Service Excellence is showcasing its PRESS PLAY learning platform as a key tool for home service companies, using a recent training visit with The Gentlemen Pros in Calgary, Canada, to demonstrate how the platform helps contractors align sales, service, technician communication, customer experience, company culture, and manager reinforcement.
PRESS PLAY is a contractor training and learning platform created by Service Excellence for home service companies. The platform helps owners, managers, salespeople, technicians, and service teams use a shared language for customer conversations, trust-building, sales communication, service delivery, and follow-up. For home service companies, customer experience is not only a service issue but a culture issue. Every call, estimate, service visit, and follow-through moment teaches the customer what kind of company they are dealing with, and over time, those repeated experiences become the company's reputation and brand.
The training took place on May 23-24, with 25 team members from plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and management participating. The workshop focused on PRESS PLAY FOR TECHNICIANS, providing The Gentlemen Pros a structured approach to train new team members and equip managers to reinforce the training post-session. The Canadian workshop addressed one of the most common problems in contractor training: what happens after the training event ends. Many home service companies invest in training, see a burst of energy for a few days, and then watch old habits return. PRESS PLAY was designed to address that gap by structuring training to teach, coach, inspect, and reinforce behaviors that affect customer trust, revenue, culture, and brand reputation.
Led by Service Excellence founder and CEO Todd Liles, the workshop brought salespeople, technicians, and managers together around a common customer standard. The goal was to help The Gentlemen Pros build a more consistent customer experience from the first sales conversation through the completed service call. That consistency matters because a contractor's brand is built on what customers come to believe after repeated interactions. When a salesperson communicates clearly, a technician respects the home, and a manager reinforces the right behaviors, trust becomes part of the brand.
“For a contractor, the customer experience happens one conversation at a time,” said Liles. “That does not change whether the company is doing one million dollars or one hundred fifty million dollars. What changes is the complexity around the business. PRESS PLAY stays focused on the part that has to remain consistent, which is how your people communicate, build trust, and serve the customer in the home.”
The Gentlemen Pros, with locations in Calgary, Edmonton, and Red Deer, has worked with Service Excellence on multiple training initiatives. The company brought Liles back to Canada to train newer team members and help managers reinforce the PRESS PLAY standards after the workshop. “We’ve worked with Service Excellence for many years, so when it was time to reset and reinforce our culture, they were the first call we made,” said Brham Trim, CEO of The Gentlemen Pros. “As we’ve grown and brought new leaders into the organization, it became important to make sure everyone was aligned around the same customer-first philosophy.”
Service Excellence implemented a six-week reinforcement sprint in the PRESS PLAY engagement, aiding managers in coaching and supporting post-training behaviors. The structure includes short weekly sessions, direct manager follow-up, and practical field assignments connected to technician performance. “What I appreciate about PRESS PLAY is that it isn’t focused on selling more. It’s focused on serving better,” Trim said. “The training gave our team a common language and a consistent approach to serving customers, which is critical for protecting and strengthening our brand.”
According to Liles, that reinforcement gives training a better chance of becoming part of the company’s operating rhythm. “The goal is not to overwhelm people with more information. The goal is to make the training usable. When a manager knows what to look for, how to coach it, and how to hold people accountable without making it feel heavy, the training has a much better chance of showing up in the field.”
PRESS PLAY is designed for home service companies that want sales and service to speak the same language. In many contracting businesses, salespeople are trained one way, technicians another, and managers are left to connect the dots. Customers do not experience departments separately; they experience one company. That is why PRESS PLAY focuses on alignment across sales, service, technician communication, leadership, customer experience, and culture. The platform helps contractors connect the people who sell the promise with those who keep it.
For smaller contractors, PRESS PLAY creates a clear foundation for customer conversations, technician professionalism, and service communication. For larger contractors, it gives leadership a repeatable language that can be taught, coached, and reinforced across multiple departments, locations, and teams. “As contractors grow, their operations become more complex. But the standard for a great customer experience should not become more complicated. A competent salesperson doing the right things and a competent technician doing the right things will always matter. PRESS PLAY gives companies a way to keep that standard clear,” Liles said.
Trust in the brand is one of the most important growth assets a home service company has. It helps contractors attract new customers, retain existing customers, earn repeat business, and grow through stronger referrals and reputation. PRESS PLAY supports that growth by helping companies make trust easier to teach, coach, and reinforce in the field. The visit to Canada also reflects Service Excellence’s broader international reach, as Liles has trained contractors in countries beyond the United States, including Canada and Australia.
