Savannah Smith & Ryan Eves: Technology is Reshaping Metal - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Ryan Eves and Savannah Smith of RoofSnap. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to MetalCast, the podcast where we're turning up the heat on all things metal roofing. On this show, we'll explore the world of metal roofing from its durability to design expert insights and more. Join us as we bang out the details on the toughest roofs in the game. Get ready to unleash the power of metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: My name's Karen Edwards, and today we are going to dive into the world of technology with our guests from RoofSnap. This is going to be a great conversation. Savannah, Ryan, welcome to Metalcast.

Ryan Eves: Thanks for having us.

Savannah Smith: Hey, thanks for having us.

Karen Edwards: All right, so let's get started. First of all, let's do some introductions. Savannah, why don't you go first and tell everyone who you are and what you do there at RoofSnap?

Savannah Smith: Sure. Hey everybody, my name's Savannah. I am a senior customer success manager and onboarding specialist at RoofSnap. I've been at RoofSnap for about four years and my job is really to meet with you, figure out what you need from the software, how your workflow works and then kind of guide you to using RoofSnap to facilitate that workflow and maybe even speed it up. Before I was at RoofSnap, I had a background in small business incubation. So I'm really passionate about helping small business owners grow their business and build their reputation and I really enjoy making sure that their day-to-day can be a little bit easier without sacrificing productivity.

Karen Edwards: Excellent, thank you. And Ryan, your turn.

Ryan Eves: Hi everyone. I'm Ryan, product lead at the RoofSnap team. So I oversee the design and development of things and help intersect it with the business and the customer needs. At the end of the day, I help figure out a roadmap a lot of the time. People are definitely going, what's coming out for our features and where we're going next. Really excited. I have a long history of working in this space and really looking at ways to use technology to simplify complex things, to empower teams, especially in the roofing space now, to grow in a lot easier efficient ways.

Karen Edwards: So for those who may not know, can you just give us a real quick overview of what RoofSnap is?

Ryan Eves: Yeah, RoofSnap is one of the fastest ways to get your measurements done and get it right out through estimates and help you win more jobs at the end of the day. We've been doing this for a really long time and we're now specializing and expanding our offering into metal of course, and gutters as well. Making sure that if you need a place to go to get a quick measurement or to land that job a lot faster, you can come to us and we can get you really fast accurate measurements that drive you right through that process as quickly as possible.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So you mentioned metal, right? And this is MetalCast, so that's what we're here to talk about. And I want to start off by just framing this a little bit. We've just seen explosive growth in the metal roofing industry and I'd like to hear from you guys why you think that is, what's fueling the growth?

Ryan Eves: Yeah, obviously one of the main drivers is, it's resilience. It's resilience in terms of durability, in terms of weather, but also its resilience in terms of the time it lasts. It can last two to three times longer. It can withstand better weather. But I'm over on the West Coast, I'm over in BC, Canada and we have a lot of people that care about sustainability as well. So I'd say that we don't have the extreme weathers that drive these changes of roofing, but as I see a lot of the new roofs go up and around my neighborhood, a lot of people are choosing metal today and also pairing that with solar technologies as well, that it does a really good job. All about reducing energy efficiency. So these are all these major drivers that we are seeing growing the space.

Karen Edwards: Expand a little bit on the sustainability because I'm not sure that a lot of people when they think of metal think of sustainability. So if you could expand on that just a little bit, I think that would be helpful.

Ryan Eves: Right up front, the materials. A lot of it is using recycled materials in terms of it. I think the nerdy thing that I'm kind of most interested about is just how it reduces heat to the house. Just general energy efficiency. You're not having to run as much of your cooling systems. These things can actually reduce heat coming into your house by up to 30%. Obviously a lot more people are feeling the need for that these days, even here in Vancouver it's gotten pretty hot lately. So we can definitely appreciate anything that can drop that overall temperature gain as well.

Karen Edwards: So I know that when measurement technologies first came out, the accuracy, it just keeps getting better and better. But in the early years there was always, oh, you might not want to use it for metal. Because being off an inch or two for an asphalt shingle not that big a deal, but being off an inch or two for metal, that's a huge deal. So maybe you can talk a little bit about the advances in technology that have given us this accuracy.

