In Part 2 of our interview, Netrocket founder Daniel Dramshev sits down again with Amber DeLong, Vice President and Co-Owner of DeLong & Sons HVAC. Amber opens her real Housecall Pro account and shows how their $1.8 million HVAC company runs calls, scheduling, estimates, payroll, lead sources, and review requests from one platform. Their estimates pipeline alone generated $27,674 in 30 days, and review automation has brought in more than 400 Google reviews.
In Part 1, Amber shared how the company grew from a side hustle to $1.8M, including marketing, branding, and pricing.
About the guest
| Name | Amber DeLong |
| Role | Vice President and Co-Owner, DeLong & Sons HVAC |
| Location | Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania |
| CRM | Housecall Pro since 2021, Housecall Pro SuperPro |
| Google reviews | More than 400 |
Why they chose Housecall Pro from day one
DeLong & Sons started with Housecall Pro when they opened in 2021. A former coworker of Amber’s husband, Justin, walked them through how he used it to run his plumbing business. They never used pen and paper. Over five years, Amber built workflows that cover everything from the phone ringing to closing out the job, and she built the company’s SOPs around them.
Today almost everything lives in one place: phones, scheduling, jobs and estimates, technician time, payroll, customer history, and equipment at each customer’s home. For pricing, they use the Profit Rhino price book integration. It’s updated quarterly, is based on national average labor times and part prices, and already includes the oil services they need. Amber says they tried to build their own price book four times and failed.
Housecall Pro Voice: calls tied to every customer
All calls go through Housecall Pro Voice. Every call is recorded and saved to the customer’s profile, so there’s no need to dig through a call log. If Amber and her mom are both on the phone, the CSR AI feature talks to the customer and collects details, and a missed-call text lets them know the team will call back. After hours, customers get a text that explains what to do in an emergency.
Amber has calls ring straight to her cell phone and her CSR’s cell phone. Her CSR’s calls are set up the same way. Amber doesn’t like answering through the browser dialer and can see why some people find it finicky. Other Housecall Pro Voice features she covers:
- A call tree you can record in your own voice, which stops spam and sounds more personal than an automated menu
- Business hours routing with an emergency option after hours
- An intake form that walks new employees through the right questions and saves the answers to the customer profile and the job
- Call masking, so technicians’ outgoing calls show the business number, not their personal one
- Tracking numbers, included depending on the plan, for billboards, direct mail, or Google Business Profile, so you can run reports by source
“The call masking feature is actually what sold us on the whole thing.“
Your business number stays yours: Housecall Pro has a team that ports it over. As far as Amber knows, calls from an outside phone system can’t be integrated, although you could upload exported recordings to a customer’s profile.
Lead sources and Google direct booking
Amber doesn’t use the lead pipeline at all, because she schedules everything as soon as it comes in. If someone calls because they saw the truck or found the company online, she books it as a job right away. Calls and texts from tracked lead sources, like the direct booking link on their Google Business Profile, come into Housecall Pro so she can see exactly what the customer booked and schedule it from there. Amber believes the lead pipeline makes more sense for companies with 10 or 20 lead sources.
Estimates pipeline: $27,674 in 30 days
The pipeline is a paid add-on, but Amber says it pays for itself. On her live account, the estimates pipeline generated $27,674 in the last 30 days. Estimates move from scheduled to in progress, completed, and sent. Then automations follow up with the customer by text and email for up to about two weeks.
Asked whose job follow-ups are, Amber’s answer is simple:
“It is Housecall Pro’s job.“
Justin builds and sends the estimates, and the automations built into the pipeline move them through the stages, even when a customer rejects one. Amber only does manual follow-ups when things get a little slow.
Marketing dashboard and lead tracking
As a Housecall Pro SuperPro, Amber beta tests new features. The new marketing dashboard shows which lead sources work best, as long as the team remembers to tag them, which Amber admits she needs to get better at. It also rates the health of your Google Business Profile, including reviews and how fast you reply. Amber has asked Housecall Pro to rate social media and websites too.
Accurate lead source tracking is what shows which channels actually bring booked jobs. Learn more about digital marketing consulting for HVAC companies.
Automated Google review requests
Housecall Pro sends every customer a review request automatically. Amber sends 100% of requests to Google, because that’s where customers say they found the company. The only downside is that customers without a Google account can’t leave a review. You can also split requests, for example 10% to Facebook or 5% to Yelp.
Their technicians have never been required to ask for reviews. The automation alone brought in 50 to 75 reviews in the first year, and the company now has more than 400. Amber says they compete with private equity-owned companies on total reviews strictly because of this automation. Of about 10 service calls the day before the interview, three customers had already left a review.
“If your company standards are high, your reviews will reflect that.“
Amber’s advice is to turn on the automation and make sure everyone follows your company standards. Want more reviews and better rankings in Google Maps? See how Netrocket handles Google Maps SEO.
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