Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have the senior VP of innovation and Co-Founder of Housecall Pro, Roland Ligtenberg. Welcome.

Roland Ligtenberg: Hey, thanks. How are you, Lee?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well for folks who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about Housecall Pro? How are you serving folks?

Roland Ligtenberg: Sure. So Housecall Pro is a software designed and used by all kinds of different home service professionals that are doing residential work. So think HVAC, plumbers, electricians, power washers, garage doors, septic cleaning, you name it. Anyone that services someone’s home that provides a house call, uh, we are the software for them, so we help them.

Lee Kantor: Go ahead.

Roland Ligtenberg: I was gonna say we help them. Everything from scheduling, invoicing, payments, build their websites for them. We’ve got AI, we’ve got all kinds of fun stuff. But essentially, you know, we handle a lot of the back office and also some of the front, front of house stuff as well.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your back story? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Roland Ligtenberg: Uh, well, that’s a really long story. But, you know, we started this company about 12 years or so ago, and when we first started it, we were really looking for, um, a way to connect, uh, home service professionals with with homeowners. And what we found while we were building that as that, no one was building software for the trades. Um, definitely not mobile friendly. And so, uh, we launched Housecall Pro back in 2015. Uh, but we’d all previously worked together at a company called Qualcomm. And, uh, and that’s kind of where it grew from.

Lee Kantor: So it grew as kind of a SaaS, uh, technology, uh, solution for folks in this industry.

Roland Ligtenberg: That’s right. Yep. So it’s it’s software as a service, you know, it’s a it’s a monthly subscription. And, uh, you know, for us, we keep on developing and and releasing new features and new ways to help our pros either save time or, or make more money or both.

Lee Kantor: Now, was anybody in kind of the founding team, a tradesman?

Roland Ligtenberg: Uh, so one of my co-founders, his dad was a painter, uh, growing up, um, you know, his dad was. And then, you know, I had a painting business in college, but none of us were tradespeople. You know, we all came from that technology world, uh, which is kind of our profession. And, you know, specifically the mobile, mobile tech side of things, which is where, you know, most of our pros that are always out in the field, out and about. And so back in 2013, when we started the business, you know, that was maybe iPhone, I forget what version it was, maybe 6 or 5 even probably even less. Um, and that was when things were still relatively new and there was enough, you know, compute power and processing power to be able to deliver a solution like this where you can run the entire part of your business just from your back pocket. So that’s that’s how we came to market.

Lee Kantor: Now, was there any kind of initial hypothesis that you had about what they would need or want, and then you kind of learn differently after kind of putting it out there for the market to decide.

Roland Ligtenberg: Uh, you know, we just stayed really close with our customers in the early days. We would do, uh, lunch and learns with them every single Wednesday at Fuddruckers, and we’d invite them to come and they would show us, uh, the app they were using. And then they’d say, hey, I wish you could do X or Y. And we just started building it, uh, by just listening to our kind of our customers. But we knew that if we helped strengthen the relationship between their customer, which is the homeowner, and themselves, by providing just a more clean, efficient, transparent way to communicate, then that would be the the first step, the first kind of the thesis, if you will, uh, to allow them to run a better business.

Lee Kantor: Now, what kind of percentage of the people in trades are using kind of a technology solution like this as opposed to, you know, having a human being answer the phone and write things down, you know, kind of old school.

Roland Ligtenberg: Sure. So I’d still say a majority of the people that come to Housecall Pro are coming from what I call pen and paper, but it’s a little more advanced than pen and paper at this point in 2025. They might be using like Google Calendar with QuickBooks and maybe square or like, you know, like a MailChimp or.

Lee Kantor: So they just cobbled together kind of their own solution based on tools they’re comfortable with or familiar with.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah, exactly. And they’re not using something, which is what we were called, which is like a field service management solution or a CRM. And so, you know, most people are still coming from some sort of legacy system, but I will say that, you know, in the last ten years or so that we’ve been in the market, it’s changed dramatically, where in the beginning it was just everybody. There was just nothing. And now, you know, there are solutions out there. They’re still not all the pieces, but we try to make it so that we’re more than just a software piece. We have a full solution. So we have, you know, if you want a bookkeeper, we’ve got bookkeepers, we’ve got an accounting solution, we’ve got a payroll solution, we’ve got a call answering solution, both humans and AI, you know, we’ve got a lot more other things other than just, you know, the software in your pocket to help them run their businesses.