Ryan Eves: I could definitely talk about some of those things. Savannah, definitely would love to hear your thoughts on that as well.

Savannah Smith: Sure, yes. So you're exactly right, Karen, remote measurements do have their limitations just by the nature of being remote. So RoofSnap works within the industry standard of 97 to 99% accuracy. We partner with HD imagery providers to make sure that we're getting the most updated and highest definition imagery, but beyond that, we've made sure that we can get around any limitations from remote measurements including a revision process. So if you get your measurements back and you go on site and you see maybe we're an inch or two off on the eave length or maybe we got the pitch wrong, you can submit a free revision request to RoofSnap and our experts, specialized techs will go in and make those changes to your measurements for you and get them back to you in a really timely way so that you aren't delayed in getting your proposal out to your customer and you can be confident that when you place your order with your supplier that you're going to get what you need.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So tell me the impetus behind entering the metal space. How did that come about? What's the story there?

Savannah Smith: Great question. So this came about just like RoofSnap came about, from talking to contractors. So we have had inquiries over the years about supporting metal and we have been able to support metal through our estimation platform and through our document suite. So we wanted to kind of expand that and see how else we could use our existing features to get new data. And that's really what we did with our metal reports. We sat down and talked with people who are in the industry, found out what they need, found out how their workflows kind of get hung up, where those sticky points are and then worked with our team to try to build a product that would meet those needs in a timely way and in a way that they could rely on for consistency's sake and for speeding up their whole process. So we want to try to make sure that you don't have to send your crew onsite multiple times. We want to make sure that you're not walking the roof with a tape measure to measure each individual panel line.

Savannah Smith: So learning more about how that process goes, what the inspection process is like, what the sales process is like and then figuring out how RoofSnap can fill those gaps. And that's really exactly what we did and we've worked closely with contractors throughout the process getting their feedback and implementing that to make sure that what we're putting out is something that we can be proud of and something that will actually help the contractors that we support.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So I'm curious, what are the differences from the traditional measurement service versus this new metal? How does it different? What am I getting from that that I'm not getting from the traditional way?

Savannah Smith: Yeah, so another great question. So the main thing that our metal panel reports offer is the actual measurements for your cut panel lines. So we are going to give you a diagram that shows you the length of all of your panels, it gives you a panel count. We're going to give you of course your area, your pitch, all that good stuff. And then in addition to that we're going to give you some basic material measurements as well. So we're going to give you your edge metal, your ridge vents, all that kind of good stuff, all right there in your sketch report. But the main difference I would say would be the measurement diagram, including those actual panel lines. That's what requires that precision and that's what takes us a little bit extra time to make sure that we can produce for you.

Karen Edwards: Okay. And I'm curious, like you said it is delivered in a sketch report. How does a contractor, how are they able to use that in their sales presentation? Is that something that contractors have found is that homeowners appreciate and helps them close more sales, maybe?

Savannah Smith: That's exactly right. So it gives the homeowner confidence in what the contractors telling them. It gives them a concrete idea of exactly what they can expect from their process, what's the length of time that it's going to take to install and why. So really what we're doing here with RoofSnap is we're not just giving contractors tools so that they can do their portion of the job faster or giving them tools so that they can really help the homeowner make a good decision and feel confident in that decision. So that they can say, okay, yep, we see here's the number of panels that we need, here's where we've got this dormer in the front and that's going to take a little bit of extra time to make sure that that's coming together the way that it needs to. We really just want to facilitate the entire flow to make it easier on everyone involved.

Karen Edwards: Okay. Ryan, you're on the development side and the tech side. So I'd like you to talk a little bit about how this technology really helps contractors differentiate themselves, stand out from their competitors and maybe help their process from start to finish.

