About Skyview

Skyview is a luxury outdoor living contractor based in southeast Michigan, specializing in PVC decks, louvered pergolas, four season sunrooms, glass roofs, motorized screens, and more. For this case study, we interviewed Trevor Calero, the company’s owner & CEO.

What problem were you looking to solve with Hatch?

Looking for human to human texting, but got so much more

We were transitioning our CRMs. We used to use a CRM called Job Nimbus. And then we've since migrated to ImproveIt360 and that process, ImproveIt360 doesn't have a very robust texting platform. And so our account rep at i360 recommended Hatch.

It's funny, like the solution that we were looking for, we just wanted like a human-to-human texting capability. And when we learned what you guys could do, it provides so much more than we expected. So it kind of reframed the problem we were trying to solve."

"Once we learned what Hatch can do, it reframed the problem we were trying to solve."

How are you using Hatch?

Targeted, automated outreach

Currently, Skyview has automated outreach sequences that trigger for:

• Speed to lead
• Appointment confirmations
• No-shows

This ensures every opportunity gets reached out to with best practices, without their call center rep having to do any work.

AI agents over SMS and email

When customers respond to the above automated outreach, their Hatch AI agents receive those responses and handle the initial stages of the conversation, gathering information and answering questions, so their call center rep can focus on high intent leads and more skillful conversations.

Voice AI agents

Skyview is also using Hatch Voice AI to handle incoming phone calls— during business hours when their call center rep unavailable, as well as after hours and on weekends when no one is available. 

Results

Scaling leads while staying lean

“We get 250-350 leads a week. The old-school way was to have this large, human call center team. But we currently have one person in our call center, and we’re trying to keep it that way. Hatch is helping us to manage that lead flow efficiently so we can stay lean even as we scale.”

Focusing on high value leads

“With Hatch helping us to manage that lead flow, our human call center rep Sam can focus on the more high-quality leads. For example, if a lead comes in that is below a certain home value, we let Hatch manage all of those interactions so Sam can focus her time on the more high-value leads.”

Saving time on the low-value (but essential) chatter

“Another example is appointment confirmations. Previously, when we sent out an automated appointment reminder, we still needed someone to manually monitor and reply to the responses that came in from that—like if someone needed to reschedule or had questions.  Now our AI agent handles that conversation completely, which is really nice. All those little things add up and they save hours in the day.”

Scheduling appointments over the weekend

“The other thing that's been huge for us is the ability to engage over the weekend. Most our advertising is on Facebook, so the majority of our leads come in on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as people are at home and on their couch.

“Before Hatch, somebody would fill out a form on a Saturday morning, and we'd send them an automated Mailchimp email and redirect them to our website scheduling tool. But if they ignored that, they wouldn't hear anything from us for a few days. Now with Hatch, we'll show up on Monday morning, and there are 15 scheduled appointments already there. It's really impressive.”

“Hatch is helping us to scale our lead volume and stay lean at the same time."

Let’s Zoom in closer on Voice AI: What made you try it?

Staying at the forefront of technology

“We've decided as a company that we want to be at the cutting edge of technology. With voice AI, we understand that there will be a lot of opportunities there, and also some potential headaches, but we’ve decided as a company we're okay stepping into that. So when Hatch Voice AI became available, we wanted to be one of the first companies to try that.”

What problem is Voice AI solving for you?

Calling trees don’t work for overflow

“Previously, we used a call tree in Dialpad so that if a call comes in when Sam is already on a call, that call will go to the next agent and ring for 20 seconds, and if they’re busy, it will go to the next agent, and so on. But people would just hang up and we'd lose visibility to that completely.”

People don’t leave voicemails anymore

“People just don’t seem to leave voicemails like they used to. So when people hung up we’d have no information on them to reach back out in a meaningful manner.”

Hatch Voice AI results

“So we said, let’s try Hatch Voice AI. Even if it's a little buggy to start, let’s just see how it goes. And the results have been really exciting.”

