The Ghost Ride-Along: Coaching From the Kitchen Table

Technicians sit in a lot of kitchens. 

You know the scene: technician at the table, customer staring at a price sheet, maybe their arms crossed, maybe worried about how much this is gonna cost. 

That’s the moment the whole job rides on. 

The kitchen table close.

For years, managers never got to see it. 

We could listen to call recordings, we could role-play in the training room, but when it came to the big stage, the customer’s kitchen, we were blind. 

No ride-along unless you literally burned a whole day sitting in the passenger seat, making the tech nervous as hell, and still only catching a couple conversations.

Now we’ve got a new player in the game: the ghost ride-along. 

Tools like Rilla, ServiceTitan's Field Pro, SalesAsk, and Siro don’t need a truck or a clipboard. 

They sit quietly on the tech’s phone, recording, transcribing, analyzing. 

Later, the manager, or even the tech themselves, can pull up the play, see where they fumbled, where they crushed it, and what to tighten up next time.

It’s like putting game film on the sales process. And just like football, the film doesn’t lie.

Why This Matters

Every job becomes a lesson.

• Not just the “lucky” ones where a manager was around. 
• Every kitchen table. Every crawlspace conversation.
• Faster learning curve. Instead of waiting for quarterly ride-alongs, techs can hear themselves and adjust next day.
• Paperwork shrinks. Automatic notes, drafted follow-ups, less time typing, more time selling.
• The money shot. Vendors brag about 25–37% sales lifts. Even if that’s inflated, if you get half of that, you’re still stacking serious dollars.

The Catch

Before you go buying licenses for the whole company, hear me out.

• Consent. You’re recording inside someone’s home. Get sloppy here and you’re in lawsuit territory. Every state has its own rules, and customers don’t like surprises.
• Noise. Crawlspaces, barking dogs, HVAC fans, it’s not a call center headset. Audio gets messy fast.
• Tech buy-in. Some guys will say, “I don’t want Big Brother in my pocket.” If you don’t frame this as coaching not spying, you’ll kill morale before you ever see results.
• Shiny-object trap. Tools don’t close sales. People do. If your managers don’t actually coach off these recordings, you just bought an expensive digital paperweight.

Call Center vs. Field

We’ve had this tech in call centers for years. 

Observe.AI, Balto, NICE, etc, they all pump out real-time coaching, QA scores, and dashboards. 

That’s easy when your reps sit in a quiet office with headsets.

The field is a different beast. 

The kitchen table is noisy, unpredictable, human. 

These apps aren’t perfect, but they finally pull back the curtain on that moment we’ve been guessing at forever. 

It’s the missing link between the dispatch board and the invoice.

How to Pilot in 30 Days

Don’t roll this out company-wide on day one. That’s how you waste money and piss people off. Do it like this:

Week 1 – Get Legal, Get Setup
Write a consent script. Train your techs on how to explain it. Test the app on your phones.

Week 2 – Small Launch
Pick 3–5 techs. Give them chargers or lav mics if needed. Start collecting conversations.

Week 3 – Watch the Film
Sit down once that week like a football team. Review clips. Build a highlight reel of “golden talk-tracks” everyone can learn from.

Week 4 – Check the Scoreboard
Measure close rate, average ticket, financing attach, rehash conversions. Compare pilot vs. control group. Decide: expand, tweak, or scrap.

Buyer Beware

Here’s the truth: this software can be a rocket booster or a money pit.

• If you ignore consent, you’re toast.
• If you don’t build a coaching culture, nothing changes.
• If you just believe vendor case studies without testing, you’ll end up explaining to ownership why you lit thousands on fire.
• Done right, though? These tools give you eyes where you’ve always been blind. The ghost ride-along. The kitchen-table film session. The shot at finally coaching the most important part of the job.

And in this business, that’s everything.

The Showdown: Rilla vs. Field Pro vs. SalesAsk vs. Siro

Here’s how I see it when the dust settles:

I picture four trucks lined up in the yard before a shift. Each has a different “ghost ride-along” riding shotgun. Same job ahead, but each one’s bringing different baggage and different horsepower.

Rilla – This one’s like the scrappy disruptor. It’s built for trades, integrates clean with ServiceTitan, and promises to capture every conversation. It’s light on the truck, doesn’t need much extra gear, and managers love the clean dashboards. Downside? It ain’t cheap. And if you don’t coach on the data, all you’ve got is a pile of transcriptions.

ServiceTitan Field Pro (formerly Sales Pro, formerly Siro) – This is the hometown favorite if you’re already living in Titan. Soon it will have tight integration, one less login, one less app to confuse techs. It shines for financing presentations and menu selling. But it can feel heavy-handed, like carrying a whole toolbox just to tighten one bolt. Techs may roll their eyes at the extra steps, and the price tag carries the usual Titan premium.

SalesAsk – This one shows up with the flashiest sales pitch. The company will tell you about 37% lift in sales and double-digit boosts in close rate. If even half of that’s real, it’s impressive. But like any hype-man, you’ve got to cut through the noise. Proof lives in your own A/B pilot. Some shops swear by it, others bounce off fast when the adoption curve gets steep.

When it comes down to it, there’s no one-size-fits-all winner.

If you’re already knee-deep in ServiceTitan, Field Pro might make the most sense.

If you want maximum coaching horsepower and don’t mind the price tag, Rilla is the pick.

If you like bold claims and want to test if the hype works for your market, give SalesAsk a 30-day pilot.

But here’s the kicker: none of them matter if your managers don’t actually sit down with the film and coach. The best “ghost ride-along” in the world won’t close a job for your techs. It just gives you eyes on the play. What you do with it, that’s the real game.