How Top Contractors Are Growing Sales with OnCall Air

The #1 Sales Bottleneck: Time

Before OnCall Air, every contractor on this panel described the same problem. They were slow. They were inconsistent. Some were on Word documents. Some were still on carbon-copy paper invoices. One of them admitted he was spending more time fighting page margins than actually talking to homeowners.

“It was the time frame, without a doubt. Once you get OnCall Air tuned up, it’s like a flat-rate price book for new equipment. Creating an estimate that’s professional and looks great — it takes 5 to 10 minutes at most. And they’re easily modifiable.” – Jake Angel — Angel Air Cooling & Heating, Queen Creek, AZ

For Chuck Warner, running 24 technicians meant the bottleneck wasn’t just speed — it was consistency. Every tech quoting a little differently. No centralized information. Proposals that could take days to put together and still come out wrong.

“We were able to take all the information from all the equipment, everything that needed to go into the install, and bundle it in one place. It was very easy for the techs to pull that up and get the customer the information faster. It probably cut days off of doing a proposal and getting that install completed.” – Chuck Warner — Joplin’s Air Conditioning & Heating, McKinney, TX

Speed by the numbers: 

Eddie Simmons made it plain the morning of the panel itself. A service tech was on a warranty call at 9:39 a.m. Eddie emailed a proposal on the spot. Seven minutes later, the homeowner clicked accept. Install scheduled for Thursday.

His standing rule for his team: “Time kills deals.”

Why OnCall Air Proposals Close More Jobs

Speed gets you in front of the customer. The proposal is what closes them.

Kyle Ricciardi has been in the trade for 20 years. He’s sold on carbon copy, over the phone, on a notepad, and on a handshake. His take on what actually changed his close rate wasn’t a script or a sales technique — it was what the homeowner sees.

“This is your third largest purchase in the home — after your house and your car. They’re about to spend this big chunk of change and they don’t even really see what they’re getting. A model number or a SEER rating on a sheet of paper — there’s no real connection. Being able to tap on it, scroll through it — we’re a nation of scrollers — OnCall Air definitely scratches that itch.” – Kyle Ricciardi — AC Authority, Port St. Lucie, FL

The result? Kyle’s customers leave 5-star reviews — and without knowing it, they’re describing OnCall Air features. Words like “confident in my decision” and “comfortable reviewing the product” keep showing up. The proposal earns the review.

Eddie’s approach to closing is just as direct. He doesn’t try to sell. He puts the proposal in front of the homeowner and stops talking.

“I get so many times, ‘Thank you for not selling me and letting me pick out what I needed for my home.’ OnCall Air allowed me to stop being a salesman. Put the solution in front of them. Let them buy it.” – Eddie Simmons — Bass Air Conditioning Company, North Carolina

How to Raise Average Ticket Size — Without Pressure

Bigger tickets don’t come from pushing harder. They come from giving homeowners more to say yes to. The contractors on this panel have built a system around that.

Lead with financing. Always.

Eddie doesn’t use the word “financing.” He calls them promos. He presents two options — a monthly payment or 12 months no interest — and asks which one fits the customer’s budget. By the time he’s done, the customer has chosen their own path. He doesn’t assume they need it or don’t need it. He just puts it out there and lets them decide.

Reality check: The average homeowner has less than $8,000 in their bank account (Source: Federal Reserve data summarized by Bankrate. A $15,000 system is impossible. $150 a month is not. If you’re not leading with financing, you’re leaving jobs on the table.

Use Autopilot to recommend add-ons on every job.

OnCall Air’s Autopilot feature lets you set rules — when you quote a specific brand, model, or equipment type, the system automatically recommends accessories: UV lights, air purifiers, surge protectors, thermostats, IAQ packages. It happens on every job, whether your tech remembers to bring it up or not.

Kyle’s current strategy: preload the full package with every recommended accessory, show the homeowner the best-case total, then let them remove items if they want to lower the price. Nobody likes to watch a price go up. Everybody likes to watch it go down.

“Always recommendations. Always. Make the customer remove them — and you’d be surprised how many keep them.” – Jake Angel — Angel Air Cooling & Heating

Add-on close rates: On average, 1 in 3 homeowners adds recommended items to their proposal. Top-performing contractors on OnCall Air close add-ons at 60–80%, says Patrick Ruhland, Head of Sales at OnCall Air.

Complex Jobs Don’t Have to Take All Day

Not every job is a straight equipment swap. Ductwork overhauls, multi-zone mini-splits, insulation installs — these jobs used to eat an hour or more of quoting time. FlexJobs changes that.

