Custom Heat Transforms Their Business with Commusoft
With Commusoft, Custom Heat has grown significantly, transforming their scheduling, communications, and invoicing to keep up with increased customer demand.
Heating and Plumbing
100+
Rugby, UK
There is no way we could run our business efficiently and effectively... we just simply could not run it without Commusoft.
Lincoln Smith, a director at Custom Heat Ltd, sat down to discuss why Commusoft is essential for running their heating and plumbing business.
Custom Heat is a family-run business that started with Lincoln’s parents in 1980 and has been operating for 40 years since in and around Rugby, UK. Since implementing Commusoft in 2016, the Custom Heat team has grown from 60 in 2020, to over 100 in 2023!
How Was Your Business Run Before Commusoft?
“We had a paper-based system that we’d had for many years. The system was not internet based, so you couldn’t download a mobile app. We had technicians that would call in on a Friday afternoon to ask if they could pick another job up, or we’d have a customer that would all in at 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon and say ‘We’ve got no hot water, can you come fix the boiler?’. So we’d call the technician and say we’ve got another job. He’d then jot it down on a sticky label or something in his van – or probably not write it down at all. He’d drive there, do the job – but then we’d never get paid.”
“We were growing as a business, our customer-base was growing, the demand for our services was growing, so we needed a system that could cope with the increase in jobs.”
What Was Your Biggest Challenge Before Using Commusoft?
“Before we used Commusoft, our invoicing was done manually. A lady in the office would produce an invoice and at the end of the week she would send all those invoices out in the post. So you could complete a job on a Tuesday – by the Thursday or Friday you’re posting the invoice – by the Monday they’ve received it – and a few days later, they’re paying it. The whole process could be a week or more.”
How Has Using Commusoft Helped You Improve This?
“Now, you click a button – and send an invoice! In fact, the technicians do it from site. Not only do invoices not get missed, but the technician can go to a boiler service, complete the work, and click a button – all within a second. The office staff doesn’t have to do any of it.”
How Has Commusoft Transformed Your Operations?
“We now have customers call our office, who are ready to handle the call and can book the appointment into a live calendar. If it’s a call-out for that day, which happens very often, it will appear in real time in the technician’s schedule. The technician can then travel to that job and carry out the work. If they need a part, they communicate easily back with the office – just click to select who to communicate with. Once they hit complete, it lets the office know they need those parts. The technician can then invoice and it will automatically send off the after-care email asking for a review. It’s all made very technician friendly and very easy to use. The communication between the office and technician is instant.”
Would You Recommend Commusoft to Other People?
“The way that Commusoft tracks every part of every single job – you will not lose anything – it gives you complete confidence in the whole system. Complete confidence to grow. Complete confidence to push on with your business. There is no way that we could run our business efficiently and effectively, presenting ourselves the way we do with our customers, with our reminders the night before, with our text messages that say ‘we’re on our way’… we just simply could not run our business without Commusoft, it would be impossible.“
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Furness Heating
"Commusoft has only gotten better since we started 10 years ago. And we’ve never looked back."
"Commusoft has only gotten better since we started 10 years ago. And we’ve never looked back."
After celebrating 10 years with Commusoft, we sat down with Daniel Brough, owner and manager of Furness Heating, to discuss how Commusoft has been pivotal in their growth and success over the past decade.
Furness Heating have served Cumbria, UK, for over 20 years, specializing in everything related to heating, bathrooms, cookers and fires; from servicing to installation.
Back in 2014, Daniel managed a team of 5 technicians and 1 office staff. Today, Furness Heating is close to trebling in size, consisting of 10 technicians and 5 office staff. “Without a doubt Commusoft has helped us expand”, Daniel says, owing the progress to their transition away from paper:
“It was hard work, really, really hard work. We were using Outlook for scheduling and we’d print out job sheets and pick them up every day. Once we realized we could be doing this from our smartphones and how much easier it was, all the techs took that up straightaway.”
A Decade of Streamlined Operations and Scheduling
It’s the details that make a difference for Daniel’s team, from required questions when arriving or leaving jobs, to attached site photos, and custom forms. But the instant syncing between office and field is the real game changer, explains Daniel:
“It makes a huge difference rather than being sent through a message trail in WhatsApp or Messenger which can get lost or confused. It’s all tied to the job, which makes life a lot easier. Once the job is complete, office staff can work on ordering the parts for the appliance same day, rather than waiting for the job sheets to come back.”
Job scheduling has improved dramatically thanks to Commusoft, allowing the team to keep certain techs in certain locations, reducing driving time between jobs and improving overall efficiency. “We try and keep a technician in that location for the full day, to make sure he’s not coming back and wasting an hour driving back to another area”, Daniel explains.
This has an additional bonus on work-life balance for the the team too, adds Daniel, “For technicians that live out of the town, we give them their last job on the route home, so they can go straight home and save driving out just to go back. It’s much better.”