Lee Kantor: Now, are all those ancillary services stuff that’s all in-house of House Call Pro or is that something where you kind of have a partner network or you built a community around your core service?

Roland Ligtenberg: No, that’s all within House Call Pro. So it’s all in one place. You don’t have to connect things together, which is the the beauty of it. And I’d say in particular to for, uh, you know, franchises that use us and all those, those types of businesses, just having everything, uh, all in one place, uh, really helps streamline things rather than having to figure out how you connect things, and data is not going in the right place, etc. so all of that is in-house right at house called Pro, which is one of the value props that we offer.

Lee Kantor: So that was kind of a mindful point of differentiation that you said that everything’s going to be kind of in-house, and that way it’ll be less confusion and it’ll be more seamless.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah, I think our pros have always just told us, you know, it’d be nice if it was all in one place. But the ability to do that, you know, you have to become quite a big company to.

Lee Kantor: Right. Exactly. It’s a double edged sword.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah. To build all of the things. And so, you know, you really because we service, you know, 55 different trades. There’s different uh things that each trade needs. And so you really have to kind of really figure out across all what are the basic necessities and then customize each little thing a little better. Uh, a trade by trade basis. So, so it makes sense for HVAC. So it makes sense, you know for for cleaning company. So it makes sense for a pest control company for example. And so those are things we’re continually working on because you know there’s just so much opportunity here. Just even United States alone and Canada, which is what we serve now.

Lee Kantor: What what are kind of the main features that people like? The main benefits are they’re kind of a top 2 or 3 that people are like, okay, once this is, you know, the 80 over 20 rule, if we get this, then anything else is kind of a bonus.

Roland Ligtenberg: Every company is a little bit different why they come to us. But I’d say, you know, the core part of Housecall Pro is the customer relationship component, which allows you to schedule, invoice and accept payments. And it’s really keeping track of all the people out in the field, making sure that the jobs and things that they do are going well, making sure that you’re able to monetize them and collect your payments. And then at the end of the day, pay your guys. So, uh, that full loop is, is the primary, uh, set of usage that Housecall Pro has. That’s where we started, you know, and being able to do it from both the mobile and the web is another big differentiator. A lot of people say they do mobile, they have a mobile solution, but it’s kind of an afterthought tacked on. When we started the business, we were mobile, mobile only. So that’s the difference. And the reality is, is if it’s hard for the folks out in the field to to use the app, they’re not going to add the notes, they’re not going to add the tags, they’re not going to do the things they need to do. If you make it easy for them, then becomes just kind of second nature, just like any other tool they have in their in their tool bag. So that’s the real differentiator. Is that kind of that mobile first approach really that ease of use. Everything’s got a design that’s very familiar. And so the training, even for people that are coming from something like pen and paper or some other system, there’s not a lot of need to, you know, all right, we’re gonna spend a couple months learning how to do this thing, you know, and they can get up and running the same day.

Lee Kantor: And then it works for, uh, you know, kind of one man bands as well as, like you said, franchises.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah. So we, we service, uh, even before it’s a one man band. You know, we service folks that are doing work on the side, you know, that or have other jobs and just looking to get in the trades or, you know, they’re working for someone else, you know, and so it can start even before their, their own official company and then all the way up to, you know, really big franchises, um, you know, in the US that everyone would recognize. And so for us, we really try to focus in that, that 0 to $10 million a year business range. That’s kind of our bread and butter right there. And so for each trade it’s a little bit different in terms of employee size. But that that represents probably 95% of the US home services market. And so those are the folks that we really try to serve. And and previously we’re underserved. You know, from a software perspective.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that group kind of one of the last bastions of mom and pop individual, just small, uh, players that haven’t been gobbled up by maybe private equity or these larger entities.

Roland Ligtenberg: Uh, I would say that some are already participating, you know, within that band on the private equity side. But I would say in general, the, the people that we try to serve, you know, are family owned and operated and that kind of stuff. And so I think that, you know, when when you’re out there and you’re shopping for software, there’s some other software out there that’s more like Salesforce and very enterprisey and very expensive and hard to maintain and clunky, and you can configure the heck out of it. But, you know, you.

Lee Kantor: You gotta hire a consultant to configure it for you.

