How Restoration Owners Can Use AI to Finally See Their Business Clearly

Restoration companies move fast. Jobs open and close every day, calls stack up during storms, equipment gets shifted between sites, and crews jump from customer to customer with little time to slow down. Owners develop an instinct for how the business is doing, but instincts don’t always reveal the full picture. You may feel “slammed,” but revenue might actually be flat. You may think TPAs are carrying the business, but Google leads might be quietly carrying your margins. You may think your PMs are balanced, while one of them is buried.

The information exists inside your CRM, your call logs, and your job history. AI simply makes it visible.

Below is a practical walkthrough showing how to use AI to understand your business with the clarity of a consultant, using nothing more than your exported data and the prompts included here.

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Start with a simple job export

This is where the clarity begins. Export the last three to six months of jobs from your CRM. Make sure your export includes job type, revenue, lead source, dates opened/closed, and PM or estimator names.

Copy 50–200 rows into ChatGPT, then use:

Prompt:

I own a restoration company. I’m going to paste job data. Please give me a simple summary that includes total jobs, total revenue, average revenue per job, jobs and revenue by job type, and jobs and revenue by lead source. After the summary, add 3 to 5 insights a business owner would care about. Here is the data:[PASTE TABLE]

What the results usually look like — and how to read them

AI will hand you a clean overview, almost like a monthly executive briefing. You’ll see total revenue, job averages, the breakdown between water/mold/fire/recon, and how your lead sources compare.

Pay attention to:

• Which job types generate the majority of your revenue

• Whether your average revenue is rising or falling

• Whether one lead source is carrying the business

• Whether you’re doing a lot of low-value work that clutters the schedule

This gives you the “shape” of your business instantly.

Find out which leads are truly profitable

Owners often believe their most common lead source is their most valuable. It’s usually not.

Use this:

Prompt:

Using the data below, focus on lead sources. Calculate number of jobs, total revenue, and average revenue per job for each lead source. Rank them from most valuable to least valuable. Then write a short summary explaining what I should pay attention to and what actions I might take. Here is the data: [PASTE TABLE]

What the results will show — and how to act on them

You’ll likely see a split between:

• High-volume, low-value sources (often TPAs)

• Moderate-volume, high-value sources (Google, referrals, PMs)

Look for:

• Outlier lead sources that consistently outperform others

• Sources that burn time without producing revenue

• Costly leads (like Google PPC) that may actually be worth every penny

Based on the results, owners often shift marketing budget, renegotiate TPA participation, or build a stronger relationship with property managers who send high-quality work.

See which job types drive profit — and which slow you down

This analysis gives you clarity on where your crews spend their time versus where your company earns its money.

Use this:

Prompt:

Analyze the data by job type. For each type, calculate number of jobs, total revenue, average revenue per job, and average cycle time. Explain which job types produce the most revenue, which produce the highest average revenue, and which tend to drag out. Include a short owner-level interpretation with specific recommendations. Data: [PASTE TABLE]

How to interpret the results

Most owners discover:

• Water mitigation generates the majority of volume

• Mold is profitable but inconsistent

• Fire jobs create big revenue but take far longer than expected

• Recon ties up teams and increases job cycle time

If cycle time is long on a certain category, it might be affecting cash flow. If a category is profitable but infrequent, consider marketing to generate more of it. If recon consistently drags, look at workflow, staffing, or subcontractor coordination.

Understand the workload and strengths of your PMs and estimators

This is valuable for staffing, scheduling, and performance coaching.

Use:

Prompt:

Analyze performance by estimator or project manager using the data below. Calculate number of jobs, total revenue, average revenue per job, and average cycle time for each person. Give me a short explanation of who carries the most volume, who handles the highest-value jobs, and who might be overloaded. Add a few suggestions about how to rebalance or support the team. Data:[PASTE TABLE]

How to use the results

You’ll see:

• Which PM ends up with most of the complex work

• Which estimator brings in higher-value jobs

• Whether anyone is consistently overloaded

• Whether cycle times vary significantly between managers

If one PM’s jobs close much slower, it may indicate bottlenecks in communication, vendor coordination, or workload. If one estimator consistently produces higher-value projects, you may want them focused on your most profitable categories.

This is a straightforward way to build a more balanced and more efficient team.

Let AI surface your hidden bottlenecks

Once AI understands your data, ask it to look for problems you may not spot at a glance.

Prompt:

Act as an operations consultant. Using the data I share, identify likely bottlenecks in job flow. Consider cycle time, job type complexity, lead source quality, and workload distribution. For each bottleneck, explain the likely cause, the financial impact, and one or two changes I could test in the next 30 days. Data:[PASTE TABLE]

What to look for in the output

AI will find things like:

• Recon jobs that routinely stay open 30+ days longer than others

• A PM who’s carrying twice the load of someone else

• Lead sources that clog your schedule with low-value work

• Types of losses that require extra documentation or approvals

These insights often translate into easy changes:

• Adjusting job assignments

• Tightening the recon workflow

• Increasing follow-up speed on specific job categories

• Streamlining approvals

• Revisiting participation in certain TPA programs

You’ll get a 30-day playbook that actually makes sense.

Tie everything back to your calls and missed opportunities

Revenue starts with calls. Before a job becomes a job, it starts as a ring you may or may not answer. Most companies don’t know when they miss calls or how much revenue is lost each month.

Export your call log and use:

Prompt:

I’m pasting a call log with date, time, caller ID, duration, and whether the call was answered. Summarize total calls, missed calls, and the times of day and days of week when missed calls peak. Estimate lost revenue assuming an average $3,000 ticket unless I specify otherwise. Include practical suggestions for improving call capture. Data: [PASTE LOG]

What to watch for

Patterns become clear:

• Missed calls spike at lunch or in the early evening

• weekends produce more calls than expected

• storms create predictable storms of activity

• certain hours consistently cost you thousands

You’ll also see if missed calls cluster around specific times of day, giving you a real basis for adjusting staffing or adding coverage.

Where Breesy fits into your new level of insight

The prompts above give you deeper visibility into your business than most owners ever experience. And they work with nothing more than your CRM exports and a basic AI assistant.

But there’s still one crucial blind spot that AI alone can’t solve: knowing exactly what’s happening on your calls.

Breesy fills that gap with transparency and structure.

With Breesy, you see:

• Every call

• Every lead

• Every intake

• Which calls turn into jobs

• Which calls represent missed revenue

• What each caller actually needed in the moment

Breesy shows you the entire path from “incoming call” to “closed job,” and that is the missing link for most restoration owners. You get the truth about your lead sources, your missed-call exposure, your after-hours volume, and whether your team is capturing every revenue opportunity coming their way.

Combine your CRM data with Breesy’s call insights and the AI prompts above, and you finally have a complete, accurate picture of how your business performs and where you can increase revenue without guessing.