House Doctors Merges With Andy OnCall and Handyman Pro, Moving Forward in a Cohesive, Growth-Focused Way

House Doctors, the 44-unit handyman franchise backed by parent franchisor Premium Service Brands, recently acquired franchise brands Andy OnCall and Handyman Pro. As the Andy OnCall transition finishes, Laura Mueller, brand marketing manager, says most Andy OnCall franchise owners will be fully transitioned to the House Doctors brand in Q1 of 2023.

“The merger has been slowly happening over the past year,” said Ricky Conner, vice president of House Doctors. “We’ve been creating the support materials and working towards getting all of the franchisees up and running on one operating system called Service Titan. That will be very, very good for us.”

“As we unite these three brands under the Premium Service Brands umbrella, we’re building a strong foundation for the future of House Doctors,” said Paul Flick, CEO of Premium Service Brands. “We have a talented team working to systemize practices, create new marketing materials and techniques, welcome franchise owners into the network and reimagine the potential of the concept.”

Merger integration

Throughout this process, the franchisor has worked to keep franchisees’ work as light as possible, fully providing new local sites, setting up Google business profiles, providing updated marketing collateral and more.

While a visual refresh and branding consolidation across the brands will be powerful, Conner says the move to Service Titan is the primary differentiator the merger offers.

“That’s our main driver because Service Titan allows us to have all of our data housed in one place,” he said. “All of our customer information, the job leads, estimates and data about the jobs themselves as they progress. What we’ve been lacking with prior CRMs is visibility for every franchisee.”

System standardization

Previously, many of the franchisees across the three brands were somewhat decentralized. As such, the strength of company culture and frequency of intrasystem connections varied greatly. Systems were not standardized across locations, technology was not being used consistently, and many marketing opportunities simply were not being taken advantage of.

“A lot of the franchisees were still using paper and pencil to keep track of their projects,” Mueller said. “Our goal is to get them up and running with these new systems so they can leverage SEO, digital marketing and social media. There will be a lot of technology training and education on email marketing platforms, but our goal is to have everyone up and running on the same systems in Q1. Ricky is leading that front, making sure everyone has a plan, is trained, and we’re all on the same system so we can move forward together.”

As franchisees begin to become more connected across the network, House Doctors is also looking to grow its business offerings, creating even more differentiators for franchisees in their communities.

Business expansion

While House Doctors will continue to focus primarily on handyman work, franchisees will also be able to incorporate home improvement projects into their offerings. In addition to replacing a fan or ceiling light, franchisees can do other tasks like remodeling a bathroom or building a deck.

“There are a lot more moving parts to home improvement, and we’re making sure our franchisees are ready before we take that step,” Conner said. “Once individual business owners feel comfortable, the ability to incorporate this second revenue stream into their business model will prove to be incredibly fruitful over time.”