How Billdr scaled to serving multiple markets using OpenPhone

About Billdr

Industry:

Real estate

Founded:

2020

HQ:

Montreal, Québec

Previous provider:

Personal cell numbers

Billdr CEO Bertrand Nembot was in college and tried to flip a house. He discovered how difficult the process was to renovate firsthand when he lost money on the flip. After school, he spearheaded Uber’s launch in different cities around the world. Then he returned to his hometown of Montreal to start his own business. These experiences combined inspired the initial concept of Billdr.

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Billdr provides a managed home renovation marketplace that matches homeowner customers with vetted contractors. Their team can handle everything from design and architectural plans to quotes and project management. “Our ultimate goal is to make renovation simple and accessible to everyone,” says Raphael Sammut, General Manager at Billdr.

OpenPhone integrations used:

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Watch how Billdr scaled to new markets with OpenPhone

The challenge

The solution

The impact

The challenge

Billdr needed a phone system to replace the most antiquated one of all

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When Raphael Sammut joined Billdr in March 2021 as its general manager, he was tasked with expanding its marketplace for home renovation projects into new markets. As he assessed the business and determined a plan of action, he noticed something that would have to be remedied if Billdr wanted to grow — teammates used their personal phones to interact with customers and contractors.

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The use of personal phones to conduct business needed to end.

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“With personal phones, things sometimes get lost and our team had no way to coordinate or collaborate effectively,” Raphael says. “There was no record to know who called who. They also had hundreds of business contacts that had their personal numbers.”

"I can’t imagine how we would operate without OpenPhone, but it would be less organized and we’d have no visibility on the communication trail."

Raphael Sammut

General Manager at Billdr

The solution

OpenPhone promised to keep teammates in the loop and on task

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While researching how to obtain and set up a main phone number for the business that customers could call and get routed to a representative in their market, Raphael discovered OpenPhone.

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With OpenPhone, Billdr customers can call a toll-free North American number without paying long-distance fees, select their city, speak to a local representative, and arrange an on-site visit effortlessly. This alone, according to Raphael, is indispensable.

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And because all their customer interactions — every phone call recording, text message, and more — are centralized in OpenPhone, Billdr teammates can be on the same page as they continue conversations with clients.

The impact

OpenPhone gave Billdr the opportunity to grow more effortlessly

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Since adopting OpenPhone, business is booming at Billdr. “Now customers have a single number they can use to communicate with us, we have hundreds of leads and current customers right now,” says Raphael. “There’s no way we could have done that before.”

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Managing the influx of new customers has been a cinch for Raphael and his teams, too, thanks to OpenPhone’s conversation history. “It just makes it so much easier. You don’t have to log calls or take detailed notes. If you want to see the communication history with any client, you can simply review the thread,” says Raphael.

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And as Billdr expands to more markets, OpenPhone will be one of the driving forces in their tech stack. “New market expansion is now straightforward. We add a new number and change a few phone settings and that’s it. It only takes five minutes to be able to scale our phone system,” says Raphael.

“Now customers have a single number they can use to communicate with us. We have hundreds of leads and current customers right now. There’s no way we could have done that before.”