About Indy Roof & Restoration

Indy Roof and Restoration is a trusted Indianapolis roofing and exterior renovation contractor, providing expert roof replacements and storm damage restoration with a focus on quality and customer care. This interview was with Indy’s Marketing Director, Nick Segar.

What problem were you looking to solve?

Nick was looking for a way to aggregate all of their leads into one place and then manage and nurture those leads over the long term more effectively. 

Multiple lead sources = cumbersome dashboard juggling and slow outreach

“With a multi-channel marketing strategy, our CSRs were managing multiple platforms independently. And with 30 plus leads each per day, this was manual and cumbersome without an integrated platform and some automation.”

Multiple outreach channels = even more cumbersome platform juggling

Indy also wanted to be able to communicate with their leads and contacts through multiple channels (email, SMS, and call). 

“Without an integrated platform it would require a text messaging platform, a Call Rail platform, and then a Mailchimp platform, all acting independently and not communicating with each other. So to get it all in one is a huge advantage to a small company that's trying to generate a lot of leads.”

“Getting everything consolidated into one platform is a huge advantage for a small company generating a lot of leads.”

What made you choose Hatch?

“There are a couple of reasons,” Nick says.

Other roofing companies had success with Hatch

“One was, a couple co workers of mine in different companies mentioned they used Hatch and found a lot of great success.”

Lead source integration = instant lead outreach

“Two, Hatch's direct integrations to a lot of the affiliate partners that I was familiar with was a nice advantage.”

AccuLynx integration = long term nurture

“The third one is that Hatch wasn’t just an email platform like Mailchimp, or just an SMS platform. It integrated directly into AccuLynx and expanded what we could do from a customer lifecycle and customer experience journey.

We could set appointment reminders, invoice reminders, a lot of other things outside of just speed to lead, just SMS, or just email.”

“Hatch's CRM integration allowed us to do even more from a customer lifecycle perspective, outside of just speed to lead." 

What campaigns are you running in Hatch?

For context, Hatch’s speed to lead campaigns are made possible through direct integration with your lead sources. Every campaign after that is made possible through Hatch’s direct integration with your CRM. In Indy Roof & Restoration’s case, their CRM is AccuLynx.

1. Speed to lead (to increase set rates)

“We do very well with the outreach and qualification from a speed to lead standpoint with all of our affiliate and marketing sources.”

These include Angi, Contractor Appointments, Google Ads, Meta, RoofingCalculator.com, Google LSA, Thumbtack, and their website contact form.

2. Pre-appointment nurturing (to reduce cancellations)

“We have a segment of leads that gets booked by our call center essentially through cold outreach. Those appointments have a higher cancellation rate so we’ve created a campaign that sends them messages in between the time they booked the appointment and the appointment itself, to educate them on their upcoming appointment and share details and social proof about us to build their confidence.”  

3. Estimate follow-up (to increase close rates)

“We had a gap where once our sales guys ran an estimate, they didn't talk to the homeowner for five or so days, so our follow-up campaign reaches out like a customer service rep, asking how the appointment went and if they have any questions.”

4. Rehash (to squeeze revenue out of aged leads)

“This one goes to people who raised their hand at one point in time but never booked an appointment, or who booked an appointment but who never became a full customer.”  

5. Invoicing reminders (to ensure payment)

“And then it just becomes iterative in nature. We found an obstacle within our company with invoice collection, so we have a Hatch campaign for invoice reminders.”

What does your AI agent do?

Hatch automation takes care of personalized outreach to the contacts in the above scenarios, which increases response rates without any added work. Then, when a contact responds to a campaign, Indy’s AI agent immediately engages with that contact to qualify them and answer any questions they have. That way, CSRs don’t have to be tethered to Hatch, and they are only interfacing with qualified, ready-to-schedule leads.

“So we've been able to train the bot and upload a lot of information about our business so that it acts as a friendly and knowledgeable customer service rep. And we’ve prompted the bot to do three things: 

1. Verify intent. Are you reaching out for a roof, gutters, siding, whole replacement? 
2. Qualify severity. What is the problem and how can we help? 
3. Assess urgency. How soon do you need us to come out?”

What results have you seen?

75% more appointments booked per month with 2 CSRs

“On average, we book about 400 appointments a month. Well in April we booked 700 appointments. That's a lot for one marketing person and two customer service reps to handle.