Driving Customer Satisfaction for 10 Years
When it comes to Furness Heating’s customers, they too benefit from the fast and organized CRM that Commusoft offers, according to Daniel:
“Customers are amazed at how much information we keep, especially on their appliance. If they call up a couple months after a job and say it’s still having the same problem, we don’t even need to go back out. All the asset details and work history are saved, so we can review, order the part, and get it booked back in.”
The other benefit Furness Heating customers really find useful is the ease of accessing their old certificates, “they just call up and we send it to them straight away via email.” Commusoft’s customer database software saves every job, service, and form indefinitely. With 10 years of data at their fingertips, Daniel can be confident that his team can always see the big picture and answer any customer queries – no matter how far they date back.
Continuous Growth; Adopting Vehicle Tracking
“Commusoft has only gotten better since we started. And we’ve never looked back.” With updates and new features being added regularly, Daniel and his team have continually had new areas to explore.
“Just recently we started using the trackers and it’s amazing how much more helpful that makes it when a customer calls and you can know exactly where the technician is. Our office staff just click on the maps and can follow along and see where they’ve been.”
After trialling it with a couple vans, they’ve now moved away from their prior tracking software and have installed Commusoft trackers in all 10 vans, Daniel elaborates: “the tracking software we had before wasn’t linked to Commusoft and was just much harder for the team to use.”
Beyond improved operations, Daniel’s found a creative way to utilize the safe driving data offered from Commusoft:
“Whoever tops the best driving leaderboard that month wins the ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ award. It’s a little bit of fun, but it does get the technicians to think about how they are driving their vans and it has worked. It gets quite competitive at times…”.
The Next 10 Years with Commusoft
Powered by Commusoft’s job management software, continued growth and expansion is definitely on the horizon for Furness Heating, Daniel is confident: “with Commusoft, it doesn’t scare us moving and expanding further.” Even after 10 years, there’s still new functionality and benefits to explore in the software.
For Daniel and his team Commusoft is central to both their daily operations and the level of service they can offer customers. Daniel reflects, “when I open my computer, Commusoft opens automatically, because it’s always the first place I’m going.”
Daniel Brough
Owner
Cumbria, UK
15+
PCL Heating
"We’re getting our proposals out in record time; which means we can focus our time elsewhere which is the biggest plus!"
"We’re getting our proposals out in record time; which means we can focus our time elsewhere which is the biggest plus!"
PCL Heating, based in Whitehaven, UK, offer a wide range of cost-effective, reliable heating and plumbing solutions for their customers. Phil Clarke, Director at PCL, and one of the early adopters of Commusoft Sales sat down with us to discuss how the system has been benefiting his business so far.
Here’s what he had to say…
‘’The new Sales platform has been a game changer!’’
Helping PCL Create Sleek Proposals
Using Commusoft Sales’ integrated proposal builder, Phil and his team have been able to enhance their selling process, creating more personalized and detailed proposals.
‘’It gives us the chance to sell to customers more visually and cuts down on lengthy, plain paragraphs of text. We can incorporate photos and videos, which help the customer to decide on the options within our proposals, and make it a more personalized experience.”
Analyzing Their Costs in Real Time
Alongside creating captivating proposals, the system provides PCL with real-time cost tracking, ensuring clarity on profit margins.
“Being able to clearly see our profit margins for each job has made it a lot easier to price up quotes.”
Speeding Up the Sales Process
With its range of functionalities, Commusoft Sales streamlines PCL’s sales process, enabling faster deal closures, with the added benefit of having more time to complete other tasks too!
“The overall speed of getting our proposals out has skyrocketed, with ready-made option templates we add and alter to suit each job… we’re getting our proposals out in record time; which means we can focus our time elsewhere which is the biggest plus!”
Commusoft Sales is proving to be an invaluable tool, empowering clients like Phil to build strong sales strategies and secure success for the future!
"I can't say nice enough things about Commusoft. It made us grow up and actually think about what we really want."
Voity Electrical has operated out of Rutland, Vermont since 2017. Mary-Rachel Voity manages the office while her husband, Matt, leads the electricians in the field. This team provides world-class residential and commercial electrical services. Mary-Rachel met with us to discuss how Commusoft revived their business and helped elevate their workflows.
Before Commusoft
Hard work and passion are two trademarks of Voity Electrical; but while they were working hard, they were drowning under the stress. Mary-Rachel remembers their past workflows:
“It just wasn’t working…there was no open communication. Everything was in Matt’s head. And if we were gonna make the move of hiring someone else, we needed to be able to have a system in place where we would be able to empower the crew leader with information.”
She continues, “It’s about working smarter, not harder…My heart was breaking that my husband was working so hard. He wasn’t able to be part of the family.” Voity Electrical needed to resuscitate their daily operations. Mary-Rachel set out to find a job management solution, and found Commusoft.
