ORIT MENDELS
VP Marketing
Workiz
Orit Mendels is VP Marketing at Workiz, a leading field service management software company pioneering AI to empower home service businesses. She brings 20 years of experience introducing advanced technologies and services. Before Workiz, Orit led marketing at PassportCard and served as VP of Marketing & Strategic Alliances at Novatrans Group. Before that, she was Marketing Director for Comverse’s Multimedia Messaging Division and part of Orange’s founding team, building customer‑centric, growth‑driven go‑to‑market programs with measurable impact. The Workiz journey began with a couple of locksmith pros down in San Diego, California. The bigger their locksmith business grew, the more they realized how much time they were wasting on daily mundane tasks and that they needed a software system to help them out. In 2015, after extensive research they found nothing that perfectly suited the needs of their business and out of sheer frustration, they decided to take matters into their own hands and create their very own field service digital headquarters. Today, Workiz is one of the leading field service platforms with over 120,000 service pros.
CMO Council founder and Executive Director, Donovan Neale-May, interviewed Orit Mendels, VP Marketing, Workiz, on how they are transforming Field Services Management in aid of service professionals in this market worth $500 billion in North America.
CMO COUNCIL: What is the size and segmentation of the field service management market worldwide?
MENDELS: The North American SMB field service management market represents a massive opportunity, valued at over $500 billion in North America alone. What makes this market particularly fascinating is its extreme fragmentation. Unlike enterprise solutions that serve homogeneous needs, the SMB field service sector comprises hundreds of distinct verticals, from HVAC and plumbing to appliance repair and garage door installation, each with unique operational workflows, regulatory requirements, and customer engagement patterns. Consider this: 90% of field service businesses have fewer than 20 employees, yet they collectively generate more revenue than Fortune 500 companies. This fragmentation has historically been seen as a challenge, but at Workiz, we've turned it into our competitive advantage. We've discovered that a garage door installation business operates fundamentally differently from an HVAC company, different seasonal patterns, different regulatory compliance needs, different customer interaction frequencies. By deeply understanding these nuances and building vertical-specific solutions rather than one-size-fits-all platforms, we're able to capture significant market share in each segment we enter.
CMO COUNCIL: How did Workiz get started and what has driven its growth, adoption and use worldwide?
MENDELS: Workiz has a unique origin story that sets us apart from typical Silicon Valley startups. Our founders were actual locksmiths who built and scaled their own service businesses. As their operation grew from a single van to multiple locations, they experienced firsthand the operational chaos that comes with growth: double-bookings, missed appointments, cash flow challenges, and the constant struggle to maintain service quality while scaling. They built their first management system out of necessity, not ambition. But when they sold their thriving locksmith business, they realized their real innovation wasn't in locks, it was in the platform that enabled their growth. They had inadvertently solved a problem that plagues millions of service businesses worldwide. What's driven our explosive growth, over 120,000 pros now use Workiz daily, is this DNA of practitioner-built software. Our platform wasn't designed in a boardroom; it was forged in the field. This authenticity resonates with our customers because they see themselves in our product. When a plumber uses Workiz, they're using software built by people who've literally been in their work boots.
Our growth has accelerated due to three converging trends:
- The Great Resignation has made skilled technicians 35% harder to find than pre-COVID
- Digital natives are taking over family businesses and demanding modern tools
- Customer expectations have shifted, they now expect Amazon-like service experiences from their local plumber
This momentum has earned us recognition as one of “Built In's Best Places to Work in 2025,” reflecting our commitment not just to our customers, but to building a company culture that attracts top talent to revolutionize this industry.
CMO COUNCIL: In what areas does the Workiz platform empower and add value to field service operators of all sizes?
MENDELS: At its core, Workiz embodies our philosophy of "automating everything but the wrench." We're a management system integrated with a communication platform, addressing the fact that 80% of field service failures stem from communication breakdowns, between office and field, between business and customer, between service and sales teams. Our platform addresses the entire business lifecycle:
Operational Excellence: We've reduced average scheduling time from 15 minutes to 90 seconds per job. Our smart dispatching considers traffic patterns, technician skills, and inventory availability, resulting in 23% more jobs completed per day for our average customer.
Financial Transformation: By integrating fintech capabilities directly into workflows, our customers report 35% increase in revenue within the first 3 months, not from working harder, but from capturing previously lost opportunities.
Customer Experience Revolution: Our Workiz AI Genius suite, including Smart Messaging, sends personalized updates at every touchpoint. Users report a 45% increase in customer satisfaction with these features. Businesses using our full communication stack build stronger reputations and generate more referrals through consistently excellent service experiences.
Revenue Transformation Through AI: Our Genius Answering service represents a quantum leap in solving the industry's biggest pain point, missed opportunities. Consider this: the average service business misses 30% of calls, and 70% of those occur after hours. Our AI captures every single lead, books appointments, and provides instant quotes 24/7. Users have reported a 33% improvement in response time, and what was once the biggest source of lost revenue has become a massive revenue generator. One plumbing company reported capturing an additional $50,000 per month just from after-hours calls they previously missed.
