# A Letter of Thanks to Our Customers URL: https://www.broccoli.com/blog/thank-you-to-our-customers Category: Company Published: 2026-10-28 Authors: AJ Jain & Adi Ketkar, Co-founders Tags: company, customers To our customers, In early 2024, after three years building infrastructure for electric vehicles, the two of us set out to build something new. For two months we tried idea after idea from a small room in San Francisco, and none of them stuck, because none of them started with a real person and a real problem. So we closed our laptops and started knocking on doors. We knocked on 140 of them: plumbers, electricians and HVAC shops across the Bay Area. Most were too busy to talk. They were out doing the work that keeps our homes running. On June 11, 2024, we walked into Armstrong Plumbing and met CEO Marcelle Flowers. She was one of the few people who gave us her time, and she gave us far more than that. For three months, we worked out of Marcelle’s office every day. We sat beside her while the phones rang. She’d say, “This is broken.” We’d ask, “What if we could do this?” Then we’d build it, right there. In under three weeks, we had a product answering real calls for a real business. Even Broccoli’s purple color comes from those days. It’s Marcelle’s favorite color, and AJ’s too. Then Any Hour took a chance on us. As our first enterprise customer, they trusted a small team with a young product to answer calls for the people who count on them, and that trust pushed us to build bigger and better. We still build that way. Every Broccoli product and feature started as a request from one of you. An office manager wanted dispatch fees handled exactly her team’s way, so we built dispatch fee rules. A shop needed to serve Spanish-speaking callers, so we built a Spanish-speaking agent. A marketing lead wanted to reach customers six and nine months after their last job, so we rebuilt how outbound campaigns find the right people. A call center was tired of hunting for new bookings, so every booking now comes with an alert that links straight to the job in their CRM. Some requests seemed simple. Some seemed impossible. We took each one as a chance to push further, and every late night was worth it if it gave you a little more peace of mind and a little more time back. You gave us ruthless feedback. We listened, changed and tried again. And again. We trusted you to tell us what you needed, and we hoped we were earning your trust in return. Every one of you took a chance on us. You opened up your businesses, sat with us in your offices, let us ride along in your trucks and even invited us into your homes. You trusted a young company with your brand and your reputation. So today, we want to say thank you. Broccoli exists because of you, and everything we build next will start the way it always has: with you. As our community grew, we had to grow, too. We’ve worked hard to build a team of people who care, people who are grounded, excited to build, and deeply invested in this industry and the people who make it what it is. To our team: thank you for jumping in with both feet and showing up every day with passion, energy, and empathy. Our community has grown right alongside our team. We’re grateful for the industry partners who share our belief that everything we do should center on the people we serve. To our trade show family, the best practice groups who have supported us, and the events that have welcomed us, and everyone in between: thank you for being a sounding board, making room for us in this industry, and having our backs. We believe the future is bright for Broccoli, and it’s bright because of the trust you’ve placed in us. For that, we’ll always be grateful. We can’t wait to keep building and growing alongside you all. With gratitude, **AJ Jain & Adi Ketkar** Co-founders, Broccoli --- **Read more about our latest funding round in [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/10/28/broccoli-ai-funding-khosla-ventures-marcelle-flowers-plumbing-gen-z-founders/).** --- # Should an AI Be Your Customer’s First Touch Point? URL: https://www.broccoli.com/blog/mr-sparky-south-texas-ai-first Category: Company Published: 2026-10-23 Authors: Chloe Sanders, Broccoli Content Writer Tags: customer-stories, electrical, ai-csr Home service business owners think a lot about that very first call. "It's the first point of contact we have with a potential customer. And it has to work," says Sharissa Martinez, President of Mister Sparky Electric in South Texas. But picking up the phone is just the first crucial step. From there, a CSR has to navigate the problem with the customer, gathering critical information to schedule the job. Not all jobs get booked when they should. > I didn't like that some customers were getting Ferrari levels of service while the next one's getting Ford. I wanted something consistent. It was that desire for consistency that made Sharissa decide to try out AI-first. What does this mean exactly? Every time a customer calls one of the two Mister Sparky South Texas locations, Dane picks up. ## Same Dane, Different Day Dane is Broccoli's most popular AI CSR. If he sounds like a real human, that's because his voice came from one — the son of a Broccoli employee. For Sharissa, the decision was