About the company

Bath Solutions Etc. is a bathroom remodeling company based in Bonita Springs, FL. Marketing Manager Jim Geffken works together with a call center of three to set up relevant campaigns and monitor customer interactions.

The problem

When Jim came on board, Bath Solutions was already using Hatch but in a limited capacity.

They had Speed to Lead campaigns automating their lead outreach, which allowed them to ramp up lead volume from their 10+ lead sources. However, the call center staff could not always keep up with the increase in responses.

In addition, the company was not using the full suite of Hatch campaign types, like rehash and customer nurture, to help retain leads further down the funnel. As a result, the business was not converting leads into as many appointments or sales as they’d like.

“I wanted to know if there was truth to the theory that the more leads you purchase, the more sales you’ll see. And by analyzing the data, we discovered that this wasn’t the case and that oftentimes the inverse was true.” Jim explained. This opened up discussion on focusing not just on generating leads, but on optimizing communication and nurturing relationships throughout the customer journey.

“I knew that Hatch was more than just a text and email platform. It’s a customer relationship builder and I wanted to optimize our usage of the tool.”

The solution

To solve for this, Jim worked with the Hatch team to do two things: build out more campaigns across the customer journey, and also implement Rachel, their Hatch AI bot.

Their current automated outreach campaigns now include:

• Speed to lead: Immediate response to new leads.
• Slippage: Following up with 30-day-old leads who never booked an appointment.
• Rehash: Following up on open estimates.
• Marketing: Open house invites, promotions, etc. (Using Hatch’s email features to reach third-party leads disqualified by traditional tools like Mailchimp.)

And they have their Hatch AI bot Rachel attached to their speed to lead campaigns, with plans to expand into other campaigns.

“Rachel intercepts the inbound leads and goes through pre-qualification steps, like confirming zip codes and project types,” Jim shared. “This saves our humans from having to do that work and also ensures that only qualified leads are passed to the call center.”

The results

The switch to Hatch AI yielded impressive results for Bath Solutions in just three months:

• Set rate increased from 9.4% to 16%, a 5.6% jump
• Response rate improved 33%

Jim had anecdotal successes to share:

1. Time saved. “Rachel handling those basic, perfunctory interactions has been huge. It frees up our team to focus on more meaningful conversations.”

2. Peace of mind. “Knowing that every lead who responds to our campaigns will be addressed immediately is a game changer.”

3. Ahead of the curve. “I had no customer relationship marketing experience prior to this. And between my Hatch campaigns and the advice from the Hatch team, I now feel like we’re really ahead of the curve on this now.”

4. Happier team. “Within the first 20 days, my call center manager emphatically told me how much she loves Rachel. With Rachel handling the bulk of the speed to lead conversations, she no longer has to worry about intercepting every single message that comes through Hatch and crafting her own messaging.”

“Knowing that every lead who responds to our campaigns will be addressed immediately is a game changer.”

The AI experience

As a new technology, Jim faced common challenges with implementation but was able to navigate them successfully.

Fear over job replacement

“I approached this cautiously with my team and explained this is by no means a replacement. This is a way of being efficient with our resources so we could increase set and engagement rates while also taking certain burdens off of them.” And it’s clear that that’s exactly what Hatch AI has done.

The ramp-up period

“We monitored Rachel over the first couple of weeks to make sure she was saying the right things, and she did a pretty good job. There was some fine-tuning that we expected, but that was addressed right away.”

Learning how to use AI

After setting everything up with his Onboarding Manager, Jim was able to do a lot of the fine-tuning himself inside Hatch AI. “And if there were instances where it was tricky, the White Glove Team got involved and addressed things immediately, and that was fantastic.” 

The Hatch experience

Overall, Jim’s experience with the Hatch Onboarding, Account Management, and Support teams has been what he calls “above and beyond.”

“This is a new technology for me, and the Hatch team handled me beautifully. They were patient with me and educated me without being condescending. It really feels like a partnership and you don't always get that.”

Between his experience with the Hatch team and the tangible results he’s seeing, Jim is thrilled with Hatch AI. “I'm so excited about this technology. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s a game changer for us, and I've only scratched the surface of it.”

Jim emphatically recommends Hatch, especially to companies that struggle with ongoing customer nurturing and communication. “This is like nothing I've ever seen before, and this could fit so many different holes for marketers and how they're building relationships.”

“This is a new technology for me, and the Hatch team handled me beautifully. They were patient with me and educated me without being condescending. It really feels like a partnership and you don't always get that.”