Callvera Founder Shares How Necessity was the Mother of Invention in Building an Efficient Franchise Call Center
- David Finneran and Cole Ruud-Johnson had more than a decade of experience running franchise call centers with human receptionists before building the Callvera AI answering service.
- Human receptionists answer an average 80% of inbound calls, as compared with Callvera, which responds to 99% of calls, texts and emails, Finneran says.
- Callvera is purpose-built for franchises, handling calls for franchisees such as requests for information, estimates or service, and also supporting franchise development for franchisors.
David Finneran and Cole Ruud-Johnson ran franchise call centers for home service brands for more than a decade. Their clients included Mighty Dog Roofing, That 1 Painter, CertaPro Painters and hundreds of others. Finneran describes the work this way: “The job was simple and ugly. Answer the phone when the tech is on a roof, book the job into the CRM and do it the same way at every location.”
There had to be a better way. “We sat on the same missed-call problem franchisors still have, then built the system we wished those centers had,” Finneran says. Artificial intelligence provided the solution, and the Callvera AI answering service was born.
“Callvera is the communications and revenue-intelligence layer for home-service franchise systems,” says Finneran, who co-founded the company with Ruud-Johnson and now serves as CEO. Callvera works like this: Using conversational automation, the AI agent handles inbound and outbound calls, texts and emails, understands the reason for the call based on extensive training, collects relevant information and completes approved actions. Depending on the workflow, this might include answering common questions, qualifying leads, scheduling appointments, transferring urgent calls or creating follow-up tasks.
The Problem with Humans
The motivation for developing the AI answering service was “seeing missed calls and leaky conversion every day,” Finneran says. “Other centers dropped calls. Leads sat. Humans needed retraining every time someone quit. A human receptionist answers about 80% of inbound. One missed roofing call is several thousand dollars that never hits the calendar. Multiply that across a network and you are not looking at a staffing issue. You are looking at a conversion floor HQ cannot see.”
Callvera, by comparison, responds to 99% of calls, texts or emails with no downtime, then books estimates or services directly into clients’ customer relationship management systems, Finneran says. Human interaction is not needed unless the caller wants to speak to a person, then the system makes a live transfer.
“We had already handled hundreds of thousands of real in-person calls. That became the training set. AI was the logical next tool because it does not call in sick, it does not churn, and once you train the process, it keeps it. We did not bolt a voice onto a generic bot. We built an AI contact center for franchise systems from that call history.”
This training enables the AI agent to respond efficiently, understand the context of inquiries and answer questions. And the system continues to learn as it’s being asked more questions.
Speed to Lead Matters
Response times directly impact conversion rates, whether it’s involving a call from a potential customer or franchise candidate. Consider the research, as reported by Franchise Business Review:
- A business is 21 times more likely to convert a caller within the first five minutes of them calling than it would be 30 minutes later.
- The average response time for franchise businesses is very low; research from 2025 shows some 66% of franchises don’t even answer the call.
- Of the people whose calls are missed, 85% don’t call back.
Finneran and Ruud-Johnson are intimately familiar with these kinds of statistics, as well as the negative impact of slow responses and missed calls on revenue, customer experience and brand reputation. And more than a decade of headaches running human-powered call centers provided the inspiration for them to apply their entrepreneurial skills and hustle in creating a better, AI-powered system.
Problems Fuel Innovation
Finneran, originally from Australia, had studied architecture at the University of Sydney. He moved into operations and began running call centers. “Cole and I connected through that same home services-call center world,” says Finneran, who caught the entrepreneurial bug “from just being in the work,” experiencing problems with missed calls and conversion problems every day, which drove him to pursue an AI solution. He shared the same vision and drive with Ruud-Johnson, a real estate entrepreneur who started investing at age 19 and has since built multiple successful businesses.
Finneran came to the U.S. to partner with Ruud-Johnson in building Callvera’s AI answering service. Ruud-Johnson now leads finance for Callvera while Finneran runs the product and the company as CEO. Their emphasis isn’t solely on the system, but also on customer service, making sure their franchise clients have the support and training they need throughout the duration of their relationships.
What’s next for Callvera is more improvements to the AI answering service, Finneran says. “Tighter HQ visibility by location. Faster implementation when a franchisor adds a brand or a seasonal offer. Outbound and lead follow-up so fran-dev and consumer leads do not die in a queue.”
Visit Callvera for more information about AI call centers, questions to ask when evaluating their services and more.
