Why the Right Software Can Help Grow Your Service Company
If you're a service-based business looking for a sure-fire way to grow, the answer may be as simple as using software for service companies. Software that's specifically designed for businesses like yours will smooth your operations, streamline communications, and leave you with happier customers. And with the right software, you can leverage specific features like inventory management and even marketing features.
Streamline Inventory Management
Keeping track of your inventory is a time-consuming and tedious process, often taking hours from your week that could be better spent. The right service software will include a myriad of inventory management features that will let you spend those hours on activities that will get you a better ROI.
With an inventory management feature, your software will keep track of all of your materials and automatically re-order what you need when certain items hit a minimum threshold. Workers on-site can also use the software to remove stock from the inventory as they use it, giving you accurate, real-time updates about exactly what you need.
Review Customer Profiles Seamless with Software for Service Companies
Managing your customer relationships is the key to growing and sustaining a service-based business. Great service software will give you all the tools you need to manage your standing with every customer. You can view the entire history of your relationship with each customer, including all work orders, recurring work orders, and work agreements. The software will also let you track payments to ensure that customers are paying on time.
Achieve More Success with Marketing Tools
A digital marketing strategy is a must for growing your service business in the age of modern advertising. Luckily, the best service software will make building your online presence easy. For instance, ServiceBox's marketplace tools give you resources to build your online presence, learn about why your ads are or aren't working, and even manage all of your social media accounts from the convenience of one dashboard.
ServiceBox's marketing software can audit your website and show you the proper SEO (search engine optimization) principles to drive your target customers to your site. And when people have positive things to share about your service, you can use the review generator feature to send these reviews to dozens of external websites, all of which can send potential future clients your way.
Keep Track of Labor Costs
Labor is usually one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) costs of running a service-based business. If you don't have a handle on your labor expenses each month, it will be difficult to grow your business. Using software makes it much easier to track the hours of each employee. On a digital system, you can easily navigate between employees without having to deal with piles of paperwork.
Top-of-the-line software for service companies makes tracking labor costs even more accurate. Team members can start the clock easily with a digital check-in. Once they begin working, the software will automatically fill out their hours on a digital time sheet. GPS tracking will confirm that everyone is where they say they are.
Communicate Scheduling All in One Place
Speaking of labor, managing your workforce requires more than tracking their hours. You need to make sure that the right person shows up at the right job at the right time. Scheduling an entire team can be difficult when you're relying on individual forms of communication like text or email.
Using software will make your scheduling a breeze. You'll be able to view your team's schedule all in one place and drag and drop work orders into each contractor's time slot. When you drop the work order on the calendar, the corresponding team member will automatically receive all of the job details. The ability to easily rearrange schedules will make it much easier for your company to grow when you can quickly adapt to changing timelines and requests.
Stay on Top of Ongoing Work
Growing your service-based business is about more than acquiring new customers. It's also about retaining existing ones and increasing their spending with you. Stay on top of existing customer relationships by using software to anticipate needs. The right software will send service reminders by phone or email so your team never has to worry about the next job.
As leader of the business, you can spend more time signing contracts and growing client relationships than worrying about when existing contracts will expire. Software like ServiceBox will notify you about contract renewal, billing, scheduling, and expiration.
Easily Manage Each Job
Service-based businesses have a lot of moving parts, from keeping track of the workforce to ensuring that each job is operating as planned. Manually keeping track of every job and employee requires a lot of manpower and is a process that is prone to error. Using software will streamline each job and make it easier to keep track of more, giving you the room to grow without worrying that you can't handle the additional workload.
Software for service companies can use one tap of a button to turn the initial quote into a work order that an employee has access to on-site. Then, the employee can use this software to turn the work order into an invoice when the job is complete. In the meantime, great serviced-based software allows team members to leave notes and pictures for each other to communicate in real-time, reducing the potential for costly errors.
Accept Flexible Payment Methods
Keep both your techs and your customers happy by making payment easy for everyone. Service-based software allows for flexible payment methods and records all of them digitally. For instance, ServiceBox's payment options include direct credit card payment, paying through our hand-point device, or using the pay buttons on an invoice email.
At ServiceBox, we serve hundreds of service-based industries, from contractors to software providers. Our goal is to help you scale your business without the typical stress or growing pains. Contact the ServiceBox team for a free demo to learn more about our features. We'd love to show you what you can do.
