A return to trust: Rewiring the home improvement experience

By Jesse Sanchez.

In a world of vague estimates and three-quote norms, one roofing veteran is betting on transparency — and homeowners are listening.

Before Patrick Fingles became the CEO of Leap, a leading software platform in the home improvement sector, he was a contractor trying to survive in the roofing industry. “I was a roofer and window guy first,” he said to host Karen Edwards in this episode of Roofing Road Trips®. “We started in Maryland and grew to five states… At our peak, we were about $40 million in annual revenue.”

But it wasn’t the scale that sparked his next chapter — it was a realization. Patrick recounted watching one of his own television ads and asking himself a simple question: “What am I actually saying that any new contractor can’t also claim on day one?”

That moment crystallized the disconnect between marketing slogans and the homeowner experience. “Everything I was saying… is nothing that a company that opened their doors that same day couldn’t say,” Patrick said. “And the result of all that is an 80% dissatisfaction rate with your contractor.”

That 80% figure — homeowners who wouldn’t recommend or reuse their contractor — became a turning point. Patrick didn’t just want to fix his own process; he wanted to change the relationship between contractor and customer across the industry.

The conversation quickly turned to trust — or lack thereof. “People get three estimates ' because there’s no trust,” he said. “Nobody wants to go to three stores to get a gallon of milk.  We want to walk into the store, and it be right there in the first rack.”

Enter technology. Leap wasn’t conceived as a product to sell — it was a tool built to fix inefficiencies in Patrick’s own company. Over time, it evolved into a full-suite platform that covers everything from appointment scheduling to financing. But more importantly, it’s designed to eliminate doubt.

Patrick drew a sharp comparison between modern home improvement and the rise of Uber: “Taxi cab drivers and contractors are very similar… We always show that we’re licensed and bonded, but it’s still a terrible experience. Uber didn’t change the car ride — they just wanted to take away all the pain.”

Through tools like automated dispatch, bios of sales reps, real-time updates and line-by-line pricing, Leap aims to replicate that same trust-centric transformation. “Done are the days of vague estimates where it’s like, ‘I can do it for $12,000.’ We didn’t want that,” Patrick said. “We wanted the homeowner to see the receipt.”

The goal? To make “getting a roof” feel more like buying that perfect pair of pants — easy, transparent and trustworthy.

As Patrick put it, “We can’t go back to the 1950s, but we can learn from the past. And trust was the core element.”

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about how smart, intentional tech adoption is helping contractors rebuild homeowner confidence!