Roland Ligtenberg: That’s right, that’s right. And then and then us, which is just like, you know, you can self serve. We’ve got an onboarding team that can help you do it. If you’re somewhat savvy you can do it. It’s whatever you know you kind of need. But I would say, you know, our primary user is, you know, someone that probably, maybe even has a husband and wife team, uh, with another family member, son or daughter working for them, and then a couple of technicians under them and a couple of, you know, trucks on the road. And those are the ones you actually want in your personal home. You know, I would not want a Benjamin Franklin in my home or, you know, I wouldn’t want, you know, a Roto-Rooter or something like that where they don’t really have a connection to the community. I want someone in in my community that sponsors my kid’s little league, uh, whose name and face I can shake hands with that I know will do a good job, uh, and will come back, you know, in case anything is wrong. That’s who I really want to have come. And those are our customers.

Lee Kantor: So that was kind of your avatar when you started. And then obviously, over time, it evolved into some of these larger entities.

Roland Ligtenberg: That’s right. Yeah. And so the larger entities, if you think about it, they’re still small entities. There’s just more of them. So it’s not as if it’s like this, you know, $100 million private equity owned, you know, massive, you know, plumbing company, you know, in the area. Um, but uh, but franchise typically are still smaller locations that are sub $10 million. So it really is kind of those community fail, um, types of shops that, that use Housecall Pro.

Lee Kantor: So early on, you mentioned AI, how how does AI kind of work in your system? And, uh, you know, I know it’s a hot button issue for some folks. I mean, I think that this area is probably an area where it’s not as hot button issue. But can you share a little bit about your take on AI and how you use it, and how your folks and your users can use it?

Roland Ligtenberg: Sure. It’s funny that you mentioned that as hot button for us. It’s really not. It’s, you know, Home Services is very well insulated and complimentary with AI because AI is really good at taking jobs like your job and my job, which is sitting jobs. Right. But not very good at taking standing jobs where you have to crawl.

Lee Kantor: Exactly. They haven’t figured that. I haven’t seen Elon Musk work on that robot that goes underneath in the crawl space yet.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah, I saw that. I saw that robot Optimus Prime or whatever his name doing kung fu. But I still think going from kung fu to crawling and crawl spaces and all that kind of stuff and not breaking stuff is going to be a whole different level. So I think, you know, by and large, people will want to welcome other people into their homes to help them troubleshoot. And, you know, they’re all unique things. So I think on our side, uh, the our AI strategy has been around what kind of team members can we enable for our customers, our pros, so that they can focus on doing what they do best, which is the work in the field. And so we have a slew of different team members you can add, but one of our most popular ones is our CSR AI, which answers the phone. A lot of times our small businesses, you know, they they want to be able to not have to worry about the phone after 6 p.m., you know, or on the weekends, uh, or even during the day, because they might be in the crawl space with zero service. And they, you know, they don’t want to miss that call. And so our CSR, AI will handle the calls for them. It’ll book the calls for them. It’ll reschedule things, uh, if there’s existing customers, it has all the knowledge of the work that’s been done. So our CSR is one of our popular ones. But just to kind of give a flavor, you know, we have a coach AI that helps coach you with your business.

