Utilizing Speed to Lead as a CSR in ServiceTitan Max

Overview

Speed to Lead is the first goal available in Outbound Virtual Agents — the AI lead-follow-up capability inside the AI Concierge section of ServiceTitan. When a new lead enters ServiceTitan from a supported lead source, the AI agent sends a personalized SMS, offers real-time Appointment times from Adaptive Capacity, and books the Job without CSR involvement.

This article is for CSRs working in ServiceTitan Max. It explains how Speed to Lead fits into your day, how to recognize when a conversation needs you, and how to take over and continue the conversation when the AI agent hands it off.

Things to know

• The AI handles the first outreach, not you. When a new lead enters ServiceTitan from a supported source, the AI agent sends the first SMS within seconds, offers real availability, and tries to book the job. Your role starts when the AI hands the conversation off to you.

• Speed to Lead lives in the AI Concierge section of ServiceTitan. Outbound Virtual Agents campaigns and the Interactions log are under AI Concierge — you'll spend your Speed to Lead workday here regardless of what telecom system your business uses.

• You take over conversations from the Interactions page. Once you click Takeover on a conversation, the AI agent stops sending automated messages for that lead and you continue the conversation manually.

• Bookings the AI makes land like any other job. Jobs the AI books are tagged for reporting and flow into your Dispatch Board, schedule, and customer records the same way a CSR-booked job would.

• Escalated and High Activity conversations are your priority triage. Both have counters at the top of the Interactions page so you can spot conversations that need attention quickly.

• Voice Agent settings are managed by your administrator. The AI agent that powers Speed to Lead has a configurable persona, transcript, and set of skills that your administrator manages. Where they manage it depends on your business's telecom system — see How Speed to Lead works with your other products below. As a CSR, you don't configure it, but you can flag patterns you see in handoffs to your admin.

Best practices

• Treat the Interactions page as a daily triage tool. Open it at the start of your shift and check the Escalated and High Activity counters. These are the conversations most likely to need a human.

• Read the Overview Summary before taking over. Every interaction has an AI-generated Overview Summary in the detail drawer. Read it before you click Takeover so you start the conversation knowing what the lead has already said.

• Don't reset the conversation. When you take over, continue from where the AI left off. The customer doesn't need to know the handoff happened unless you decide to tell them — what matters is that you don't make them repeat information they've already shared.

• Use the lead record, not the Interactions drawer, to reply. The drawer is read-only. Click View Lead at the bottom of the drawer to open the full record where you can reply, log notes, and assign tasks.

• If the AI hits an escalation because there's no Adaptive Capacity availability, your immediate workaround is to Call the customer directly. The longer fix is to flag the gap to your dispatcher or admin so capacity gets restored — Speed to Lead only books into availability your business actually has.

• Flag patterns to your admin. If you notice the AI consistently mis-handling a type of objection, missing a piece of qualification, or escalating the same scenarios over and over, surface it to your admin. The patterns you see in handoffs are the best data for tuning the agent.

• Don't restart automated outreach for a lead you've taken over. Once you take over, the AI stops messaging that lead for a reason — you're now the human in the conversation. Continue manually rather than re-enrolling them in a campaign.

Use cases

• A homeowner submits a request through a third-party lead aggregator at 7:45 PM. The AI texts within seconds, offers a slot from Adaptive Capacity, and books the job without anyone in the office picking up the phone. The next morning, the CSR sees the booked job appear in the schedule with the lead source attribution intact and the SMS thread logged in Interactions.

• A lead replies to the AI's SMS, but the conversation escalates because the lead is asking about a service area the business doesn't currently cover. The interaction is marked Escalated (Skill/Handling). A CSR opens the interaction, reads the Overview Summary, and decides whether to dismiss the lead or call the customer to recommend a partner.

• A homeowner has been responding to the AI's messages but hasn't committed to a time slot. The interaction status is Active (Warm) and the lead shows up under High Activity. A CSR opens the conversation, clicks Takeover, and calls the customer to close the booking personally.

Recognize conversations that need you

The Interactions page surfaces the conversations most likely to need a human. Focus on the Escalated and High Activity counters at the top of the page — those are your triage priorities. The Conversations, Response Rate, and Conversion Rate counters are performance metrics your admin monitors rather than CSR triage tools.

As a CSR, your daily triage should focus on:

• Escalated interactions — The AI flagged the conversation for human attention. Each escalation reason appears in the interaction's status:

  • Escalated (Availability) — No Adaptive Capacity availability was found to offer the lead.

