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.”
Service 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.
Six months ago they started using real-time vehicle tracking as part of Commusoft, Daniel details:
“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.”