Kyle’s team has built out 10–12 FlexJob templates: ductwork packages in platinum, gold, silver, and bronze. Mini-split jobs tiered the same way. Each template is preloaded with every possible line item. In the field, the comfort advisor strips out what doesn’t apply and hits send.

“$20,000 ductwork packages — still 5 minutes. Multi-head mini-split project — still 5 minutes. Insulation jobs — still 5 minutes. It’s blazing fast.” – Kyle Ricciardi — AC Authority, Port St. Lucie, FL

Eddie handles some of the most complex jobs in North Carolina — multi-zone systems, refrigerant line reroutes, custom configurations. Before: 2–3 hours grinding through an estimate. Now: 15–20 minutes, sitting across from the homeowner, looking like he had it together from the start.

Train New Techs Faster. Manage Your Team From Anywhere.

OnCall Air doesn’t just make experienced reps faster. It makes new technicians capable before they’re ready to be on their own.

Jake described it plainly: a young tech in the field texts him with a question about a quote. Jake logs into the same proposal from wherever he is, reviews it live, asks a couple of questions, and the tech is back on track — without Jake ever leaving his location. Chuck has done the same thing from a beach on vacation.

That real-time visibility also changes how you manage performance. Kyle auto-sends his daily OnCall Air coaching report straight to his team’s Slack channel. Everyone sees the same numbers. 

One metric Kyle watches closely: proposal activity tracking. If a homeowner says they’ll think about it but has opened the proposal 42 times at 3 a.m., that’s a buyer. If they haven’t clicked once, that’s a different conversation. Knowing the difference changes how your team spends their follow-up time.

“My comfort advisor will reach out and say, ‘Did you get that proposal?’ And they say, ‘Oh yeah, I got it’ — but they’ve never opened it once. Then there’s the other one: ‘I’ll get around to it.’ They’ve opened it 42 times that week. They’re 3 AM scanning different options. It gives us clarity to position ourselves better.” – Kyle Ricciardi — AC Authority

Works With the Software You’re Already Running

OnCall Air plugs directly into the platforms contractors already use.

• ServiceTitan: Chuck’s team at Joplin’s has used OnCall Air alongside ServiceTitan for nearly six years — even after ServiceTitan launched its own proposal tool. He tried it. His verdict: “It paled in comparison. I’m still paying for OnCall Air because it’s that much better.” Item-to-item mapping integration is now live, so every line item in your OnCall Air proposal maps directly into ServiceTitan.

• Housecall Pro: Jake’s CSR pulls customer data from Housecall Pro directly into OnCall Air. By the time the tech reaches for their tablet on-site, the proposal is already prepped and waiting. No re-entry, no fat-fingered email addresses, no lost proposals.

• GoodLeap Financing: All four contractors use it. Eddie called it flat-out the best financing he’s ever used. GoodLeap approves down to 640 credit scores, pre-approval takes 4–5 minutes, and it outperformed every local bank and credit union Eddie had used previously. Jake added: “Their cost to contractor is real nice.”

You Can’t Grow What You Can’t Measure

Jake’s advice to any contractor trying to scale was direct: know your numbers before anything else. He learned it the hard way — years of growing the company without being profitable because he didn’t know his break-even point.

OnCall Air’s pricing tools let you set those parameters so your field team can’t accidentally undercut your margins. Set the floor. Let the platform enforce it. In slow season when the pressure to discount is real, those guardrails protect you.

Chuck uses OnCall Air’s data to track which brands his techs are quoting and which equipment homeowners are actually choosing — useful information when you’re managing multiple product lines and trying to keep inventory decisions sharp.

And then there’s Eddie’s number.

“The first time I used OnCall Air versus my handwritten estimates, it was an $87 difference. Doing it digital — they loved it. I looked at my VP of operations and smiled. I said, ‘Game changer.’ That’s back when I was doing a million-seven, two million a year. This year, I closed $5.2 million in sales.” – Eddie Simmons — Bass Air Conditioning Company, North Carolina

Eddie is currently ranked #1 on the SBE training platform — out of all salespeople on the platform — and his team is spread across the top 10. When asked what he’d tell a contractor who’s still on the fence, he didn’t overthink it:

“Scared decisions don’t make money. If you take the risk and let OnCall Air be the game changer, you’ll be successful. It has supported the lifestyle that I’ve come to enjoy, as well as my family.”