketing for home services at Podium, which means my job is to stay really close to what our customers — HVAC owners, plumbers, electricians — are dealing with. I work with our product team and our marketing team, and I create the messaging and the story across all of our marketing channels and materials that will resonate with them. I love telling stories about our customers. They're some of the hardest-working people, and I think they've been underserved for a long time, so it's really fun to be part of making great technology to help them run their business.

Dylan: Last time we had Podium on this podcast, we talked about some big-picture stuff — how AI is inevitable for home services. Today, let's get a little more specific. When you're talking to these business owners, what's the first result that actually makes them believers?

Why are missed calls exhausting home service owners?

Nicolina: Good question. Honestly, when I talk to them, I can really hear how exhausted they are. I'll talk about one customer — her name is Amy. She owns Carlsbad Heating and Cooling in New Mexico. This is a quote from her: her husband, who's a technician, had two phones, and they just rang and rang all the time. He was like, "I'm going to throw one of them away. I'm so tired, I'm so exhausted." It made me realize how all-consuming running a business like an HVAC business is, because people have emergencies. They need help. Amy even said, "You can't run a business 24-7 — if you do that, it overruns your life." So I feel like really good technology for home services is a lifeline for these business owners, because they're exhausted and need something that takes things off their plate instead of adding more work to it. To me, it's all about relief. When they see that something that was consuming their life has gone away, that's the life-changing part of it.

Dylan: AI is everywhere now, and I think there are some believers and obviously some skeptics. If you run into customers who start skeptical and then start using the product, can you tell us what changes for them?

How does a skeptic become an AI believer?

Nicolina: Absolutely. We definitely talk to a lot of people who are still — rightfully — skeptical. A lot of business owners have been burned in the past. It's also just hard to rely on technology when you're used to doing things yourself, or when you've relied on technology before and it didn't work or wasn't reliable. So a lot of business owners have had that experience.

One that comes to mind: we have a customer called Warner Super Service. They're a plumbing and HVAC company in Washington. Danielle, the office manager, told me she actually had to convince the owner to even consider using AI, because he was very old school — he just didn't think they needed it. She printed out flyers and presentations just to say, "Would you please consider this?" because he's a little old school. But what actually happened is he ended up calling another contractor, just to talk to him, and it turned out they used Podium. So when the phone was answered, it wasn't a person — it was AI — but he thought it was a real person. They started talking before he realized it, and then he was like, "Wait a second, that was actually really good. This is better than I thought it would be." That was the unlock for him. They'd also been paying for an answering service, which was expensive, so turning on Podium's voice AI made a huge difference and ended up freeing up a ton of time. Danielle said it wasn't just operationally better — it actually grew the business, because it got us more jobs on the calendar.

Dylan: Let's talk numbers. I know a lot of business owners are hyper-focused on that. Is there anything — revenue, hours saved, response time — that surprises them when they see it for the first time?

What numbers actually convince owners AI is working?

Nicolina: Yes, time is definitely huge. A lot of these business owners don't realize how much time they're spending running a business every day. Another customer I'm thinking of — her name is Elizabeth. She owns Magnolia Plumbing Heating and Cooling. She was relying mostly on a combination of pen and paper, a physical whiteboard, and a spreadsheet, and she said it was just chaos every single day, always being pulled in different directions. Then she decided to go with Podium. Honestly, the biggest deal for her was that it used to take so long to close out a job — you'd have to go collect payment, build the invoice, mail it, and then they'd get a check back. They were a little behind. Now a tech is on the job, they have the invoice, they get the payment right there, and it's so much faster. They've collected way more through Podium, and she estimated she's getting about 60 hours of admin time back a month, which is huge for her. She just can't believe how much faster it is — no more whiteboard, no more doing things manually.

Dylan: You mentioned some old-school guys, and also pen-and-paper stuff. What happens when AI takes all of that over?

Nicolina: Honestly, I hope a lot more relief happens, especially for the people who want to build a membership program or have ongoing renewals or ongoing service. Most of the time they're like, "Well, we have a spreadsheet of people who've signed up, but we have to go and call all of them, and we've got to keep track, and we sometimes forget to do it." AI is going to completely change how that goes. With Podium, we built our own agent so it can text all of your customers and get them on the calendar. We had a customer who did that, and they booked hundreds of jobs within only a couple of weeks — and that used to be someone's full-time job. But it wasn't like, "Okay, we're taking his job." It was more like, "Wait, you can actually do a lot of other things, and you don't need to do so much manual work." So for me, it's about taking all those little manual tasks you were doing before and letting AI take over the pieces that aren't valuable for you to be doing.

Dylan: And that phrase, "take over" — I think that's caused a lot of anxiety among office workers and managers. Is there any truth to that? What would you say to an office manager who's worried this might replace their team?

Does AI replace your office team?

Nicolina: I think the fear totally makes sense — I've definitely heard that, because a lot of our customers' office staff are family members. It would be really hard to say, "Sorry, I need to let you go" to your family, your brother. Nobody really wants to have that conversation. But what I really hope is that AI takes on the monotonous, repetitive, ongoing tasks — the soul-crushing work that a person doesn't actually need or want to do. Let AI take the grind: confirming appointments, taking calls, answering the same question over and over. You already know the answer; let's automate it so AI can give that answer back again and again. To me, I hope it feels like the opposite of replacing your team — it's adding a new member to your team who's very reliable, who has all the information about your business, and is super helpful. I've even talked to a customer who hired someone after they turned on Podium, because she wanted this specific person to be a dispatcher, but that person works from home and has kids. Before Podium, that wouldn't have worked, because she would have needed her to come into the office. But now, because of Podium, she can bring on a more flexible employee — because Podium is so customizable, they can use it from anywhere. So it's actually changing how she's hiring, and it's giving her more flexibility and growing their business, which is really cool.