Roland Ligtenberg: We have an analyst that helps you with your numbers. So if you’re trying to figure out, oh, you know, how much commission do I have to pay Lee for the month of October here for all the water heaters he’s installed, you can ask a question in natural language versus having to be a CSV Excel junkie to try to pivot the tables to get to what you need. Um, you know, and from from there we have, you know, an accountant. Um, we also have all kinds of different, um, eyes more on the kind of the sales side and bookkeeping. So, uh, within Housecall Pro, you know, our, our AI team members allow our pros to, to really focus on what they really want to do versus things that they might have to be doing today, but they don’t want to be doing. Um, and so rather than having to hire a full time human, you know, you could either delay that for a little bit because you’ve got a great AI sidekick here instead of inside of pro, or you just maybe don’t need them anymore. And so then you can really focus on on building up, you know, and hiring technicians and training them, uh, rather than having to figure out how to run an office staff or, you know, bring an accountant in-house. You know, those are all things that maybe might not be needed in the future.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you tell your folks about, uh, these customer service reps that are virtual. Is that something? They’re like, oh my God, where’s this been all my life? Or are they like, I don’t know about this. Like what’s kind of the like take the temperature of the room when you’re offering something like that.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah. I think there’s a couple different, uh, I’ll call them maybe like cohorts or baskets. There’s those that just adopt it right away because they’re already using AI. They’re already using ChatGPT. They’re doing whatever, you know, um, even in their personal lives. And so those ones are just no brainers and they’re like, oh my gosh, thank God this is here now. And and the value is, is, you know, there’s a lot of different answering AI things out there. But this is fully integrated into your Housecall Pro data that no other, you know, AI could, could access. And so it’s just a lot smarter. It has a lot more context. And if you know anything about AI. Ai is all about giving it the right context. Um, and then you have another group which maybe starts off a little slower. They might say like, hey, you know what? Maybe we can have the AI handle just after hours because I’m not answering those calls anyways. Those are going to waste. And everybody knows, you know, if someone’s out there calling, if someone doesn’t pick up, they’re not leaving a message. They’re probably going to the next one, the next one until someone picks up, you know. And so I still would say, uh, almost a majority of our pros, uh, are using, uh, one or more of our AI team members already in their business. And really, it’s been just about maybe like a year and a half or so since we first started releasing our AI team member. So the adoption has been really, really great. But I think it’s because, you know, people use Housecall Pro to help their business become more efficient. And if there’s more ways to make your business more efficient, why wouldn’t you do it right?

Lee Kantor: You’re open to that. You’re more open to it as if you as opposed to if you just kind of heard about heard about it on the internet or something.

Roland Ligtenberg: That’s right. And look, it’s already connected to all of your data. So there’s no setup. And that’s oftentimes the other barrier of entry where, you know, you have to train it and you have to give it to your SOPs and you have to spend time with it. You have to babysit it. And, you know, there’s just all this other overhead that normally comes with, you know, if you’re using third party AI tools. And so with Housecall Pro, it’s just all bundled in your in your account. You can click it on and it’s there. It’s just sitting in kind of the right rail side of your house called Pro Account. You can chat with it just like you chat with another team member. You just, you know, if you’re using slack or teams or other things, you do the At symbol and then you just hit up whichever team member you want, which is, you know, either human or AI.

Lee Kantor: Now when the human is calling in. So this works for like a phone call, like if somebody makes a phone call, uh, an AI can answer the phone and, and answer, I would imagine kind of basic questions.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah. I mean, it answers almost any question really. And that’s the beauty of it.

Lee Kantor: Well, it’s not fixing anything, right. Like it’s taking a message or it’s booking a scheduling a call or is it actually triaging? Hey, water is pouring into my basement, you know, what do I do?

Roland Ligtenberg: It’s it’s it. It will not. It’ll give very light advice. Um, because, you know, the the hard thing is, is that for a lot of home services, you may be like, there’s no heat or there’s water here. And so you know the symptom, but you don’t know the root. You don’t know what’s really happening, you know, as a homeowner. And that’s why you’re calling. And so, you know, Ray will be able to detect whether, hey, is this something I need to escalate is something we’re going to look into the future. You know, where the time slots do we have availability with the technicians, all of those things. So it’s handling all of the kind of the upfront triaging as you kind of put it, but it’s not actually going out and fixing anything itself.

Lee Kantor: Right. And it’s not giving advice to, oh, you see that red knob? Turn it to the left like it’s not.

Roland Ligtenberg: It’ll just give basic advice, maybe like shut off the water to your house. You know, anything else that you might expect, right. Uh, you know, and any one out of plumbing business that’s answering the phones to say, hey, Lee, go turn off the water at your house right now. Hold on. We’re gonna send someone out, you know?

Lee Kantor: And then then the pro gets to decide, hey, if it’s at this level, you know, put it through to me and I’ll talk, you know, I’ll get. Can they get on the actual line there or do they have to call him back?

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah. We’ve got different, different loops, different ways that that our pros want to configure it. Sometimes they want to get one of our humans a loop. So we have humans that can also answer the phone so we can triage to there if they want to have it patched directly to them. That can also happen if they’re not available to be patched, you know, or um, afforded to. Then it just goes to take a message or book a time in the future. So it’s just it’s however, you know, our pro wants to configure it. Think about, you know, if you were to hire someone just coming out of high school, what would you tell them to do? And that’s probably the level of intelligence that it’s at right now. So it’s it’s definitely good enough for this job.

Lee Kantor: That’s amazing. I mean, you guys are just really found an important need and really filled it elegantly. Congratulations on all the success.

