AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 13, 2026--
Neighborly Brands’ Precision Garage Door Service ranked highest in the 2026 Pied Piper Lead Handling Effectiveness™ (LHE™) Home Services Industry Study, which evaluated major home services brands based on how effectively they interacted with new customers by phone, chat and web form, as well as follow-up by phone, text and email. Following in the rankings were Mister Sparky, Mr. Electric and Roto-Rooter, all scoring over 50 on a 100-point scale.
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For the 2026 LHE™ Home Services Study, Pied Piper measured the performance of 31 of the largest home services brands, completing 3,211 evaluations nationwide between October 2025 and January 2026.
“Customers seeking home services typically attempt to contact several companies before choosing one,” said Cameron O’Hagan, Vice President of Metrics & Analytics at Pied Piper. “Our study shows that far too often companies fail to answer the phone or follow up promptly, and customers commit to another provider before the first company even realizes the opportunity was missed.”
Variability of Performance
An LHE™ score of 70 or higher represents an effective customer interaction, one in which the company responds promptly, provides helpful information, and makes it easy for the customer to move forward. In the study, 12% of retail locations scored 70 or higher, while Precision Garage Door Service and Safelite brands achieved scores above 70 more than one-third of the time. In contrast, ForeverLawn, Lawn Doctor, Pinch A Penny and ServiceMaster Restore achieved scores of 70 or higher less than 1% of the time, indicating that typical interactions were less effective.
On the other end of performance, 42% of retail locations in the home services industry had LHE™ scores below 30, indicating an ineffective interaction, typically reflecting failures such as not answering the phone, failing to follow up, or providing little useful assistance to the customer. Precision Garage Door Service, Mister Sparky, and Mr. Electric customers encountered scores below 30 less than 20% of the time, meaning ineffective interactions were relatively uncommon. In contrast, The Maids, Lawn Doctor, Pinch A Penny, ForeverLawn, and Camp Bow Wow recorded scores below 30 more than 75% of the time, indicating a majority of inquiries resulted in a poor or unsuccessful interaction.
AI Behaviors Encountered
In this year’s LHE™ home services study, about one in ten customers encountered AI through chat or phone interactions, and those experiences often ran into problems. While 27% of AI interactions were handled successfully from start to finish and performed similarly to human staff, the remaining 73% required human assistance. Among those requiring a handoff, one-third of transfers failed, including dropped calls, long holds, or routing to voicemail, and these failures occurred after the customer had already devoted 93 seconds on average to the AI interaction.
“AI can now perform at a human level for many sales and service interactions, but the handoff to people is where it often falls apart,” said O’Hagan. “When that happens, customers feel misled and that their time was wasted. Companies must use AI as a tool, not a crutch, and stay committed to proper staffing and smooth transitions to avoid losing customers.”
Performance by Ownership Platform
Several brands evaluated in the study are part of large franchisor platforms often backed by private equity, including Neighborly, Authority Brands, ServiceMaster Brands, and HorsePower Brands. Neighborly stood out in the results, with five of its brands ranking among the top 10 performers in the study. At the same time, three of the 10 lowest-ranked brands are also owned by franchisor platforms, highlighting that ownership alone does not ensure execution, as private-equity-backed platforms show wide variation in how effectively brands and their locations respond to new customer inquiries.
Performance by Home Services Category
Performance also varied noticeably by home services category. Brands in urgent, repair-oriented industries such as garage door service, plumbing, and electrical service tended to perform more consistently, reflecting the operational focus required to respond quickly when customers need immediate help. For example, Precision Garage Door Service and Mister Sparky were among the brands that frequently delivered effective customer interactions in the study.
In contrast, several categories with less time-sensitive services showed more inconsistent performance, including complete breakdowns in customer response. In several sub-industries, a significant share of customer inquiries resulted in ineffective interactions, such as unanswered phone calls or failure to follow up with prospective customers. Categories such as pet services and lawn care were more likely to record low LHE™ scores, indicating that many customers attempting to reach these businesses received little assistance or no response at all.
Selling Performance
For companies where scheduling an appointment is a natural next step, customers were offered one only 28% of the time. However, customers phoning Precision Garage Door Service, Mister Sparky, Five Star Painting, Roto-Rooter, or Orkin locations were offered an appointment more than 70% of the time. Customers were provided reasons to select the company 21% of the time on average. Brands whose retail locations were most likely to provide reasons to choose them over competitors were Vivint Smart Home, Orkin, TruGreen, and Terminix, all doing so more than 50% of the time.
Follow-Up Performance
In addition to measuring live performance in phone and chat interactions, LHE™ also measures follow-up by phone, text and email. The most common follow-up experience was no follow-up at all, which occurred 72% of the time during the study. Voicemail was received 13% of the time, text messages 12% of the time, and emails 10% of the time. Brands whose retailers were most likely to follow-up were Mighty Dog Roofing, Safelite, TruGreen, and Orkin, all of which did so more than 50% of the time.
2026 Brand Performance Compared
How Was This Study Conducted?
For each of the 3,211 LHE™ evaluations completed for this study, Pied Piper phoned, interacted via chat, or filled out a website form for a specific retail location, as a customer looking to decide which of three potential vendors to use for a home services project. Each inquiry also included a unique customer name, email address, and telephone number if requested.
Pied Piper also measured the retail location’s follow-up response over the next 24 hours, evaluating both speed and quality across all communication channels — including email, telephone, and text message. Each LHE™ evaluation includes more than 20 weighted measurements tied to proven best practices mathematically linked to higher sales conversion. These individual measurements combine to generate an overall LHE™ score ranging from 0 to 100. Brand scores reflect the average of the individual retailer LHE™ scores within each brand’s sample.
About Lead Handling Effectiveness™ (LHE™) Monitoring Service
Lead Handling Effectiveness™ (LHE™) Monitoring is a subscription service that evaluates how each retail location handles inbound customer inquiries and follow-up across phone, chat, web form, text, and email. Each week, LHE™ submits unique customer inquiries to measure real interactions and alerts local management when performance breaks down. Built to be simple, LHE™ requires no reports or dashboards, instead texting Performance Alerts with 90 second audio summaries directly to local management, with access to deeper insight through Piper Answers™ interactive chat. Monthly Executive Briefings summarize performance, highlight strengths and weaknesses, and give corporate and franchisor leaders visibility across their network.
About Pied Piper Management Company, LLC
Austin, Texas-based Pied Piper provides fact-based performance measurement and reporting to help brands and franchisors improve how their retail locations interact with new customers.
Pied Piper is best known for its proprietary Prospect Satisfaction Index ® (PSI ® ), developed over more than 15 years and hundreds of thousands of measured customer interactions. PSI ® benchmarks how effectively locations follow sales and service practices tied to retail success, supported by continued investment in AI-driven tools that make insights easier and more powerful to use.
Pied Piper’s measurements reveal what actually happens when customers reach out, allowing organizations to identify missed opportunities, correct breakdowns, and improve sales and customer retention. The company also publishes annual industry benchmarking studies ranking brand performance, highlighting both top performers and gaps across industries.
Other recent Pied Piper industry studies include:
Learn more, request a presentation of industry study results, or begin an LHE™ Monitoring subscription at www.piedpiperpsi.com.
This press release is provided for editorial use only, and information contained in this release may not be used for advertising or otherwise promoting brands mentioned in this release without specific, written permission from Pied Piper Management Co., LLC.
Source: 2026 Pied Piper Home Services Industry Lead Handling Effectiveness Study (USA)
Source: 2026 Pied Piper Home Services Industry Lead Handling Effectiveness Study (USA)