Dylan: I know Podium serves a lot of different business types — plumbers, electricians. Is the onboarding process, or the story behind bringing AI on, the same across different sectors of the industry, or is it different?

Does onboarding look different across HVAC, plumbing, electrical and garage doors?

Nicolina: Good question. I think there are a lot of similarities — they all struggle with missed calls. It's a little different for electrical shops, because seasonality doesn't affect them as much. That's probably more of an HVAC thing, and probably the same for plumbing, but they all deal with it. Electrical doesn't really deal with emergencies as much, but I'd say a lot of the job cycle is very similar — getting estimates, scheduling, getting jobs, moving through the process. We also recently added garage door companies, because they're very much in the emergency realm — you definitely need to get your garage door fixed if it breaks. But the way we think about it is that Podium isn't rigid. It's very adaptable to the type of business you run. You can change the AI — not just to your business, but it's also trained on those four industries — though there are obviously a ton of little nuances in each business. That's what we want to build: something that fits each individual business, so it's not them trying to shoehorn into what we've built, but it really feels like it's built for them. I hope that's what AI actually unlocks everywhere: "Hey, this is really custom and makes sense for what we do."

Dylan: We talked about skeptics, and I think some people are skeptical rightly so, because they've been burned by software before that over-promised, or that took six months to onboard everybody. How is this different, and how fast can somebody actually be up and running?

How is Podium's onboarding different from legacy software?

Nicolina: The skepticism is super valid — I hear that all the time. That's one of our bigger pushback points: "I don't know if I want to go through another system change again — it sounds stressful, last time it took six months." A lot of them are also still using a previous system because they couldn't cancel it. There are so many situations where the business owner just doesn't get the good end of the deal. But the customers who have gone through the process with Podium and switched over have told me that in the past, onboarding would take six months, and they wouldn't even have a dedicated person to help them and answer their questions. We had a customer recently tell me how much faster it went with Podium. Honestly, the reason it's faster is that we have dedicated people assigned to you, and we're — I'd use the word aggressive — we really care about you getting back on track with your business. Moving systems shouldn't be a months-long process. We want to go as fast as we can to make sure you're back to normal and up and running as soon as possible. We have a lot of processes that help with cleanup, especially when moving from past systems, where people come in and say, "I have all this data and it doesn't make sense anymore." We help you clean it up and get live. The months-long migration is outdated, and it's only going to keep getting faster — we've moved people over in days or weeks. We're really adamant that that's going to change in the industry.

Dylan: Earlier you mentioned getting a business to convert after they spoke with the AI agent. Does the opposite ever happen — what if a customer calls and the agent says something they don't like, or they feel it doesn't represent their business the way they want? What happens then?

What happens when the AI doesn't land right with a customer?

Nicolina: We still hear that a lot. I think this is us, as a society, getting used to AI being able to answer calls, and there's always going to be a little friction if someone hasn't heard it before — and it can be wrong, because no technology is perfect. But what we've found is that when the business owner is really involved in making sure the AI is customized to their business, it makes a big difference. Another example: we have a customer who looked through all the different voice options, because you can really make the AI sound however you want — name it, change tones and registers, a female or male voice, whatever you want. She said, "Why don't we make it my voice? They're used to talking to me." So she recorded things, and we made it her voice, which is really cool, because it sounds like a piece of her was in the voice AI. So the answer is: customize it, and make sure the AI sounds like you and your business. You can also add, if your customers would prefer it, that you tell them it's AI before the call — you can say, "Hi, I'm an AI assistant, I'm answering calls on behalf of this business." We've seen that actually helps ease customers; they're like, "Okay, I got it, AI is answering, but I know my request is going to go through."

Dylan: For a business owner or contractor listening right now who's on the fence about adopting this technology, what's something you'd tell them to go look at in their business this week?

What should a skeptical owner do this week, and how do they get started?

Nicolina: I always ask this question too whenever I interview our customers — I ask it at the end. I want to call out a couple of things they've said, because they're so powerful; I have my own opinions too, but I'll share theirs first. One person said, "You have to get on board — it's happening. The sooner you get on board, the better. You might be hesitant at first because it's unknown, but embrace it." He said once you get into the rhythm of it, it's just going to work and make your life a lot better. So really, my answer is: what pain point are you dealing with in your business right now, and if that went totally away and was able to be fixed, would that be worth going through a little bit of pain — migrating systems, setting something up, training your techs on something new? I think it would be worth it, because what's on the other side is, for me, just a better life. Making your business run better, and yes, unlocking more opportunities to grow — maybe you get to hire more, maybe you take on more jobs. All of those things are great too, but it's really more personal than that. It's about letting the owner really feel like Podium is actually helping them and making their life better, rather than it just being a tool they had to buy and use. This is their life — this is how they've chosen to support their life. Why not make technology work for them instead of against them?

Dylan: To wrap us up — let's say somebody wants to take the plunge. How do they get started?

Nicolina: You just talk to us — go to our website, homeservices.podium.com. You can learn a ton about what we offer and how we think about AI, and how adding AI employees is a huge unlock for your business. Then you can talk to someone on our team — our team is great, we really spend time learning about your business and how you run it, and make sure AI is set up to work for you, not the other way around. It's really about how you make it your own, and it's really cool to see how much our system has changed our customers' lives. That's the goal — that's what we hope for.

Dylan: Well, thank you so much for dropping by today, Nicolina. It was great learning a little more about what Podium has to offer.

Nicolina: Of course — thank you so much.