Ryan Eves: As Savannah was talking a lot through that and we talked about all the big advantages of metal, we do need to realize that one of the other things that goes up with cost and time and shelf life is the need for trust and the price, ultimately the price that you'll end up setting. So we do know that homeowners really care about speed and a lot of roofing jobs, but as that price goes up, the focus of speed starts to transition towards quality and transparency for these customers. And I think that's where technology really comes in terms of streamlining that whole flow, where once you get that measurement for us, if you have your estimates already set up, it can immediately go out, display all that information and you can get that back to the homeowner in speeds that are not days but hours. And that type of transparency and speed is going to make sure that you stand out ahead of the competition as somebody worth trust, you're on top of it, you're clear about all the choices you're making and you look polished too.

Ryan Eves: You kind of get that out of the box with software, I come from a design background, I know the power of brand and design and presentation and how much it closes win rates. So the nice thing about technology is you only really need to set it up once and you can look good over and over and over again no matter how many different measurements come in. And it also reduces a lot of the human entry challenges in the space as you move this information through all these different systems to try to be fast and look good. The more you do that, the bigger the odds that you can get one of those measurements wrong that ultimately comes back and hurts your bottom line and then your trust again because you're just not going to be able to do that job as well as you could have done if you just had fast accurate presence.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So we talked a little bit earlier about the sustainability of metal being a factor contributing to its growth in popularity. How is using a service like RoofSnap contributing to the sustainable building operations? Is it, we're cutting down number of trips, driving? What are some of those reasons that a contractor could include in their presentation why they are practicing sustainability?

Ryan Eves: Absolutely. Now one of the things is is you called it out right away is less travel times, all that travel time. Not only is it saving you time and energy, obviously it's saving the cost on the planet as well in terms of all that to and fro. Using our technology is going to be saving you just a lot of time around just general operations. And then of course with more accurate upfront measurements, you can do some pre-planning around material waste, how much material you're going to use, how you can be more efficient when you actually go to run that job.

You can feel a lot more confident about that planning, be efficient, reduce that waste, really focus on optimizing that job because of course waste creates a lot of that downstream impact on the environment as well.

Karen Edwards: Okay. Fantastic. So Savannah, we're talking about working with contractors and what's the feedback, how excited are contractors to finally have a tool that they know was created for metal?

Savannah Smith: The folks we've talked to are really excited about this. They love the idea that, again, they don't have to send someone out on a roof with a measuring tape to walk each individual panel line. They are able to cut down on their workers' comp insurance because they're not sending people up on the roof as often. We're listening to where their pain points are. We're listening to contractors tell us, I want to make sure that my job, this package is offered the same to every customer no matter how many times we offer it. We want to hear that people are able to sell more metal roofs from using this rather than their asphalt roofs. We want to hear that ultimately their business is growing from this, and that's really what our customers keep telling us.

Savannah Smith: They're excited to hear that they can have a solution that's actually reliable to get their measurements back within that expected turnaround time. That they can ask for a revision if it's needed and that revision is going to get back to them in a reasonable amount of time. So that they're not losing jobs to people that are able to get a bit out faster. So really, we're focusing a lot on the speed of getting those measurements back and the confidence and the accuracy there and that's really what folks are most excited about. That's what I've heard is kind of missing in the market right now. So that's something RoofSnap has already excelled at and we're really looking to bring that into the metal sphere as well.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, I think we've been conditioned to, I want it now. I'm going to order it. I want same day delivery, I want next day delivery. I need that information instantly. So by providing that to the contractor, it's allowing them to deliver that information even faster to the customer or the homeowner.

Savannah Smith: Exactly. And the homeowner is ultimately the end of the line there. So they're the customer that we by proxy are also servicing. So we want to make sure that we can get information to the contractor so the contractor can continually be in conversation with their customer because like Ryan says, it helps build trust when your contractor isn't responsive or doesn't have the answers you need when you ask, it might make you feel not so great about making a few thousand dollars investment in an expensive roof. But if they're able to get back to you in time and you feel good about what they have to say, it's coming across in a polished way, that's going to be better for everyone involved in the process.

Karen Edwards: Yes. And Ryan, you said the same about how important presentation is and that's all part of that presentation is that customer experience and if it's polished, if it's professional, if it's timely, that matters so much. So now because you guys are here, I have to ask and you're the experts, get out your crystal balls and tell us what do you see coming down the road for the future of metal roofing and technology?

