How better questions turn tech into real solutions

By Jesse Sanchez. 

Roofing contractors adopt digital tools while Ingage urges leaders to ask how integrations solve problems. 

Modern roofing companies are piling up platforms, apps and logins, often creating more complexity than clarity. Ingage is helping change that by serving as an industry leading sales enablement presentation platform that brings those tools together for home improvement and home services markets. In this episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Alan Davis, Director of Product at Ingage, noted that technology only creates value when it is aligned with real workflows and clearly defined problems. 

Alan started by stripping the jargon away and offering a straightforward definition of integration. He explained, “Software integration is a process for connecting different software systems, applications or components to work seamlessly together.” It is about allowing “workflows to be shared across platforms, leading to improved efficiency, automation and user experiences.” 

To help roofing contractors see beyond the complex technological terms, Alan drew a direct line to something they already know. “An integrated roofing system is similar to a software integration,” he stated. Shingles, underlayment and ventilation are chosen and installed to “improve the performance, durability and the overall solution for that customer.” In the same way, customer relationship management software (CRMs), project management and accounting tools are combined to “improve efficiency, accuracy and put a better solution in place for the team.” 

That is where Alan sees many contractors get tripped up. Too often, the conversation starts and ends with one surface-level question. Alan elaborated, “People will say, ‘do you integrate with XYZ product?’ And what's the answer going to be? It's an easy answer for a salesperson, someone in the field. I want ‘yes’ across the board.” The problem is that a simple yes does not reveal anything about how the systems will actually work together. 

Contractors do not have to figure it out alone. Alan encouraged companies of all sizes to lean directly on their software partners. Vendors, he said, should be ready to explain how their tools fit into existing workflows, not just claim they connect. “We want systems to work together, and we want to be able to share information between each other.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about how Ingage helps contractors ask smarter questions about integration!