Bayside Electrical
Seattle electrician pushed panel upgrade close rate from 48 percent to 72 percent with built-in customer financing
Bayside Electrical was winning the trust of customers but losing the sale at the $4,800 panel upgrade price point. After turning on Kaldr Tech's built-in financing with 0 percent for 18 months, Jennifer Chen pushed her close rate from 48 percent to 72 percent and added $312,000 in panel upgrade revenue in 7 months.
48% to 72%
Panel upgrade close rate
7 months
$312,000
Additional panel revenue
7 months
$4,820 to $6,140
Average ticket size
Month 6
61% of upgrades
Financing attach rate
By month 4
The price conversation that killed every other panel
Jennifer Chen founded Bayside Electrical in 2017 after eight years as a journeyman, and by 2024 she had 8 electricians working out of a Ballard warehouse with a steady pipeline of residential work across Seattle — Queen Anne, Magnolia, Fremont, West Seattle. Her bread and butter was panel upgrades: Seattle's old housing stock had thousands of 100 amp and 60 amp panels that needed to come out to support EV chargers, heat pumps, and induction ranges. The average ticket was $4,820 and her crew could knock out a clean upgrade in a day. The problem was the close rate. Jennifer or her lead electrician Mateo would walk a homeowner through the inspection, point out the Federal Pacific or Zinsco panel, explain the fire risk, and watch the customer's face go blank at the price. Her internal tracking showed they were closing 48 percent of panel upgrade estimates — meaning she walked away from more than half of the qualified leads her team had already spent 45 minutes diagnosing. In a bad month like August 2024, she counted 23 lost panel upgrades at an average ticket of $4,820, which was $110,860 of evaporated revenue in 30 days. The objection was almost always the same: 'I need to talk to my spouse,' or 'Can I get back to you next month after the tax refund,' or 'Is there a payment plan?' Jennifer had tried pointing customers to a third-party financing portal her old software integrated with, but the application was long, took 3 to 4 days for approval, and fewer than 1 in 5 customers ever completed it. By the time the approval came through, the homeowner had either cooled off or hired someone else. Jennifer was convinced financing was the fix — she just needed it to happen in the kitchen, not on a laptop later.
"Before Kaldr, I was watching customers nod at the inspection and then disappear when they saw the price. Now my guys quote the monthly payment first and the panel is pulled by the end of the week. Same job, same price — completely different conversation."
— Jennifer Chen, Owner, Bayside Electrical
Financing in the kitchen, on the phone, in 90 seconds
Jennifer found Kaldr Tech in September 2024 through a podcast interview with another Pacific Northwest electrician who described closing a $9,400 service panel and subpanel combo on the spot because the financing application ran on the homeowner's phone in under two minutes. She signed up the following week. The first feature she turned on was the customer financing integration, which offered 0 percent for 18 months on tickets between $1,500 and $15,000 and longer fixed-rate terms above that. The application was embedded directly inside the digital estimate — when Mateo presented the quote on his tablet, there was a 'See monthly payment' button next to the total. One tap showed the homeowner $268 a month instead of $4,820 all at once. If the customer wanted to apply, they entered their phone number and the rest of the application happened on their own phone, with approval back in 60 to 90 seconds. Jennifer spent the first two weeks in ride-alongs with each of her 8 electricians, personally walking them through the new script. The key change she drilled into them was never leading with the lump sum price. Instead, every estimate conversation opened with the monthly payment as the default frame. The second change was offering financing on every single upgrade, not just the ones where the customer asked. She also turned on the Kaldr dispatch board, two-way customer SMS, and photo documentation features so her estimators could show homeowners pictures of the old panel alongside the quote — the visual damage plus the monthly payment made a much stronger case than the old paper proposal she used to leave behind.
Features that mattered most
From 48 percent to 72 percent and a bigger average ticket
By the end of month 2, Bayside's panel upgrade close rate had climbed from 48 percent to 61 percent. By month 4 it was 69 percent. By month 7 it had stabilized at 72 percent — meaning for every 100 qualified panel estimates her team ran, they were now closing 72 instead of 48. That's 24 additional panel upgrades per 100 at an average ticket of $4,820, or roughly $115,680 in recovered revenue per 100 estimates. Over 7 months, Jennifer tracked 270 additional closed panel upgrades versus what the old 48 percent rate would have produced, representing about $312,000 in added revenue attributable specifically to the financing-driven close rate lift. Just as important, the average ticket size grew from $4,820 to $6,140 because financing made customers more willing to add subpanels, whole-home surge protection, and EV charger circuits in the same visit. Mateo's attach rate on add-ons went from 12 percent to 41 percent. Financing attach rate stabilized at 61 percent of all upgrade jobs by month 4, and the 0 percent for 18 months option was selected by 74 percent of financed customers. Jennifer used the revenue lift to give her 8 electricians a $2 an hour raise in January 2025, hire a second dispatcher to handle the increased job volume, and put a down payment on a new service van. Customer satisfaction scores climbed because homeowners felt like they had options instead of being cornered on price, and Bayside's Google rating moved from 4.5 to 4.9 over the same window with 94 new reviews.
Advice to another contractor
Stop leading with the big number. If your average ticket is over $2,000, you are leaving money on the table every time you quote the lump sum instead of the monthly payment. Get financing built into your estimate — not a brochure, not a link to a portal, but right on the tablet your tech is holding. That one change was worth more than any marketing I ever paid for.
— Jennifer Chen
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