Shorter wait times

“We've now switched it so that calls go straight to Hatch if Sam’s busy. We've shortened the time frame they wait so we can get people to the bot quicker.”

No more missed leads

“We used to get 30-40 missed calls in a week. Most of those people would not leave a voicemail, and all we'd have is a phone number and we’d just kind of lose them. Now we're able to capture them and get their information.”

Not just “starting the conversation” - but actually booking 

“Initially, we thought maybe Hatch Voice AI would just act as a smart voicemail inbox, at least starting a conversation with folks and getting their info. It was kind of like that in the beginning. But now, as the Voice AI is sounding more human and with some scripting adjustments on our end, our Voice AI  Brenda is actually booking appointments.”

Note that the Voice AI agent is not actually booking the appointment in their CRM, but she is gathering the information and establishing a date and time, and then a human agent is finalizing the booking from there.

Higher engagement with some scripting changes

The scripting change Trevor mentions above was in the greeting. Skyview’s Voice AI agent now answers calls with “Hi there, my name’s Brenda. I'm a Skyview virtual assistant who can help you with product information, answer questions on pricing, and get you scheduled for an appointment. Who am I speaking with today?’

Once we made that change and admitted to folks that this is a bot, we sort of invited them to try it out. We've seen the number of people who engage with the bot increase.”

Reducing time spent on lead information capture

“There’s scripting in our Voice AI agent so that if somebody says, “I just want to speak to a human,” she will pass them off to a human, but she will first ask if she can get their name, address, and phone number. Which secures that lead for us and saves time for our call center rep.”

“We used to get 30-40 missed calls in a week. Now we’re answering those calls, getting their information, and even booking them.”

Favorite feature: Sophisticated AI

“I've been really, pleasantly, surprised with how sophisticated our SMS and Voice AI bot is.

Our average ticket price is high, so we have detailed scripting with our call center agent—about the quality of our manufacturers, our company pedigree, our five-star Google reviews, and the types of projects we’ve done locally—to build that value and give our sales reps the best chance at success. We also have detailed scripting on any objections we get for the ballpark pricing we provide.

It’s a very sophisticated conversation that I was skeptical the bot could handle. But we essentially copied and pasted our human scripts into the bot, did some tinkering, and it handles it like a champ. 

It's really impressive and encouraging. Every day we’ll share things like, ‘Do you see what Brenda did today?’ The whole team is talking about it."

“It’s a very sophisticated conversation that I was skeptical the bot could handle. But we copied and pasted our human scripts into the bot, did some tinkering, and it handles it like a champ.”

Bigger picture and looking ahead

Hatch AI has been a smashing success

“To sum it up, Hatch AI is helping us to more efficiently manage 300-500 leads a week. And whereas we were missing 35-40 calls a week prior to Hatch, we’re now booking appointments out of them. It’s been a smashing success.”

The new role of the call center rep

“As AI evolves, the role of the call center rep is going to shift dramatically. Sam in our office is becoming more of a technology quarterback, making sure all our systems are working and managing a workforce of AI bots. They are becoming our first line of defense so she can focus on the bigger picture.” 

Looking forward to outbound Voice AI

“And when you guys launch outbound, that’s going to be a game changer. We had 169 leads come in over the holiday weekend. Right now, Sam has to call all those people manually. But I can’t wait for the day when the bot can place those outbound calls on Monday morning. That’s the direction we’re moving toward.”

Adding in more campaigns

We're primarily using Hatch for speed to lead and inbound call answering right now. But we’ll be adding in estimate follow-up, appointment follow-up, and post-booking campaigns to gather images from the customer so the sales rep can be even more prepared. We’re also looking at adding in a Google reviews request campaign. There’s a lot we can do. It’s been really exciting.”

"Our Voice AI agent is really impressive and encouraging. We're always saying, ‘Did you see what Brenda did today?’ The whole team is talking about it."