Best Software recomendations.

Noel said:

Lads, Ladies & Gentlemen.

I am looking for advice on which software to get. I have been using MS excel for the last 5 years and it has been simple & done the job.

However as we are scaling up i'm looking for software that will make life easy for our team.

We use GoCardless so perhaps something that works with GC? 

Sugestions Pros & Cons welcome!!

Click to expand...

Base Window Cleaners said:

For the last 6 months we have been using a simple, nice fast, powerful computer program called Jobber to manage our window cleaning customers.  We trialed a few others and this was by far the most suitable. 

Here is a link to Jobber and a free month referral subscription:  http://share.getjobber.com/mQgcv6B

What do we like about it:

- New website customer details are in the system from the beginning, we can click a link to see their property on Google Maps
- All types of scheduling options
- Email appointment reminders (Text Appointment Reminders in Canada and other parts of the world, not yet available in Ireland)     
- Scheduling using the map to plan the best route for the vans - we increased the van income and reduced daily working time from Day 1, by doing more jobs and less driving between jobs - paid for the subscription in 1 or 2 days.
- Quote sending and auto follow-up reminders (presently surprised at how well this works to get jobs in this busy email inbox world - I would say this has covered the cost of subscription 5 times )
- Invoicing and late repayment reminders - super fast and easy
- Phone App is fantastic
- Incorporates Stripe so we can take card payments on the job - what's better is that it allocates the card payment to the invoice
- The user interface is relaxed, fast, straightforward


Cost:

We are on the top subscription level at ~€200 per month, possibly rising to €250 per month later.  I know this is expensive but it pays for itself in 1 or 2 days and it manages the customer and jobs from start to finish.  We have hours more free time and increased income.  New Requests, Quotes, Jobs and Invoices are just a click to see on the system.

Why did we change:

At the end of every day i had a bunch of new customer leads to follow up on.  I then had to schedule the jobs on the calendar.  I then had to correlate the payments to the customers.  In short it was a days work after doing a days work - I was shattered trying to keep it all in order.  Now this is all managed in the program and I enjoy running this business.  Life changing investment.  

Click on the link to give it a try.  We negotiated a lower price for 6 months at the start.  

Here is the link to Jobber and a free month referral subscription:  http://share.getjobber.com/mQgcv6B

In fact - if you go to our website you can see the information we collect direct into Jobber (you can copy and edit this this for your jobber form) from customers when they enquire - test it, submit a test Job Enquiry and we will send you a reply : )  

Hope you, your family and team are all well during this time where Covid is making life difficult.

Click to expand...

D-avid said:

Aworka works for me £12 a month and trial period. You can link it to GoCardless too. It can txt customer at an extra cost (I just use pulse sms ), also invoicing, route planning, expenses, mileage etc. Questions on use are answered in good time.

Click to expand...

Iron Giant said:

To put it bluntly it sounds like you are been ripped off doesn't matter even if you have a multi van operation you can have 5 users with https://www.cleanerplanner.com/pricing/ at a monthly cost of £49 

Click to expand...

Base Window Cleaners said:

Good tread.  Cheaper alternative - we will change if we find it.  Not getting ripped off to our knowledge as we have not found a cheaper alternative.

Yesterday we trialed the software you proposed (Cleaner Planner) and also the Aworka software.  These look good for a business that has generally a Regular Round.

For us, not suitable because they do not give the function of showing all the customer locations on a Map.  

Yes we have a Regular Round (say 20% which grows each day).  However, we have in the region of 4-8 new customers booking every day.  We need to schedule the van to travel most efficiently around the city.  It's the visual Map Scheduling function in Jobber that is winning it for us.  

I will say that our jobs are mostly big jobs - we don't take on low price jobs - in case you think we are driving all over the city for no profit.  Of course, using the map scheduler we can do a couple of small jobs in that area or on route to the next job.

Click to expand...

Iron Giant said:

I've never seen the value in a mapping integration within an app  as if you know your area well enough then planning jobs out is easy enough, as for organising jobs that are one offs within CP & Aworka you have the option to schedule a job(s) as a one off or whatever schedule suits, I would have thought saving over a £100+ a month by using an alternative app would easily out way a little extra admin 

Click to expand...

Base Window Cleaners said:

We service an entire city 20km radius from our base.  Every day a van has a new route.  Most of the income is from new jobs and once-off jobs which come in daily.  

I am not saying you are wrong and I am right - just posting and reading posts to see what other people are using and how they do it.

The daily income for a van increased every day by €100-200 OR the guys finished earlier after we started to use Map Location Scheduling.  The higher cost of the software is actually paid off in 1 or 2 days.  The rest is increased income.

What I would say is that we give customers too many options for the repeat wash (Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, 6 Weeks, 2 Months, 3 Months, 6 Months, Yearly) but for now we'll let that sit as the schedule is still fine for it.

Click to expand...

Base Window Cleaners said:

We service an entire city 20km radius from our base.  Every day a van has a new route.  Most of the income is from new jobs and once-off jobs which come in daily.  

I am not saying you are wrong and I am right - just posting and reading posts to see what other people are using and how they do it.

The daily income for a van increased every day by €100-200 OR the guys finished earlier after we started to use Map Location Scheduling.  The higher cost of the software is actually paid off in 1 or 2 days.  The rest is increased income.

What I would say is that we give customers too many options for the repeat wash (Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, 6 Weeks, 2 Months, 3 Months, 6 Months, Yearly) but for now we'll let that sit as the schedule is still fine for it.

Click to expand...

Doddy111 said:

The @Squeegee App has a in built map function that you can optimise the route to give the best order to do it in and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than what you’re currently paying, maybe worth a look 

Click to expand...

Base Window Cleaners said:

Good tread.  Cheaper alternative - we will change if we find it.  Not getting ripped off to our knowledge as we have not found a cheaper alternative.

Yesterday we trialed the software you proposed (Cleaner Planner) and also the Aworka software.  These look good for a business that has generally a Regular Round.

For us, not suitable because they do not give the function of showing all the customer locations on a Map.  

Yes we have a Regular Round (say 20% which grows each day).  However, we have in the region of 4-8 new customers booking every day.  We need to schedule the van to travel most efficiently around the city.  It's the visual Map Scheduling function in Jobber that is winning it for us.  

I will say that our jobs are mostly big jobs - we don't take on low price jobs - in case you think we are driving all over the city for no profit.  Of course, using the map scheduler we can do a couple of small jobs in that area or on route to the next job.

Click to expand...

Noel said:

4-8 new customers booking every day. How you generating so many leads daily??

Click to expand...

Base Window Cleaners said:

Google Ads brings traffic to the website
Google Reviews are auto loaded to the website giving people confidence to contact
Over time I've put effort into getting the website to rank higher which is also getting customers

Randomly, we put these big advertising stickers on street boxes - they are immensely good.  Bang them outside schools, supermarkets and public walkways.  Cheapest advertising we have. 

Click to expand...

Doddy111 said:

Have you got any pictures of these sticker bud?  I have thought about this before but thought I’d get done for vandalism 

Click to expand...