Hatch allows us to act as a bigger company than we are. We can manage several marketing channels and resources in an integrated and customer-centric way that we couldn’t otherwise do.” 

Ability to scale lead volume, not headcount

Without Hatch, managing the higher volume of leads due to the new mult-channel marketing strategy would require Nick to increase headcount. But with Hatch, he has not had to do that.

“We’ve been able to significantly scale lead volume year over year while remaining lean.”

Prequalification work handled by AI

By the time a lead reaches a CSR, all the CSR has to do is finalize the booking. The AI agent has already gathered all the information needed.

“And again, for two customer service reps, that also handle all inbound phone calls and office admin work, they still have the capacity to connect with online leads, book them, and make them feel like they are being taken care of, which is a huge win.”

Additional $100,000 per month in rehash

“We just booked a $20,000 deal from a lead that we already fully paid for, from our rehash campaign, which is something we never would have even explored without Hatch.

And in the past month we’ve booked about $100,000 from this rehash campaign alone. So our marketing cost as a percent of revenue has gone down because we're closing deals on leads we've already paid for.”

75% faster lead to prospect conversion

Acculynx has five lifecycle stages: Lead, Prospect, Approved, Completed, Invoiced.

“Before we used Hatch for sales follow-up, rehash, or nurture, our Lead-to-Prospect was 15-22 days. We’ve now gotten it below 5 days because our campaigns keep the customers engaged post appointment. 

25% faster prospect-to-approved conversion

“It’s similar with Prospect-to-Approved. That used to take somewhere around 40 plus days and we've gotten it below 30.

Just because we've been able to stay engaged with the customer and get them qualified not only from an intent standpoint, but also throughout all of our operational procedures we have to do to get them across the finish line.”

"It used to take 15-22 days to convert a lead into a prospect. Now it takes us less than 5 days."

Added perks

Better estimate appointments

All communication with a customer gets captured in one thread in Hatch, and sent over to AccuLynx. 

“For example, if I’m a sales rep, I can see from this contact’s communication in Hatch they mentioned having a really steep roof. So now I can tailor my estimate appointment by bringing this up and reassuring  them that we do steep roofs all the time.”

Tailored messaging

The key to keeping customers engaged post-estimate appointment is not just sending out messages. It’s sending out tailored messages.

“Because AccuLynx integrates directly with Hatch, we can dynamically insert personalized elements into our messaging, like when their appointment was, what service they were looking at, who they saw, and more.”

Better follow-up, and better tracked follow-up

Prior to Hatch, Indy sales reps were not diligently following up on estimates. If they were, it was only one or two calls. 

“A rep might make a quick phone call from their cell phone, which we can’t track in AccuLynx.” Now,  Hatch takes care of that follow-up, acting as a CSR, to bridge the gap before the sales rep does their own follow-up.”

And on that note, because all communication in Hatch shows up in AccuLynx, Nick says that “A sales rep can know who or what is talking to their customer post-inspection so they have the context they need for when they do make that call.” 

Lead source attribution and ROI

AccuLynx has several out-of-the-box attribution reports that you can customize, such as their Lead Source report and Last Touch report.

“With AccuLynx’s help, we’ve been able to get it down to a lead source and sub lead source attribution level. So I know the value of a Facebook lead compared to a Google Ads lead or website lead and so on." 

In addition to using those reports, Nick has worked with AccuLynx to create the following custom reports to better understand return on investment:

• Leadership scorecard
• Marketing scorecard
• Marketing cost as a percent of revenue

Full visibility into the customer journey

“With the Hatch and AccuLynx integration, it’s all in one ecosystem so from the first time we touch a customer through completion and invoice collection, there is everything I need to know: How long that journey is. Each stage gate. The starting value. The leading and lagging indicators throughout the entire process to help forecast the conversion and efficiency of it.”

"With Hatch and AccuLynx I have everything I need to optimize conversion across the entire customer journey.”

Smarter scaling with Hatch

By leveraging Hatch’s native integrations, campaign automation, and AI agents, Indy Roof & Restoration has been able to succeed with scaling their lead volume through a mult-channel strategy. They’re getting more out of not just their new leads, but also their recent estimates, aged leads, current customers, and more. 

In other words, they're driving revenue by increasing conversion across the entire customer journey, all of that made possible through more efficient backend processes that lead to a better customer experience—and a better employee experience too.