Data drives many decisions these days, from traffic flow to ads on social media to fitness trackers to smart meters on the side of a home.

But does it extend to the office? How many HVAC businesses are data-driven?

Creating a data-driven culture means investing in software to collect data, then using data insights to make decisions on a daily basis. It means training employees and leaders on how to use the data — and treating data as an asset for everyone in the company to share.

Elliot Palmer, chief technology officer at Eco Plumbers, Electricians, and HVAC Technicians in Ohio, leads one of those businesses that’s using data to guide the company’s growth. For a trade business, the journey to a data culture, he said, has four important steps: automation, visual scoreboards, asking questions, and integrating deeply.

Data-Driven Leaders

Building a data culture only matters if the leadership team in place believes and values it. Speaking at a recent ServiceTitan session, Palmer emphasized that while it might take time to find the right technology leaders at the company, knowing what the company is working toward is a good place to start.

Eco Plumbers started in 2007, and until 2022, it was a plumbing and sewer company. Over the past four years, Eco has seen over 4x organic growth, from $12 million to $50+ million, and is on track for its goal of $100,000,000 and servicing 70% of Ohio by 2025. Getting the company to where it is today was a process, and data was a cornerstone in its growth.

Aaron Gaynor, CEO and founder of Eco Plumbers, had a vision for a $100 million plumbing company that used regularly-updated data for more visibility to what was happening in this business, and he pitched it to Palmer before he even worked at Eco. Palmer put together a plan of what could be done in three, six, nine months to get the company up and running and get data flowing through the system.

He built a prototype of a report that could be updated every five minutes — nothing fancy, he said — that proved they could actually make Gaynor’s goals happen. Palmer presented the report, and they were off and running.

Today, Eco uses an automated data architecture that pulls data out of multiple systems at once, then puts it into a central place where for reporting across multiple domains of the business.

“We’re also able to build integrations between systems that don’t exist,” Palmer said.

With that data architecture is the ability for near- and real-time reporting, meaning all the reports seen can be updated in 5 to 15 minutes to get a better view of what’s happening in the business right there and then. From there, the metrics can be placed on visual scoreboards (like televisions) throughout the office so the whole team can see it and take action.

Automation

The first step in this process (after a leadership team is in place, of course) is automation. Palmer began with automation because of the fact that many business owners might not have the architecture and infrastructure in place that makes it easy to get the data they need.

“What if everyone in your business knew whether you were winning or losing, and not at the end of the month, but maybe at the end of the day or every hour — could they make better decisions, act faster, and solve problems more quickly?” Palmer asked.

Having the right automation solves immediate pain points in a business such as slow updates, incorrect data, and tedious work.

“Our first step was not to recreate the reporting, but to just make it faster … I want to get through the change curve, I want to get buy-in from the team, not create more work for them,” Palmer said. “In the meantime, we're starting to learn the business, we’re starting to learn what data matters, what metrics matter, and that we're able to get it in the right place, at the right time, for the right actions.”

Digging a little deeper, Palmer discussed how to make this automation take place, citing the age-old question regarding technology and software: to buy or to build.

Some of aspects of buying automation Palmer highlighted are:

• Pre-built and (mostly) ready to go
• One size fits most
• Customization varies by vendor and likely costs
• Support from a team with experience (picking the right vendor matters)
• Vendor owns it and is fixing issues

Some aspects of building the automation are:

• More upfront cost
• Customizable to exactly your needs (as long as your team can deliver)
• May take more time to get full capabilities
• You own it and are fixing issues

Visual Scoreboards

One a company has all that technology in place, what are they to do with it?

At Eco, the first step was to get it up on the wall so it was visible and transparent.

“Most walls at [Eco] have TVs up on the wall with reports on them that update pretty much every few minutes,” Palmer said. “What this allows is that everyone can see the wins and losses, it's very difficult to hide, and you can make excuses for why you didn’t perform, but you can’t say you didn’t know.”

In the best-case scenario, these visual scoreboards provide small triggers to do something about that.

“Every time I walk in our front door, I see our sales numbers up on the board, I see who the top salesperson is, and I have a really good gauge on is this a good day or a bad day?” Palmer said. “Having a scoreboard drives accountability. People can’t hide from the information, and they’ll know whether they are winning and losing, and that they need to do something.”

Be Curious, Ask Questions

Another important step in the process is encouraging people to be curious and ask questions — especially those on the team who might not be from the trades or understand everything about the business.

“We just have to be curious as an organization, and certainly anyone on the team responsible for data reporting needs to be curious about what is actually happening in the business and how they can help,” Palmer said.

But it’s not enough to just ask the question; it’s important to go see it in action, too, Palmer said.

“Whether that's a ridealong with a technician or sitting side by side with a dispatcher, it's so critical to sit beside them and say, ‘Why do we do that that way?’ or ‘Have you tried it this way?’ … because they'll probably tell you they’ve already thought of it,” Palmer said.

Once problems are discovered, they can be discussed and solved. Palmer suggests moving quickly from there, taking any ideas or solutions back to the team to get their feedback.

Integrate Deeply

The fourth part of this process is probably the most important, Palmer said — the ability to integrate the data deeply into every facet of the business.

“Data needs to have a place at the table,” Palmer said, recommending that scoreboards, scorecards, monthly views, and annual plannings are all included in daily huddles.

When communicating with the team, it’s important to make sure they understand what type of data is before them, and that they can trust that the data is reliable.

Additional ways to integrate data include sending a daily email with performance metrics and ensuring that every team member has access to more detailed reports for their roles. Of course, people are far more motivated to look at things like their performance and KPIs and engage with data and scoreboards when it’s tied to rewards and recognition — a key point to deep integration.

At Eco, almost every team has some metric that drives their performance and compensation. And each one of them can access their metrics through the reporting available to them and understand their performance, all in a timely matter.

“The whole system matters,” Palmer said. “Data is really only useful when you can integrate it into actions.”