She walked us through her decision-making process,
“The most important thing for the crew was having the ability for the system to be offline and still connect when it got into service and still retain all the information. So it wouldn’t stop the workflow; one less thing for them to worry about. That really weeded out what we were looking at.”
Growth is important to Voity Electrical, and helping clients grow is important to Commusoft. Mary-Rachel elaborates; “Commusoft allowed us to grow up as a company and allowed us to be able to move forward. I can see this software growing with us, or we’re going to be growing with the software. And that was huge.”
Training With Commusoft
Mary-Rachel describes Commusoft’s training and onboarding process as “wicked easy”.
She continues,
“I’ve been in CRMs before; the logic of Commusoft was very easy for me to pick up. I was able to catch up really fast and it made me have to think about the things I should be doing. There was a great framework of being able to organize everything in a system. I don’t recall a process or procedure where I wasn’t able to have two different ways to solve it.”
Commusoft’s flexibility and customizations made it easy for Voity Electrical to reinvent their workflows.
Mary-Rachel states,
“Commusoft allowed us to be able to change our process and procedures, because we didn’t know what we were doing. With the flow, who’s doing estimates, and just everything. The system allowed us to do and experiment different ways to do processes and be able to change on a dime”.
Commusoft is all-inclusive and flexible; we take the guess-work out of field service. With important processes standardized and organized, our clients can handle their operations with confidence. Voity Electrical doesn’t wonder what comes next anymore; they’re in control.
Currently, Voity Electrical operates with a “one to five” ratio of office staff to technicians. Mary-Rachel’s office schedule is optimized and efficient. She explains, “I’m able to get a routine in place because I have the reports. I’m posting payments, I’m making my deposit slip all in Commusoft and then I start uploading all the vendors invoices and putting it underneath the job numbers.”
She continues,
“Before this, when it was billing time, we were searching through papers, we were trying to pull this, ‘what was the time’? Just absolute craziness. Commusoft allowed us to have processes and procedures. We know we’re not missing any money. We’re not missing and forgetting about invoices. Because everything is a report. I go into my reporting and I see the jobs that are completed that need to be billed, the ones that need attention”.
Commusoft’s reporting dashboard software offers 40+ preconfigured reports, the ability to filter data, create custom resorts, and more.
Optimized Remote Operations
Voity Electrical electricians are thriving with their new mobile workflows: “The staff was very excited about the software and finding solutions and having it being so custom. The crew loves the Office Tasks. That’s their favorite one.”
Office Tasks are available on Commusoft’s field service mobile app, empowering technicians to make requests and tasks for office staff.
Mary-Rachel elaborates,
“With the remote teams, we did get laptops for them, and they also have their clock in and clock out within the system, which eliminated our payroll service because now everything is in Commusoft…Everything is in front of them.”
Commusoft strengthens working relationships and oversight between the office and field.
Timesheets are available on Commusoft’s field service engineer app, this feature automatically logs time spent traveling and at job sites.
She explains, “I’m on top of things…I get to track what’s going on with their time and make sure there isn’t any kind of craziness going on.”
Exceptional Customer Service
Kindness and great service were always at the core of Voity Electrical. With Commusoft, they were able to focus on their customer experiences.
Mary-Rachel states,
“Our customers are amazed that people actually call them back or answer the phone. But also the confirmations, cause we know when the technicians are gonna be there. Because everything’s customizable, we’re able to do some branding within the communication. With the customer journey, we can just bring them along”.
These efforts have paid off. Mary-Rachel was excited to share “12 months ago, our Google rating was a 3.0 and now today we’re a 3.8!” Voity Electrical is continuously improving; as of May 2023, they currently boast a 4.4 rating on Google!
Voity Electrical Is Growing With Commusoft
Voity Electrical has hit the ground running and are excited to build on their success.
Mary-Rachel explains,
“We’re able to work on the business, not in the business… We’ve moved into a new warehouse space because we have the ability to track inventory. In the next five years, I would like to hire another office staff. I’ll be able to run three different crews with three different leaders, and be able to control all those things like prices and parts. We want to scan the parts when we start picking parts. And I want to have a part-time job for someone to pick parts. So then the crew can just focus on the job at hand”.
Voity Electrical found their confidence with Commusoft. Their system is organized, and they’re in full control of their growth.
Most importantly, with work details squared away, the Voitys have time to spend together as a family. Mary-Rachel was excited to share, “We get more family time. When I say ’Commusoft saved my marriage’, I’m really not kidding. We very rarely forget the details now that need to make the business run smoothly. We’re able to be proactive instead of reactive.”
She concludes, “In hindsight, we still would make our choice again. Commusoft allows us to streamline everything and make us more meaty instead of fat.”
Voity Electrical is going to electrify the Electrical Industry, and will continue to thrill more and more customers; there’s no looking back.
Mary-Rachel Voity
Office Manager
Rutland, Vermont
5+
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