How LB Capital
is Improving Operational Efficiency with Hatch

About LB Capital

LB Capital, founded by entrepreneur Lance Bachmann, specializes in partnering with small to mid-sized businesses to drive rapid growth and profitability. The firm has a diverse portfolio, notably in the roofing industry, with companies such as Munz Roofing, Lee's Roofing, Roofing Pups Utah, Maryland, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, and Planet Roof under its umbrella. Bachmann's strategic approach involves scaling businesses efficiently, often leading to successful exits to private equity firms. For this success story, we interviewed Kelly Mesaris, VP of Operations at LB Capital.

How does LB Capital operate?

“LB Capital's structure is ‘Build it to sell it.’ So we take small partners doing roughly $1.5 to $3M and with our SOPs in place, our leadership team, and our pricing with our vendors, we're able to scale it within 16 months.

Our latest success story is Munz Roofing. In 2023 we did two roll ups at $1.7M together combined revenue. By the end of 2023 they were at $3M. And then by the end of 2024 we were just $500,000 short of $25 million. So that's how quickly we scale the companies and then we sell them to private equity. We just announced the Munz exit to private equity last week.”

How did you find Hatch?

“Between myself and our CEO, Bill Rossell, we vetted a couple different companies, Chiirp and Hatch. And we determined, based on the user interface and ease of use for our CSR team to be able to manage it, that Hatch was the better solution.” 

Why were you seeking out a customer communication solution?

“The primary reason was speed to lead. For the companies that partner with us, we use Dan Antonelli at KickCharge Creative to do all the branding, so their name becomes new in the marketplace. We don’t have time to build that brand in the community, we’re just trying to grow it really fast. So we rely heavily on lead aggregators, like Angi Ads, Angi Leads, Networx, HomeBuddy, and more. We also use Google LSA, Google My Business, PPC, and Yelp.

But our budget only allows so many CSRs, and we can’t afford to have someone on 24/7. So our lead sources are all integrated with Hatch, so that when a lead comes in, Hatch starts that outreach of texts, emails, and ringless voicemails to the customer. And it also takes the human error out of the process.”

"...when a lead comes in, Hatch starts that outreach of texts, emails, and ringless voicemails to the customer. And it also takes the human error out of the process.”

What other Hatch campaigns are you running?

Hatch allows you to automate your outreach to customers across the entire buyer journey, so that you can maximize conversion and LTV. So the full suite of campaigns LB Capital brands are using includes:

• Speed to lead
• Follow-up on leads that never booked
• Follow-up on canceled appointments
• Follow-up on unsold estimates
• Follow-up on abandoned calls
• Seasonal promotions

What are the biggest value-adds of Hatch for LB Capital brands?

“I meet with my CSR team every day and the feedback has been great. They love the bot, our leads have gone up, and it's creating efficiency in our CSR department.”

Reduces burdens on human CSRs. “Our team loves the AI bot. Because it takes every new lead all the way to the finish line to where all the human has to do is finalize the booking.”

Ensures instant responses to every lead, 24/7. Because Hatch natively integrates with your lead sources, it will reach out to new leads as soon as they fill out a form, and keep following up over the next several days until the lead responds. And then when the lead responds, the AI CSRs will jump in to secure those leads.

“We have so many different lead sources, each with their own dashboard, and without Hatch, our CSRs have to monitor each one. And if they’re in the bathroom or even in another screen, they can miss a lead. We know with these lead aggregators that the first person to get to that lead has the highest success rate. So that’s been a huge help. Nothing beats the AI.”

Consistency. You train your AI CSRs with a set of instructions, a script, and rules on how to behave based on conversation outcomes.

“Keeping consistency of scripts across the board has also been helpful with Hatch.”

Ability to scale lead volume without headcount. “CSRs hit your P&L as overhead. And we can’t work 24/7, so Hatch fills in all of those gaps, whether that’s notifying users to make sure leads get reached out to or doing the outreach in the middle of the night.”

ServiceTitan integration. Hatch has a native, bidirectional sync with ServiceTitan, allowing you to create campaigns for any data point in ServiceTitan, including missed calls, open estimates, and more.

“So we are huge advocates of ServiceTitan, all of our tenants are required to use it and Hatch has done well with integrating with ServiceTitan. The conversations that happen in Hatch go back into ServiceTitan and the statuses as well.”

Increases CSR efficiency. “Part of our CSRs’ job, when they aren’t handling new leads, is to go back and rehash old leads until they book. And with Hatch, they’re not wasting their time on leads that aren't responsive because Hatch is doing all the pinging in the background and they’re only focusing on the ones that respond, and continue the conversation from there.”

Did you have any hesitations with using AI?

“No, because we’re a tech company, so we set that standard right away. Everything's 100% on ServiceTitan and Hatch. And immediately our CSRs saw, hey, this thing's great, it's responding well. It’s helping us book appointments. And they're compensated on that, so that helps them too.”

"Immediately our CSRs saw, hey, this thing's great, it's responding well. It’s helping us book appointments. And they're compensated on that, so that helps them too.”

What’s it like letting an AI talk to your customers?

“Nothing's perfect, right? But AI bots are definitely more perfect than humans, and it’s just a matter of picking up on things and perfecting the bot. And we can customize it to make it work how we want it to work. Plus, bots don't have bad days. CSRs may have a bad day and be grumpy on the phone. AI bots don't call out or have a bad mood.”

"...bots don't have bad days. CSRs may have a bad day and be grumpy on the phone. AI bots don't call out or have a bad mood.”

Any final advice on using AI?

“I mean that's where the world's going. So if you're not participating in it and working towards that, then you're going to be left behind when all your competitors are already on it.”