  • Escalated (Skill/Handling) — The request is outside the agent's configured skills.

  • Escalated (Human Request) — The lead explicitly asked to speak with a person.

  • Escalated (Negative Sentiment) — The agent detected negative sentiment in the conversation.

  • Escalated (Agent Issue) — The agent encountered a problem it could not resolve.

• High Activity interactions — A lead is actively engaged but the conversation hasn't closed. These are often warm leads that benefit from a human touch to push them across the line.

• Active (Hot) and Active (Warm) statuses — The lead is actively engaged and responding. A timely personal outreach can close the booking while they're still in the conversation.

• Active (Cool) and Active (Cold) statuses — The lead responded but engagement is slowing. Personal outreach can re-engage them, though the odds of conversion are lower than for Active (Hot) or Active (Warm) leads.

• Abandoned interactions — The lead never responded and the full campaign sequence completed. These usually don't need a CSR touch, but reviewing patterns of abandonment (specific times of day, specific lead sources) is useful information to bring to your admin.

For full status definitions, see Use Interactions in Outbound Virtual Agents.

Take over a Speed to Lead conversation

When the AI agent has done its part and a conversation needs you, use Takeover to continue manually.

1. Go to the navigation bar and click AI Concierge.

2. Under Operations, select Interactions.

3. Locate the interaction you want to take over. Use the Escalated Only toggle or the Status, Outbound, Inbound, Last Channel, and Last Activity filters to narrow the list.

4. Click the interaction row to open the detail drawer.

5. Read the Overview Summary — an AI-generated description of what happened in the conversation — and review the full conversation thread.

1. Click View Lead at the bottom of the drawer to open the full lead record.

2. On the lead record, click Takeover.

Note: The Send Message permission is required to see the Takeover button. Without it, the button is hidden, but conversation content is still visible if you have the View Customer Chats permission.

1. Use the chat area on the lead record to continue the conversation with the customer directly. The AI agent stops sending automated messages for this lead.

For more on the Interactions page, see Use Interactions in Outbound Virtual Agents.

How Speed to Lead works with your other products in ServiceTitan Max

Speed to Lead works because Outbound Virtual Agents, your telecom system, Adaptive Capacity, Marketing, Scheduling, and ServiceTitan are all connected. You don't manage that integration as a CSR — but understanding it helps with edge cases:

• Outbound Virtual Agents (in the AI Concierge section) identifies the inbound lead, runs the AI conversation, and decides when to hand the lead off to you via Interactions.

• Your telecom system is where the Voice Agent that runs Speed to Lead is configured — persona, transcript, skills, Job Types, dispatch fees, and escalation rules. Which telecom system your business uses determines where your admin manages those settings:

  • If your business uses Contact Center Pro, Voice Agent settings live in Settings > Voice Agent inside Contact Center Pro. For more, see Configure your Voice Agent settings on the ServiceTitan Knowledge Base.

  • If your business uses ServiceTitan Basic Phones or Phones Pro, Voice Agent settings live under Settings > Phones or Phones Pro > Voice Agent Settings. For more, see AI Voice Agent Onboarding Part 1: Set up for Basic Phones and Phones Pro on the ServiceTitan Knowledge Base.

Either way, the SMS Agent and Voice Agent use the same configuration — whatever your admin sets up applies across both channels.

Coming soon: Voice Agent configuration will also be available from AI Concierge > Agent Studio, alongside the existing Settings-based locations above.

• Adaptive Capacity provides the Real-time availability the AI quotes to leads. If the AI can't find capacity, the interaction is escalated for human attention.

• Marketing supplies the attribution and audience data the AI uses for targeting. Lead source and campaign data attach to the CRM record so you have context when you take over.

• Scheduling booking links can be embedded in the AI's messages, giving leads a self-book option.

• ServiceTitan Core is where jobs the AI books land as scheduled work, and where lead, customer, and opportunity records live.

You don't think of these as separate products to log into. From your seat as a CSR, the work flows through Interactions and the lead record — the rest happens in the background.

Want to learn more?

• See Outbound Agents overview

• See Use Interactions in Outbound Virtual Agents

• See Set up and launch outbound agent campaigns in Outbound Virtual Agents (for administrators)

• See Configure your Voice Agent settings (for Contact Center Pro users)

• See AI Voice Agent Onboarding Part 1: Set up for Basic Phones and Phones Pro (for Basic Phones and Phones Pro users)

• See Adaptive Capacity advanced setup