Speed, service and a surprising comparison

By Jesse Sanchez. 

How Tracey Donels is reshaping roofing service departments one fast, high-quality repair at a time. 

In this Roofing Road Trips® episode, industry consultant Tracey Donels of Service First Solutions draws a sharp and compelling comparison between a fast-food giant and the roofing service world, and it’s not just about chicken sandwiches. With nearly two decades in the commercial roofing space and a reputation built from the ground up, Tracey now leads Service First Solutions, a training and consulting firm laser-focused on helping contractors grow their service and maintenance departments. Tracey shares, “I was the guy who started in a roofing service truck and then never left the service department after 20 years.” 

“Service is all about speed,” he says. “You can't simply go out there and say you're going to do a good repair. No one's going to go and say they do a bad repair. It's all about providing a good product with good customer service at a high rate of speed. That’s where the Chick-fil-A model comes in.” Tracey highlights the company’s ability to deliver a consistent product with fast, polite service, even during peak demand. He sees that same potential in roofing, if companies are willing to invest in systems and culture. 

“The person at Chick-fil-A who takes your order, who's standing outside in the 90-degree heat, doesn't run inside and start making chicken nuggets when you order a number two,” he explains. It is the same in roofing. He elaborates, “Good quality people, they've been given a role, they've been given training and they've been given leadership.” 

Tracey argues that many roofing companies still underestimate the power of their service departments, not just as profit centers, but as relationship builders that lead to long-term projects. He shares, “During my last two years when I was contracting, more than 50% of our project revenue came directly from service clients.” If you’re a contractor wondering how to break out of the race to the bottom on price, Tracey has a clear message: “The more little problems we solve for our customers, the more they're going to come back. And the more they come back, the more problems they have and the bigger problems they will be.” 

That kind of long-term strategy isn’t about flash, it’s about discipline, processes and building trust one leak at a time. For anyone thinking about launching or scaling a roofing service division, Tracey offers a roadmap based on real-world experience and a few unexpected analogies that hit home. 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about why service might just be the most underestimated growth opportunity in roofing today!