A missed call in home services is a missed job. In a Massachusetts October, that can be a five-figure heating replacement going to the next company on Google.
Ross Hunt started 3R Plumbing & Mechanical in 2022 out of his garage with one pickup truck. In its early days, the veteran-owned residential HVAC and plumbing company did about $300,000 a year. This year, it’s on track for nearly $3.8 million. It now has 15 employees, a shop in Norwell, Massachusetts, and customers in about 21 South Shore towns. The next target is $5 million.
Mission first, then the trades
Ross grew up on the South Shore and graduated from Hingham High School. He served in the U.S. Army with the 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team out of Germany and deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
When he got out, he went straight into the trades. He started as an apprentice at a small shop in Quincy, added HVAC, earned his EPA certification, oil burner license, and home improvement contractor license, and worked his way up to Massachusetts Master Plumber. Over 18 years he worked on everything from Back Bay brownstones to dispensaries, medical offices, and warehouses.
He built 3R on one idea: run a trades company the way the Army taught him to run a mission. Show up on time, tell the truth, and finish what you start. The company’s name carries that standard: Recruit the Best. Run It Right. Respect the Mission.
“At the end of the day, I’m a tradesman. I went to plumbing school. I was in the military. I’m not a computer person. Everything I’ve built, I taught myself on late nights, trying to answer one question: how do I get this information without having to go look it up?” — Ross Hunt, founder and owner, 3R Plumbing & Mechanical
Classic Zaps did the heavy lifting first
Ross started using Zapier in late 2022, the same year he founded 3R. Classic Zaps handled the jobs a small company can’t afford to drop, like sending new hires from a Google Form straight into DocuSign offer paperwork and moving lead and form data between apps.
As 3R grew, so did the Zaps. By mid-2026, more of the team was on the account, and 3R was regularly running past its monthly task limit.
Then came Next-Gen Zaps
Along the way, Ross taught himself to program by working through real problems with AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT. When Zapier invited him into the Next-Gen Zaps early access program in August 2026, he was ready.
He describes what he needs to Claude, which is connected to Zapier through Zapier MCP, and Claude writes and publishes the workflow. Ross reviews the logic, tests each one, and checks that the data lands where it should.
His first Next-Gen Zap went live at the end of August. Most of the rest followed between late September and mid-October. Today, 36 are live, running about 1,400 times a week.
“I used to build Zaps the old-school way: set the trigger, add the paths, clone them, tweak them. It worked, but it took a lot of time, and the average small business isn’t going to put that kind of time in. Now I tell Claude what I need and Zapier builds it. It’s like the whole thing got unlocked.”
ServiceTitan stays the system of record
Ross set one rule early. ServiceTitan is where 3R’s data lives. Everything else reads from it or writes back to it, and Zapier is the layer in between.
“ServiceTitan is the database. Zapier is the nervous system. ServiceTitan doesn’t connect directly to Claude or ChatGPT, but it’s worked with Zapier for years. So Zapier is how AI gets into everything we do.”
The setup works on demand, too. When 3R needs a new item in its ServiceTitan price book, Ross types a quick request into a Claude project that already knows 3R’s GL accounts and average labor times. Claude adds the item through Zapier’s ServiceTitan actions, and Ross finishes anything that’s left with Claude in Chrome.
Scheduled Next-Gen Zaps pull ServiceTitan calls, jobs, estimates, invoices, and memberships every hour and feed a portal for each role at 3R:
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CSR portal: a live call-back queue of abandoned calls, unbooked leads, and estimates that need follow-up, refreshed every 15 minutes.
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Sales portal: every open estimate with its line items. Follow-ups and “not buying” decisions push straight back into ServiceTitan.
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Warehouse and purchasing portal: POs, receipts, and returns sync with ServiceTitan, with an instant push when someone approves a PO.
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Marketing portal: ad spend, calls, booked jobs, reviews, and memberships by channel, plus community events to sponsor.
