Leveraging technology to grow with Innovative Air Solutions’ Ashla Taylor

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As a company, we always want to be on the cutting edge of technology and that’s something we wholeheartedly stick to. 

Ashla Taylor is the CSR & Marketing Manager at Innovative Air Solutions (IAS) in Orange, TX. She’s a forward-thinking, hard-working leader who’s not afraid to binge-watch a Netflix show every once in a while.

We talked to her about her role, the specific ways that IAS leverages technology to grow, and what’s working for them.

How did you end up at Innovative Air Solutions (IAS)? 

I graduated with a marketing degree in 2019 and was the GM at a boutique for 6 years. I was ready for a new opportunity where I could work closer to home, so I made it my mission to go somewhere where I could grow professionally and help a local company grow. I love small businesses and saw that IAS posted a job. 

I met Robert and Mindy Currie, and they offered me a position, and I took it. I started as a dispatcher, and now I’m the CSR and Marketing manager, and working up toward higher roles.  

Where is IAS at as a company? 

Robert, our owner, started it 15 years ago after Hurricane Ike. We have 21 employees, hit our first million two years ago, and had a record-breaking year last year. We’re 60% residential, 30% commercial, and 10% industrial — where we are, industrial is huge. 

I understand you guys are very tech-driven. Can you tell me about that? 

Yeah, we have a handful of software systems we use — ServiceTitan, Chiirp, and XOi. We use ServiceTitan for most of the day-to-day; we heavily rely on it to remind us to call maintenance agreement customers to get them scheduled. And when techs are in the field, they pull up an XOi workflow and hit on all of its points to ensure a job is thorough.  

What are some of those workflows? 

One of my favorites is the customer recap workflow, which is a form you can attach to any call and it basically gives a recap of why we were there, what we did, and any next steps with photos and videos included. Everything integrates and it gets sent to customers so they can easily view it. 

We also like to use truck stock lists. Techs use their iPads and fill out the list themselves, and our warehouse coordinator can see the completed forms to know which techs have/don’t have certain items. 

What’s something recent you’ve done that’s worked for you guys? 

Utilizing Chiirp is newer to us; we used to do email campaigns but open rates weren’t that good, so we do text campaigns and get good responses. You have to be super intentional with text messages — one of my favorite drip campaigns we’ve done is for New Years.  

We started with a text that wished our customers a Happy New Year and to stay tuned for exciting facts about their system. Then 3 days later, we followed up with an educational text on why system maintenance is important. 4 days after that, we sent a third one offering a discount if they signed up for an annual membership. The campaign is going to the end of January, but we’ve already had some conversions.   

What other ways are you using technology, outside of the day-to-day systems? 

We use ChatGPT a lot for training. If I’m explaining how to give a proper estimate to a CSR, we’ll ask it, “Write me a professional description of what a duct cleaning entails,” and then clean it up — it gives us a good base to start with. 

Scripting, too. If we keep getting a certain pricing question, I’ll say, “How should I professionally answer this question when it comes to pricing around X.” We’ve also used it to generate welcome letters for new customers, referral messages, and prospecting messages to new businesses. Something that would normally take 2 hours, you can now do right away and just edit from there.  

Why do you think using technology is important? 

It’s such a better customer experience when you can email someone something instead of sending a piece of paper that gets thrown away. We’re noticing our customer demographic is getting younger — I get calls from my friends who are first-time homebuyers needing AC help. 

And we’re in the world of Amazon Prime where things take 1-2 days; we like the “at your fingertips” convenience factor. As a company, we always want to be on the cutting edge of technology and that’s something we wholeheartedly stick to. 

Any challenges with all of that? 

On the training side, yes. Internally, we have a mixed-age group, and a lot of people here aren’t used to the vast changes going on now. So we’re trying to get everyone educated and on board to understand why we should use this stuff. 

We have weekly department meetings where we work with individual groups to figure out problems and then train on them until we master them. For example, installers don’t enjoy having to work with technology because they’re thinking more about the job they’re on, so we work with them one-on-one to help them understand the importance of photo/video evidence on jobs. 

What do you like to do, personally? 

I’m a mom now; my little boy will be 2 in April. I enjoy having a family very much. I like to spend the weekends hanging with friends and doing family sports things. And if not that, I like to relax and do puzzles. When the show Outer Banks is out, I’ll binge-watch it. I did such a deep rabbit hole on the OBX cast — where they’re from, where scenes were shot, etc. I want to make a trip to NC. 

If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be? 

Audrey Hepburn. She was always poised, stylish, and so classy. 

Anything else you want to say? 

One of the things that makes us unique is the way we use social media — we have 4.5k Facebook followers. It’s a very good place for us to find new talent and spread messages. Our service manager had a training with our techs and made them play a customer wearing a Christmas apron. I used the pics to post and said, “Who wore it best?” People went crazy over it.  

And then if you’re new to an industry — doesn’t have to be HVAC — just find people who are leaders and are innovative, and pick their brains and get some insight from them. It never hurts to try. Our boss said, “If we want to grow, we have to get out of our comfort zone.” I used to walk into a room and not know how to speak to others or start up a conversation, and now I'd consider myself very confident when I speak in front of a crowd.