all about giving her customers the best possible experience every single time. "We operate 24/7. So I need my phone answered 24/7," Sharissa says. "The call that comes in at 2 am is just as important as the call that comes in at 9 am or at 3 pm. They need to be treated with the same level of service." And the results speak for themselves. Since bringing Broccoli on board in October 2025, Dane has handled more than 27,000 calls, maintaining a booking rate above 70%. > Last year we ended our year at a little over $14 million. We are pacing this year in 2026 for $20 million. ## The Human Touch Even though she's an advocate for AI-first, Sharissa is quick to point out that the technology is only as good as the humans behind it. "There's a factor of human touch that's always going to be involved," she says. "It's just like anything — how you use it matters." In fact, Sharissa believes it's the combination of Dane's efficiency and the human touch that has produced the most success for her business. What matters to Sharissa, like all home service business owners, is that the customer is always taken care of. "We utilize Broccoli as a tool and we marry that with the human factor in-house," she says. "Before the end of the day, one of our people is always going to reach out and confirm. I feel like we have one of the best operating systems because of how we use it." ## A Generational Shift Sharissa's father George Saldaña started his first contracting business when he was just nineteen. His technical background as a music DJ in the early 80s translated well into commercial electrical work. He joined the Mister Sparky franchise in 2007. With both parents in the trades, Sharissa proudly identifies as a "trade baby." Now, she runs both locations with her husband Bryan Martinez, who serves as Vice President.
Alongside the generational transition, Sharissa ushered Mister Sparky through the technological transition as well. Both her parents were hesitant about using AI. What won them over was when she pointed out the variables that lead to losing customers. "You're gonna have people that are out on PTO," she says. "You're gonna have people that didn't sleep at night and aren't listening." Those were variables Sharissa couldn't control. AI gave her a way to take them out of the equation. ## A Legacy That Matters Going AI-first is just one part of a larger mission to carry Mister Sparky South Texas into the future. "My father wanted to build a brand that had the reputation within our community that would transcend generations." For Sharissa, that means embracing new technology without losing the human touch that built the business in the first place. --- # The Heartwarming Story Behind our Creation of Voice Studio URL: https://www.broccoli.com/blog/voice-studio-story Category: Company Published: 2026-10-15 Authors: Chloe Sanders, Broccoli Content Writer Tags: voice-ai, voice-studio, stories Sometimes, a single voice has the power to connect an entire community. As creators of voice AI, we know that a voice is so much more than timbre, cadence, pitch, tone, and texture. It’s a powerful tool that can convey a sense of purpose, empathy, and guidance. When you call a Home Service Business, you’re hoping to reach a voice with those exact qualities. Customers may grow to love and trust a particular voice, because they know when that voice picks up, they are going to deliver the finest and friendliest service. So when Broccoli was faced with a unique challenge to create the custom voice of a beloved CSR, they didn’t think twice. The ask was simple and profound. A home service business owner had lost her husband John two years ago. John was more than just the best CSR on staff, he was the heart of the front office. A relationship builder and an expert at putting customers at ease, he was the voice their community trusted most. John was gone. But maybe his voice, and the reassurance it brought, didn’t have to be. > We weren’t asking to replicate John (no one can), but a lot of his experience and skills could be valuable to our AI. The business already had hours of John's voice recorded. Broccoli engineers used those recordings and created a custom voice. The voice known and loved by a whole community. When they were done, John's voice rang out clearly. Some might say, John's spirit lived on. Customers noticed. “We’ve been calling this line for twenty years. It was a relief to hear John again. His voice just put us instantly at ease.” Which begged the question, what if we did that for all of our customers? Voice Studio was born. With just a short clip of any voice, Voice Studio creates a custom AI that reflects the unique quality of a cherished CSR. Or maybe you just want a spooky voice for Halloween or a merry voice for the holidays. Voice Studio does that too. In fact, there’s a whole lot that Voice Studio can do, from preserving a memory to creating a region-specific dialect. The options and possibilities are endless, but the goal is always the same. Make your customers feel at home. [Voice Studio](/blog/voice-studio) helps do just that. --- # Introducing Voice Studio: a voice your community already knows URL: https://www.broccoli.com/blog/voice-studio Category: Product Published: 2026-10-02 Tags: voice-ai, product, releases