AI for trades and home services companies. More jobs from the office you have.
AI can answer and book calls after hours, draft quotes from a technician's photos and notes, keep the dispatch board current and follow up on every open estimate. Modern Thesis helps owners of trades and home services companies put that to work alongside the field service software they already run, so the business grows without adding office headcount.
At a glance
- Who it's for: owners, presidents and COOs of trades and home services companies with $10M+ in annual revenue, including multi-location operators and roll-ups, usually with no CTO.
- What Modern Thesis does: AI strategy, change management, implementation and ongoing stewardship, from one team.
- How it starts: a strategic assessment that measures how the work moves today and ranks where AI pays first. See the assessment.
- Where: based in the Denver area, with an office at 11001 W 120th Ave, Ste 400, Broomfield, CO 80021. On site across the Denver metro and Colorado, and remote anywhere in the US.
- What it doesn't do: replace your field service software, sell you a phone system, or publish a rate card. Each engagement is priced to its scope after a first conversation.
Who is this page for?
This page is for the people who run a trades or home services company and are tired of watching work slip through the office. The phones ring off the hook in peak season and go quiet in the shoulder months. Estimates go out and never get a second call. Technicians finish the job and then spend evenings on paperwork. The owner is still the person who fixes the schedule when it breaks. If that sounds familiar, the useful question is which of those leaks costs the most, and whether AI can close it.
Where does AI help in the trades?
AI helps most where the office repeats the same work hundreds of times a week and where speed decides who wins the job. In home services, the company that answers first and quotes clearly usually books the work. That makes six areas worth measuring:
- Speed to lead and call answering: answer, qualify and book calls and web leads at any hour, and hand the hard ones to a person.
- Quotes and estimates: turn a technician's photos, measurements and notes into a clean, consistent quote with options.
- Dispatch and scheduling: suggest the right technician by skill, location and parts on the truck, and keep customers updated when the day changes.
- Follow-up and reviews: chase every unsold estimate on a schedule and ask happy customers for a review at the right moment.
- Membership renewals: remind members before their plan lapses and fill maintenance visits into slow weeks.
- Back-office paperwork: permits, warranty registrations, rebate forms, invoices and job notes.
Which trades does this cover?
The workflows differ by trade, so we wrote a page for each: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, exteriors (siding, windows and gutters), garage doors, insulation, restoration (water, fire and mold), landscaping, and multi-location operators and roll-ups. These pages explain how AI applies to each trade. They are not a claim that we specialize in it.
Do we have to replace our field service software?
No. Keep your ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or Jobber. Most home services companies have years of customer history, pricing and job records in that system, and the software vendors keep adding their own AI features. Modern Thesis builds around what you already run: we connect to it, read from it, and write back to it where the vendor allows. The goal is fewer screens and less retyping for your office, not another login.
What does Modern Thesis do for a home services company?
Modern Thesis covers four disciplines with one team. In strategy, Jim Coleman and the team map how calls, estimates, dispatch and paperwork move through your company today. In people, we train CSRs, dispatchers and technicians and line up the incentives so they use what gets built. In implementation, our AI specialists and Forward Deployed Engineers build the workflows and connect them to your phones, field service software and accounting. In stewardship, we stay to watch accuracy, adjust for the seasons and report the return against the baseline.
How does an engagement start?
Every engagement starts with a strategic assessment. We sit with the people who do the work, map how it moves through the company today, and measure a baseline on the workflows that matter most: answer rate, booking rate, time from call to quote, estimate close rate, and office hours per job. Then we rank the opportunities by return and define the first build. If AI won't pay for itself somewhere in your business, we'll tell you.
When is something else the better choice?
Sometimes you don't need an outside team, and we'd rather say so. If one answering service or one feature in your field service software solves the problem, buy it and train your team on it. If the main need is better emails and job descriptions, the ChatGPT or Copilot licenses you already pay for may be enough. Our comparison of Copilot or ChatGPT and an AI partner walks through the difference. An outside team earns its cost when the work crosses several systems and has to keep working through the busy season.
How Modern Thesis handles this
We put AI to work inside xFusion, the 70-person company Jim co-founded, and then for several of its clients. Jim built and sold local service companies before Modern Thesis, so we start from how the office and the trucks actually run. Ongoing stewardship has no set end date, and you own your data, accounts, code and documentation throughout.
Questions
What is the best first AI project for a home services company?
Usually the phones. Missed and abandoned calls are the most direct revenue leak in most home services companies, and they are easy to measure: call volume, answer rate, booking rate and after-hours share are already in your phone and field service systems. An assessment will confirm it for your company, and sometimes the first win is somewhere else, such as estimates that never get a follow-up.
Will AI replace our CSRs or dispatchers?
That isn't the goal, and we say so to your team early. In most shops the office is stretched thin in peak season and idle in the shoulder months. AI handles the overflow, the after-hours calls and the retyping, so your CSRs and dispatchers spend their time on the calls and decisions that need a person. Staff who see a plan for their role use the tools; staff who fear for their jobs don't.
We already pay for AI features in our field service software. Is that enough?
Use them. Built-in features are often the cheapest way to start, and if they cover what you need, that's the right answer. They tend to stop at the edge of their own system. When the work runs across your phones, your field service software, your accounting and your marketing, an outside team connects those pieces and measures the result.
Do you only work with large home services companies?
Modern Thesis works with companies with about $10M+ in annual revenue, which in the trades usually means several trucks, a real office team and an owner who still carries too much of the admin. Multi-location operators and roll-ups are a good fit too, because the same workflow can run across every branch.