Roland Ligtenberg: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, our mission is to champion our pros to success. So anything we can do to help them become successful will make us successful. And from there, everything else stems, you know, our product decisions. You know, how we build our team, uh, to better serve our pros. What kind of, you know, features and add ons they might need or want? Um, but, you know, with that as the basic mission, it helps, uh, orient the entire company to, to make sure we’re always serving our customers.

Lee Kantor: And that’s a great lesson for anybody listening right now when you have that clear, true north. Decisions aren’t that difficult. It’s either helping you get there or it’s not.

Roland Ligtenberg: And the beauty of it, too, is that if you’ve got employees that are new or might not know what to do in a certain situation because there is no process, you just have them reflect back on the mission. Is this championing our pro to success? Right? If it is, they’ve got the full autonomy to go do it. Um, they can always be, you know, uh, what’s the phrase? You know, ask for forgiveness, not for permission. Right? Um, if you know, if they’re following the mission, then that’s totally the right direction they should be doing.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, um, any advice for a pro out there that, uh, might be struggling in a day to day basis? Do you, like, share marketing, like, best practices? Because I would imagine some of your I mean, you must learn so much from all of your clients out there all around the country. Um, is there some do you give advice like that? Like sharing? Hey, this is working in Portland. This might work here in Wichita.

Roland Ligtenberg: Absolutely. I’m glad you I’m glad you mentioned that. So, uh, both our coach and analyst AI and our marketing AI can help our pros price better, for example. And they can let them know, hey, are they kind of under the curve, you know, or are they at the higher end of the curve? Uh, are they priced appropriately for any given line item? Uh, or our AI learns from successful marketing campaigns inside a house called Pro, you can send out, uh, email blasts, you know, to your homeowners, you can send out text blasts to your homeowners, uh, or campaigns, I should call them. And, um, those those you can generate and type yourself, or you can have our marketing AI help draft them. And so our marketing AI knows what converts really well for whatever given industry in a particular area. So your AI and this is what’s unique about Housecall Pro. It’s not just learning from your account and what you’re doing. It takes into account the 100 million jobs on our platform, with 50,000 pros all across the United States and what they’re doing. And so you kind of get this hive mind effect or this network effect, where you really get the best of the best and you have access to this knowledge independent of even being told it, because it all lives in the AI mind. So that’s what’s really unique, and I think helps a lot of these pros. And if they’re out there struggling, like am I pricing too high or pricing too low, they can just ask analysts or coach AI, hey, what do you think I should price this thing at? And it will, it will tell you where you are in that curve for that area, which is a really unique and interesting feature.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you? Do you need more pros? Do you need more, um, funding? Are you looking to go public? Like what is your what do you need more of?

Roland Ligtenberg: Uh, we just need more people to help. So if there are any pros out there, if you’re in the residential home services space and you need or you feel like you’re using something that maybe isn’t quite optimal, or you’re really looking to figure out, how do I implement AI into my business? Come check out a demo of Housecall Pro we have. You know, you can just go to the home page. You can always text me directly as well. My cell phones (858) 215-1512 and I can connect to one of our a couple thousand employees here that we have now to, to help you based upon what you’re looking for and housecall.

Lee Kantor: Com they can go online and find you and I’m sure in all the socials Housecall Pro is the way to get there.

Roland Ligtenberg: Yeah. You can just search us or you can search for for my name as well. I’m pretty easy to find and track down, but we’re here to help you. If you want to do a demo, we can do a demo. If you want to just set it up yourself, you can set up yourself. There’s a free trial, so, you know, if you feel like you’re tech savvy enough, you don’t need anybody to walk you through. You can get started today for free and just go play around with some stuff. So yeah, feel free to reach out to us or to myself if you feel like you know you’re looking at 2026 and thinking, what else can I do different here? How can I grow? On average, our pros will grow about 35% in the first year. And so that’s, you know, some growth that that happens because people uncover a lot of inefficiencies. Um, and they also uncover a lot of costs that maybe they might not need to have or the AI can help them with. And that’s what we’re here for.

Lee Kantor: And if you’re an emerging franchise or who is in the trades, this is definitely a group you should be connecting with. Housecall Pro Roland, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Roland Ligtenberg: Thank you, Lee, for having me on. This is a pleasure talking to you guys and best of luck to everyone else out there listening in.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.