Article: Rilla/ Ridge Top Exteriors

Link: https://www.rilla.com/testimonials/ridge-top-exteriors

Ridge Top Exteriors, based in Madison, Wisconsin, has provided exceptional exterior home improvement services to homeowners since 2002. Their highest priority is exceeding their clients’ expectations, and Ridge Top’s sales leaders needed insights into in-home visits to better enable their sales team for greater success.

The challenges

“One of the main pain points we experienced before working with Rilla was that we didn’t have visibility on the ground and in the home when we met with the homeowners, our potential customers,” said Director of Operations Beau Crawley.

If a sales manager wasn’t on a ridealong, they only had a small glimpse of the interaction based on a conversation with the sales rep. They weren’t always sure whether the rep hit key points in the sales pitch, and they couldn't gauge the potential customer’s reaction.

“We knew we needed to control what was going on at the kitchen table more,” said Larry Gebhart, president of Ridge Top Exteriors. “Some reps were doing an outstanding job, but some weren’t performing as well. We wanted to improve the consistency of all the reps.”

Rilla provides a virtual ridealong

It’s impossible for leadership to join every visit, and using Rilla meant they didn’t have to.

“It’s phenomenal being able to hear a recording of what’s happening,” said Brian Lanier, sales manager. “Before, if I wanted to understand how a salesperson was interacting with a homeowner, I had to be there. Now I can listen to it and then sit down with the salesperson and discuss what could have been done differently.”

To continue scaling efficiently and enter new markets, Ridge Top Exteriors wanted to standardize their sales operating procedure, too. Beau said, “Rilla has helped us recognize the sales steps we want to focus on.”

The results

As part of a complete improvement program to the sales process, Rilla has helped Ridge Top Exteriors increase their closing percentages by 5–10% in the first few months of 2024 compared to previous years.

“It’s a force multiplier. I can listen to every appointment,” Brian said. He also relies on condensed versions and AI to quickly reach the heart of conversations. “If I’ve got 10 reps out there running three leads a day, that’s 30 individual appointments that now I can get an overview of. There’s no way I could run 30 leads in a week. It’s physically impossible.”

Rilla offers visibility into talk ratio and patience, two metrics that would be otherwise impossible to track. They’ve also incorporated Rilla into the beginning of a rep's journey, streamlining the onboarding and training process. With greater visibility into underperforming sales appointments, leadership can be more proactive in the training process.

“Our sales managers are much more involved with their team,” Larry noted. “They can understand the good things sales reps are doing. They can understand there’s room for improvement. We can take one sales rep’s recording and use it to train another sales rep.”

Through their “Clip of the Week” program, they’ve gamified the process and are rewarding positive behavior.

“It’s been fun, positive, upbeat,” Beau said. “Some sales professionals are highlighting clips for their sales managers as part of the process, which is great.”

If Ridge Top Exteriors hits their goal of closing 1,500 more leads in 2024, Rilla will have helped them gain about $15 million in additional sales.