I use Google Calendar. You'll start by creating a separate calendar for the tech(s) and share the calendar to parties involved. Here's the workflow I use. Create a new calendar event Appointment Title- Client name and Issue location field- Input address which then links to maps Description- Phone number on first line and notes below Add attachment- Add photo of completed repair ticket when finished Change color to yellow and text tech of new repair on calendar Scheduling- Tech calls client and schedules repair. Updates calendar date/time and changes color to blue. Closing appointment- Tech takes a picture of paper repair ticket, share to google drive folder, and attach to the appointment. Use square for credit card payment, get a check, or invoice later. Color of appointment is changed to green and enter any closing notes in the description. Its free and you only need a cell phone.
The days of owning your software are over. Quick books and everyone else see this “ongoing service” thing as a cash cow. They get to sell you the software every month. It is a scam. I used sap for my moms cleaning service. The damn thing count keep a steady schedule. Every week **** was wrong or didn’t show. I talked to them a ton of time but they never fixed. After endless hours setting it up and 6 months In payment we shut it down. to be clear I set it up for her business to see if it would work for mine. The cleaning schedules are more strict on time and change every day. I have yet to find something to replace her pencil and desk calendar. The desk calendars are an option but she used to doing it by hand at this point if it works keep doing it.
Luckily for all of us, we live in a capitalist economy! That is what allows the market to dictate our industry's pricing. Landscaping is a very very low cost of entry, in fact most people started out here with a lawnmower and a few accounts. Essentially, a lawnmower was purchased and the business was started! Because of this very low barrier of entry, there are thousands and thousands of landscapers in each city. The software guys had on the other hand had to go out, raise millions of dollars, take a risk, hire many software developers at a very expensive salary and then give them a project to work on. Due to the higher entry barrier(multi million dollar investment) there are less than 10 competitors out there with a capable software to run our businesses on. The software guys now have to pay back their loan before their product goes out of date and stops getting bought each month. It is also set by the value, if the $800 software helps get the business organized and catches one visit/job per month that would have gotten missed via paper/pen methods it just paid for itself! We have over 1000 man hours to bill each day. We, without a doubt, could not do it without paying almost 3k each month for all of our software platforms. It really comes down to the owner, if they are content with keeping it on paper/ possibly losing billables on paper (handoff between the account manager, division manager, seceratary, front office staff) because they do not like the price-tag of a valuable software product then that is their choice. Each owner sees this a bit different, and that is okay. If the goal is to grow, it will be much more difficult without the software i believe.
following. What crm software are you pros using to manage your daily operation and to manage your tech?
Just my .02, $800 is waaaaaay to much for me. I'm looking Into T Sheets. Allows you to schedule and track an employee/crew from their cell phone. Its not CRM. But very interesting for time tracking, scheduling, GPS tracking, etc.
I’ve been trying out programs from both Hindsite and Jobber. Pricing is dependent on how many users/trucks will be using it. Might be worth checking out.