Growth Enablement: Perhaps most importantly, we facilitate the professionalization journey. We've seen countless one-truck operations grow into multi-location businesses. Our platform scales seamlessly, the same workflows that work for a solo operator support a 20-technician operation without missing a beat.
CMO COUNCIL: How is AI infusion bringing greater usability, productivity, efficiency and value to your offering?
MENDELS: We're witnessing a paradigm shift in field service: 67% of service businesses plan to implement AI tools in 2025, but most are thinking too small, chatbots and basic automation. At Workiz, we're implementing AI as a force multiplier that fundamentally changes what's possible for an SMB through our comprehensive Workiz AI Genius suite. Our AI capabilities include:
Genius Answering: This isn't just an answering service, it's a full AI-powered receptionist that schedules appointments, provides quotes, and upsells services. One HVAC customer reported their Genius Answering converted 42% more after-hours calls into booked appointments, adding significant annual revenue without hiring additional staff. The 33% improvement in response time means no lead goes cold.
Genius Leads Integration: Our breakthrough feature instantly generates and schedules jobs directly from incoming leads across multiple platforms, Reserve with Google, Angi, Thumbtack, JB Warranties, Dispatch.me, and more. This seamless integration eliminates manual work, ensuring no opportunity is lost and dramatically reducing response time from hours to seconds.
Smart Messaging: Part of our AI Genius suite, this feature optimizes every customer touchpoint, contributing to the 45% increase in customer satisfaction our users experience.
The revolutionary aspect? An SMB with 5 employees can now deliver the operational sophistication of a national corporation. We're democratizing excellence while staying true to our mission of automating everything except the actual trade work.
CMO COUNCIL: Where are your marketing investments focused and what are some of the challenges and complexities?
MENDELS: Our marketing strategy centers on vertical dominance. Rather than being everything to everyone, we're systematically becoming the undisputed leader in specific trades. This focus allows us to speak the language of each trade fluently, we don't market to "field service businesses"; we market to plumbers, to HVAC technicians, to appliance repair specialists. The specificity of the vertical also
improves the quality of our AI solutions as they build on more robust, industry-specific data sources.
Our investments concentrate on:
Thought Leadership: We're positioning Workiz as the architect of the "AI-First Field Service Revolution." This isn't just messaging, we're investing heavily in education, showing businesses not just what's possible today, but preparing them for tomorrow. Our "automating everything but the wrench" philosophy resonates because it respects the craft while embracing innovation.
Strategic Partnerships: We're embedding ourselves in the trade ecosystem. Our recent partnerships with industry giants like Trane and American Standard, along with our integration with JB Warranties, demonstrate our commitment to being where our customers are. We also partner with Reserve with Google, Angi, Thumbtack, Home Depot Pro, and many more. When a technician starts their career, we want Workiz to be part of their toolkit from day one.
The primary challenge is mindset transformation. Many service businesses have operated the same way for generations. Our marketing must bridge the gap between honoring their expertise while showing them a dramatically better path forward. We're not selling software; we're selling transformation, and that requires a delicate balance of respect for tradition and excitement for innovation.
CMO COUNCIL: How does Workiz plan to scale and expand its business base in North America and where are the biggest growth opportunities?
MENDELS: Our expansion strategy focuses on deepening our dominance in the North American market by leveraging the AI revolution as a catalyst for unprecedented growth. Having achieved significant milestones in 2025, including our Built-In recognition and strategic partnerships with Trane and American Standard, we're positioned to accelerate our vision of ‘automating everything but the wrench’ across the entire $500 billion market. Immediate Opportunities:
The Workiz AI Genius Marketplace: We're expanding our AI Genius suite into a full marketplace where specialized AI agents can be deployed instantly. Imagine an HVAC business adding Spanish-language Genius Answering, advanced route optimization, and predictive maintenance alerts with three clicks. This marketplace approach could 10x our addressable market within 24 months, all within North America.
The Professionalization Wave: As baby boomer owners retire, $10 trillion in business value will transfer to the next generation in the coming decade. These digital-native successors are actively seeking platforms like Workiz to modernize operations they're inheriting. This generational shift represents a major growth opportunity.
Biggest Growth Accelerator: Our biggest growth accelerator is the compound effect of AI advancement. Each AI Genius agent we deploy not only solves today's problems but collects data that makes tomorrow's AI even smarter. We're building a flywheel where success breeds exponentially greater success.
The Future we Envision? A market where every small field service business delivers Fortune 500-level service excellence. Where AI handles the “boring tasks”, allowing humans to focus on craft and customer relationships. Where "small business" no longer means "limited capability." This isn't just Workiz's opportunity, it's a revolution in how services are delivered, and we're proud to be leading the charge in our home market where we understand the nuances, regulations, and customer expectations better than anyone.
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