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Let AI own estimate follow-ups and membership inquiries so CSRs spend time on higher-value calls

who Johnny Baker, COO of Leonard Splaine Co. (HVAC company in Virginia), in ACHR News

The problem

CSRs get buried in estimation follow-ups and membership questions, so unsold estimates go cold and office staff cannot focus on higher-value conversations.

What happened

Since going live with UpSmith, follow-up sales for unsold estimates increased by 25%. Treat that as company-reported. No tool-independent controlled study is cited.

Quoted in the source: Johnny Baker, COO, Leonard Splaine Co.. Source: ACHR News: Crawl, Walk, Run — How HVAC Contractors Are Successfully Adopting AI (Leonard Splaine Co.) (2026-04-06) · Added 2026-10-14.

How to set it up yourself

1. What they did: picked UpSmith after ACCA research and used AI first for estimate follow-ups and membership inquiries, not as a full CSR replacement.
2. Export or list open estimates older than [N] days with customer name, job type, quote total and last contact date (no payment card data).
3. Write a short follow-up sequence (day 3 / day 10 / day 21) in your voice: remind them of the proposal, ask one decision question, offer to revise scope.
4. Load that sequence into an HVAC AI or CRM follow-up tool that can text/email and hand off to a human when the customer replies with a change request.
5. Measure close rate on followed-up estimates for 30 days before you expand AI to after-hours phones.
6. DIY adaptation (not UpSmith): paste the open-estimate spreadsheet into Claude or ChatGPT weekly and generate the next touch for each row, then send from your CRM by hand.
7. To try it yourself: open ChatGPT or Claude, paste the prompt below, replace each {PLACEHOLDER} with your own details, and check the output before you use it with customers.

Copy-paste prompt

You write estimate follow-ups for {HVAC COMPANY}. Tone: plain, helpful, not pushy. For each open estimate row below, write one SMS under 320 characters and one 3-sentence email that: names the original scope in one phrase, asks if the customer wants to proceed / revise / pause, and offers a callback window. Do not invent discounts or new prices. Rows: {PASTE}

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