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Owner dashboard: revenue by month, updated hourly, with a refresh button that fires a Zap on demand.
Every weekday at 6:30 a.m., a morning brief emails Ross and the operations manager the day’s board, callbacks, and open capacity. On Fridays, a weekly report adds tech grades and revenue by tech. A data-watchdog Zap checks every feed each morning and emails Ross if anything is stale.
“Most people use the Zapier MCP connector to ask for something, then ask again, then ask again. If you’re asking Claude for the same thing every day, why prompt it every time? Tell it once, and let a Next-Gen Zap deliver it on a schedule.”
Catching the lead before it goes cold
The Zaps Ross values most catch mistakes before they cost money. If a booking from 3R’s AI answering service, a lead marketplace, or the website sits pending for 20 minutes, Ross gets an email.
Landing-page leads from Facebook ads create a ServiceTitan booking, text Ross, and email the homeowner a confirmation within seconds. A daily check flags any that are still pending after 24 hours.
Another Zap checks every job booked in the last 30 days against the tracking number the customer actually called, and flags jobs tagged to the wrong campaign.
“I like seeing it step by step: this goes to this, which goes to this. If something breaks in the chain, I can see exactly where. Nothing slips through without somebody knowing about it.”
Knowing which ads pay for themselves
Ross wanted Google Ads to learn from paying jobs. Three Next-Gen Zaps now handle that. Each morning they send Google Ads the real lead calls, booked jobs, and completed-job revenue from ServiceTitan, matched to the original ad click, so Google can optimize toward the work that pays.
Daily Zaps also pull search terms, quality scores, and GA4 landing-page data, so wasted spend shows up before the month ends.
Beyond the office
The same approach handles the work around the edges. A cleanup Zap dismissed thousands of open estimates left over from a data migration, with a guard so it could never touch a sold estimate. A discount audit groups every rebate and discount line by account. A daily scout finds South Shore events and sponsorships for the marketing team.
And 3R’s Veterans Day free water heater giveaway runs on Zaps. Every nomination from the website or Facebook is logged, the office and Ross get an alert, and each nominator gets a confirmation email.
What it adds up to
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36 live Next-Gen Zaps, running about 1,400 times a week, on top of 3R’s classic Zaps
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30 connected apps, led by ServiceTitan
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About $300,000 to a projected $3.8 million in annual revenue since 2022
What’s next at 3R
Ross sees the last six weeks as the foundation. His rule is simple: nobody at 3R should be doing work a computer can do. The next wave is already in progress.
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Briefs for every role. A Monday marketing brief for 3R’s marketing director, and a sales morning email that gives each salesperson their calls due, follow-ups, and month-to-date numbers.
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Hiring. Indeed applicants flow into the operations portal, and new-hire paperwork goes straight to DocuSign.
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Purchasing from the field. Technicians post a PO or receipt in Google Chat, and a Zap reads it, logs it, and matches it to the card charge. Vendor bills attach to the right ServiceTitan job on their own.
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Closing the loop with customers. Review requests after every paid job, missed-call text-backs to the CSR on duty, and renewal reminders for the Total Care Club membership.
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Finance that checks itself. QuickBooks and ServiceTitan reconciled automatically, overdue-invoice reminders, and a weekly cash snapshot.
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One operations app. The portals come together in one place where everyone at 3R gets their answers and does their work without switching programs or waiting on the office.
The goal is to grow to $5 million and beyond without growing the office at the same rate, and to keep technicians in customers’ homes instead of on data entry.
“Most small businesses have no idea what Zapier can do unless they’re big or they’re a computer person. They think it’s going to cost a fortune, take forever, and break the minute they touch it. It doesn’t. If a plumber can build this, any trades owner can.”
Ross Hunt is the founder and owner of 3R Plumbing & Mechanical, a veteran-owned residential HVAC and plumbing company in Norwell, Massachusetts.
Learn more about Next-Gen Zaps.