Most sites that review software for contractors are written by marketers who have never dispatched a truck. This one is written by someone who does it every day.

Who’s behind this site

My name is Sergei Barmichev. I own an appliance repair company in the Tampa Bay area — Element Appliance Repair and a few local brands under it. I came to the United States about six and a half years ago and built the business from zero, in my second language, one job at a time. Today it runs with one technician and one dispatcher, which means every tool I use has to work for a very small crew with no IT department.

Along the way I did three things that most software reviewers haven’t:

• I built my own CRM. The field-service platforms on the market didn’t fit a shop my size, so I built one — Botivus — and I run my company on it alongside ServiceM8. I know what these systems do under the hood because I’ve had to make one.
• I automated my dispatch with Make.com. My dispatcher books jobs by typing them into a Telegram chat; an automation I built parses the message and creates the job in ServiceM8. It has run without an error since day one. The real numbers are here.
• I buy and sell leads. I’ve run paid lead sources for my own shop and I sell appliance-repair leads to other operators. I know what a phone call is worth to a trade business — and what a missed one costs.

What this site is for

Two things.

Guides that owners can use. Comparisons of AI phone answering, field-service CRMs, review tools and automation platforms — for HVAC, plumbing, electrical and appliance shops with 1 to 25 techs. Where I’ve used a tool, I say so and show what it did. Where I haven’t, I say that too.

Doing the work for other shops. The automations I built for my own company — AI phone answering that books into your CRM, quote follow-up, a one-page morning dashboard — I now install for other trade businesses. Same three products, same build, your logo. Here’s what that costs and how it works.

How I make money here

Two ways, and I’d rather you know both. First, client work: owners hire me to install the systems above. Second, some links to software are referral links — if you sign up through them, the vendor pays me a commission. That never changes what I recommend. I ran Make.com before there was a link, and if a tool is wrong for your shop I’ll say so whether they pay me or not. Full disclosure here and how I rate tools here.

Get in touch

If you own a trade business and something in your office is broken — calls going to voicemail, quotes not followed up, no idea what yesterday’s numbers were — book a 15‑minute call. If you just have a question about a tool, email tampabayaf@gmail.com. I answer within 2–3 business days.