Ryan Eves: Yeah, obviously at the big macro level we know it's a growing space. We got to see how big of a presence it had at IRE last year and how many people, and we just expect it to continue to grow. But with the sort of need for speed, obviously there's a lot of things we can start to do in the AI space to try to reduce the time and accuracy around this stuff. I think what it comes down to is people aren't just looking for speed anymore because they're also going to start to look for more information, just more information about their roofs or what state they're in maintenance. And I think there's a lot of really exciting things in that area with drone technologies that can expand your visibility, expand our coverage. Obviously not everywhere in the world has nicely unobstructed views. It can get closer looks at things as well that looks at how to inspect and repair areas, that's a really big space. Smart technologies as well that help collect more information. Obviously something that's going to last for 50 years.

Ryan Eves: Because when it comes back to it, that presentation layer, people are now making a choice that's at the same scale as a car. And think about what that experience is like when you're buying a new car. It is polished. It is as streamlined as possible. It is as transparent as they can be, almost to the point that you get a little dumbfounded, but that's okay because making a big decision and you want to feel like you had every little piece and choice along the way. And that's also about this idea about, okay, well now that we have all this information and all this data, I think companies like us can also use that data to empower you to better position and better optimize your proposals and the margins of winning. And at the end of the day, that's what gets you to that efficient sustainable point we all want to be as a business. Whether we're doing roofing or in our case we're building roofing technology, we all want to be in a space where we can do things easier and maintain growth as an organization.

Karen Edwards: There's a lot of exciting technology innovations. I mean if you look at where we were even five years ago to where we are today, it's changing so fast. Just the other day I was like, oh, I have all these CDs still in a box and I don't even have a CD player. Who plays CDs? In the car maybe. But it's all streaming. It's all online. Do you just see it even getting better? Or you said you work with HD image providers, are they relying on some drones now for better imagery? What's coming?

Savannah Smith: What I would like to see, and part of what we're trying to offer here is a streamlined sales experience as well. So in addition to the actual HD imagery and the mechanisms of the software itself, we want to make sure that when you go to a homeowner's house, you're not just handing them a piece of paper, you've got a whole presentation that you can go through and you can show them. And that's also part of what technology brings to the roofing industry.

Savannah Smith: Contractors have the know-how, they know how to put things on a roof, they know how to get all of that stuff done. We come in and we help you run your business. We help you with the numbers. We help you with the process. We help you with your operations. And that really is a huge portion of what technology can kind of bring to this space as well. So not just the actual literal measurements, but also the way that you show up and how your sales flow works with your homeowners themselves, making sure that what you have to show them is fully understood. Whether that's information from the manufacturer or information from their insurance company or inspection photos from the roof itself that they can look at what you have to show them and feel great about the decisions that they're making.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, you said that very well because it's not really just the measurements and the pictures and whatever. It's about the entire process from start to finish and all the stages that it has to go through. One of those stages is the measurements. But you use it in sales, you use it in operations, you use it in job planning. There's so many ways to use it. So that being said, talk to me a little bit about integrations. Contractors are using a lot of different tools and a lot of different technologies in different parts of their business. So what does that look like for a contractor that might be using a certain estimating software? How integration friendly are you?

Ryan Eves: Integrations is a super interesting space that I can speak about. We have our APIs and we can talk about things between systems, but it's always this fine balance that I try to recommend to you as consumers of technology. The more things you're integrating with is the more translations. The systems have to talk to each other too and they can have to translate and exchange meaningful information and make that easy as well. And there's a lot of things we play with in downstream. Obviously we're also a part of a broader ever commerce that allows us to connect and integrate with other services as well. But their main goal is just to make sure that each one of the tools you use does that one part of the job really well and knows how to hand off that information downstream to other systems.

Ryan Eves: And I think we're really good at passing that information around with measurements. And I think as technology advances, one of the advances AI has is probably helping us improve integrations across the board, helping us translate and exchange information between systems and then get use out of those integrations. So not only are we good for streamlining some workflows, I think we're going to see a lot of advancements coming up and making those cross-tool talking a lot simpler for everybody.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Thank you for taking that curveball, Ryan, because we did not talk about that ahead of time, but I was curious, so I wanted to know. So let's say, Savannah, how can a contractor get started with RoofSnap to help them win more metal jobs?

