It has been an interesting few days since the announcement of the ISN/Porch partnership, to say the least.  Now, with a little time under our belts, I wanted to take a moment to clarify my and America's Call Center's (ACC) thoughts and position on the matter.

First of all, we recommend if you are anxious or unsettled over the recent announcement of the ISN/Porch partnership to please pause, take a deep breath, and try to relax.  Sometimes patience is hard to practice, especially when it comes to our businesses, but we have all been through times in our lives where being patient, giving things time to settle down and play out, has been the best course of action.  We recommend that in this case, too.

I encourage you to remember a few things we all knew to be true prior to the recent partnership announcement and still know to be true today.  First, ISN is still, by far, the very best business and administrative management software solution out there. Period. ISN has been a core tool in helping thousands of inspection companies grow and prosper.  Many thousands of home inspection companies are significantly more successful because of using ISN, and yours may be one of those.  If you are using ISN, you are using the very best management software solution available.  And we expect ISN to become stronger with even more features as time goes on.

Second, we have to remember the talented and excellent team that built, expanded, maintain, and service ISN are here today as they always have been.  The same team that provides excellent customer service, solves problems, writes software code, trains ISN users, fixes bugs, and all that...all of them are here and are hard at work as ever.

Third, many of us know Dan Huber and Chris Schuld to one degree or another.  Personally, I have known both of them for well over a decade, having worked very closely with them on many occasions, projects, and at inspection conferences.  Many times through the years we would talk privately about how to better serve our inspector-customers; how to offer more value; and how to help make the inspection industry and profession better.  Dan and Chris are two extremely caring, quality individuals – the kind I am pleased to call my friends.  You may or may not know Dan and Chris to that degree.  If you do, my guess is, you would tend to agree with me.  I know neither Dan nor Chris would ever want to do anything to harm our great inspection industry. They would only want to help it.  They have worked so hard to bring ISN as a value-added tool to this point.  And both are still leading and guiding ISN.  There should be comfort in that.

Fourth, if you and I were the leaders of Porch, would we want to ruin all that ISN has built?  On the contrary, we would want to nurture it and grow it.  I don't know much more about Porch or its investment in ISN than you, most likely.  However, if you and I, as the business owners we are, were to invest in ISN, we'd want a return on our investment – so we'd do all we could to make it stronger and even more of a leader than it already is.

ACC has been aligned and tightly integrated with ISN for many years and we fully intend to remain that way.  Our partnership with ISN has yielded great success for inspectors – adding value to their lives and businesses.  Our bond with ISN is as strong as it has ever been and all of us at ACC remain committed to our excellent relationship with ISN.

Will ACC pursue any level of integration with other business/administrative management software solutions in the future?  First, please remember, ACC is independent and mobile, with our separate and proprietary Cornerstone 2 integrated with ISN.  As such, we have options others don't.  At ACC, we are very thorough and methodical to be sure any action we take is clearly in the best interests of our customers and carefully implemented to deliver real value.  Over time, we may evaluate various alternatives to determine the best solution for our customers and we may or may not engage in any level of integration with other platforms depending on the outcome of our thorough evaluation.  We will, though, remain tightly integrated and committed to ISN as we always have.

Let me step back a bit and look at all this from a different angle.  We must always remember what drives a heavily service-oriented business like a home inspection company is the human element.  Strong customer service is people-to-people, people driven.  The home inspector, his inspectors, and his trusty office is what truly powers his inspection business at the core.  Long before there were business/administrative management systems this was the case, and it still is today.  No doubt, excellent systems such as ISN are an awesome tool to enhance an inspector's customer service.  That has been proven.  However, at the core, it is the agent's and client's experience with the human part of the customer service...the inspector, his trusty office...that sets a business apart from the pack and creates lasting success.  The software systems are critically important tools that help streamline, automate and connect many aspects of a business, but they take a backseat to the importance of the inspector and his office – the human element.

Thank you for your time and allowing me to share a few thoughts and perspectives with you.  I truly hope this has been helpful and provided value to your day.

And most of all, it is our pleasure to serve you!

Paul

CEO, America's Call Center