Savannah Smith: Good question. So with RoofSnap, start with a free trial. We offer a free seven-day trial and you get access to the full software suite. You also get a free measurement order with your free trial. So what we want to do is we want you to come in and play around with it and then talk with one of us so that we can figure out what you like, what you don't like, what you don't understand and then we can make it work for you. That's one of the most exciting things about my job is I can come in and say, I know this software very, very well. What I don't know is how you run your business, tell me how you run your business and I'll tell you how to use this software so that it benefits you the most. That's truly what gets me out of bed every day, my job is to make other people's job easier and I'm so excited when I can do that.

Karen Edwards: Now there's a note that I saw before we started recording about an estimating suite. So you guys offer that as well, and that's part of when you sign up for RoofSnap, this comes along with it?

Savannah Smith: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So RoofSnap is so much more than just measurements. Measurements are the space that we're most known in and that is really what we're bringing, that's kind of where our new metal offering is in the measurement space. But our estimation platform is available as part of our subscription. There's no extra fee to access that. If you're a subscriber, you get your discounted membership pricing on measurements and you get access to our estimation platform. So with that, we have a catalog of pre-entered items, materials for you to choose from. We also have the ability to custom add anything that you don't have. But the main thing is we want to make it really easy for you to come in one time, build your packages that you typically offer and then go.

Savannah Smith: All you really need once you've built the templates for your packages is the measurements for each individual job or lead. And from there you really can go from canvassing to contracts in just a few seconds. All you got to do is pick that template out and then our documents generate, like I said, in just a few seconds. Everything's available on multiple platforms as well. So you can have folks in the office working or you can have someone sitting in their truck outside the customer's house running through all this right before they go inside. And they can spend five minutes looking at the measurements, picking out a template, putting together some documents, looking at the project summary, which is what I feel the crown jewel of our software. It breaks down your job from start to finish down to the penny. It tells you how much is going towards your materials, how much is overhead, how much is labor, kind of like having an accountant without having to pay an accountant. And all of that's available within seconds once you have your measurements.

Savannah Smith: So it gives contractors the ability to kind of look through everything, say, oh no, that's not the margin I want. Go back in, tweak your estimate, come back, look at your numbers, make sure you're where you want to be. And you walk into the homeowners house confident and feeling good that you're going to get their needs met and that your bottom line is going to look good as well.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Yeah, it's easy as pie, once you get the setup. And I'm sure you guys are there supporting the whole way through. We're not saying, oh, go in there and figure it out. Nope, you help.

Savannah Smith: No, no. That's how I learned that we needed to offer more metal solutions in the first place is by going in and sitting with a customer while they told me what they needed. So we are definitely here to kind of walk you through and make sure that you understand how to get what you need because you're paying for it if you're a subscriber. So we want to make sure that this is a great experience for everybody.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, yeah. Oh, this was fantastic. Savannah, Ryan, I'm so glad that you were here today to talk about this exciting release for metal roofing. We're excited, and I think you maybe have a special offer for anybody listening to this podcast.

Ryan Eves: Yeah, we're offering a RoofSnap 10% discount if you're listening to the podcast. So come in, try it out. As we mentioned, you can totally try it out for free. But we encourage you to come talk to us. You've already listened to us for the last little while, and we're always looking to talk to more folks, learn more about how you run the businesses. It's our favorite part of the job because at the end of the day, that's why we're making this thing. We're making this tool to make your jobs easier, and we're trying to make it as easy as a snap.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Savannah. Thank you, Ryan. It was great to meet you and talk with you. And thank you everybody out there for listening to this episode of MetalCast. Be sure to follow us on social media, subscribe. We don't want you to miss an episode. And RoofSnap does have a directory on Metalcoffeeshop.com So if you want more information or their contact information, be sure to check that out. And we will see you on a future episode of MetalCast. Bye-bye.

Outro: Ready to raise the metal roof? Subscribe to MetalCast now and stay tuned for all things metal roofing. Go to Metalcoffeeshop.com to learn more. Rock on and we'll catch you on the next episode.