Otter South West Limited Testimonial

"It was huge, Commusoft was like going from a tricycle to a Ferrari!"

Carlisle Corp is a restaurant and hospitality company based in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

Owning over 200 Wendy’s franchise locations spread across the southeast United States, Carlisle Corp found they had many IT and system maintenance needs, from cash registers to payment terminals and beyond. Instead of using a third party to handle that maintenance, they decided to bring it in-house. And to do that, they needed the right system.

IT Manager Ashton Holton joined us to discuss his company’s expansion since implementing solutions from Commusoft’s Customer Journey plan in 2022.

He explains, “One of the biggest reasons we went with Commusoft was the tracking”. Whether tracking vehicles on the road, specific jobs, or engineer timesheets, Commusoft ensures Ashton’s team has everything they need.

Confident Onboarding With Commusoft and Engineers

Choosing and implementing a new software package can feel like a roll of the dice. Ashton remembers working with Commusoft’s trainers:

“They held our hand through so much. It was huge, Commusoft was like going from a tricycle to a Ferrari! The trainers went at our pace, so we really enjoyed it. This helped whenever we had to ‘sell’ Commusoft, such as to engineers or other departments. We could say ‘hey look, this is why you’re doing it’.

He expands,

“Some of the crew were very hesitant to Commusoft at first, because it was a new way of learning to do things. But once they came around to it, it made sense and they saw the value added.. So that’s been pretty nice.

Accurate Timesheets

To make sure Carlisle Corp could be as efficient as possible, it was important to them to keep an eye on engineers and any unexpected detours.

Ashton explains,

“The timesheets feature is great mainly because anytime you clock in and out, it’s on your phone. The huge eye-opener for us is the time traveled versus the time worked on a ticket. Engineers hit ‘travel’ and then we have that travel time and can compare that with what the installed vehicle trackers recorded. If they took a crazy detour or something, we’d know.

“Or”, he expands, ”we see they hit ‘arrive’, they work the issue, resolve it, get a signature, and boom, Bob’s your uncle.”

Commusoft’s engineer timesheet software enables teams like Carlisle Corp to accurately monitor their mobile workforce. With this digital solution, engineers can easily log their hours, without involving the office. Furthermore, admins can ensure field crews are accountable and follow company procedures.

Comprehensive Service Scheduling

With so many jobs and franchises to oversee, Ashton and his team need a reliable way to build out engineer diaries. He explains,

“The scheduler and the visual aspect of it is fantastic because I can see at a glance and see that everything looks good. I can see the store numbers. I see the colour-coded calendar of who’s going where and what’s happening. We can see engineer drive times. Utilising this system, we were able to create a more efficient program, allowing our engineers to hit multiple issues throughout the day, instead of travelling, working an issue, and travelling home.”

Optimised scheduling not only benefits his team, but their customers too. Streamlined calendars are most successful when customers are kept up to date. With their engineer tracking portal, Ashton’s team shares live crew ETAs with customers. Ashton explains, “Both our field techs and our customers enjoyed the communication aspect of knowing when that engineer was going to be on-site to address the issue.”

Commusoft enables service dispatchers to build time and cost-effective schedules, this means Carlisle Corp can boost their productivity and profits without additional administrative strain.

Planned Preventative and Reactive Maintenance

Staying ahead of issues is essential. Ashton outlines, “We do preventative audits, where we visit each site every month and take photos of their equipment.”

While preventative care is a keystone, Commusoft enables Ashton’s team to incorporate reactive maintenance too.

He explains,

“Every now and then there will be a engineer on their way to a job, and we’ll find out ‘a certain restaurant is completely down. They can’t accept credit cards. They can’t serve customers right now’. So we’re losing money from this point. We can easily divert the engineer, cancel a job, assign them the new one, and have them fly over with it.”

Real-Time Reporting

Ashton relies on Commusoft’s reporting software to confidently oversee and track the outcomes of the many maintenance jobs logged across their 200+ restaurants.

He states,

“The reporting feature pulls everything together with what was already built in. From the main reporting dashboard, I can see SLA breaches, job statuses, and drill into everything I need to. It gives us a 10,000-foot visibility of the business. And then whenever you look at Commusoft, you know green means good: everything’s fine, we’re doing great.”

Commusoft’s reporting software offers 40+ reports and customisable widgets, empowering managers like Ashton to gain full insights into their business. This way, Carlisle Corp can organise all aspects of daily operations, and expand the business with confidence.

Ashton summarizes,
“I would 100% recommend Commusoft to any company with a field tech program that is looking to resolve more jobs, improve visibility, and increase operations.”

Ashton Holton
IT Manager

"I can increase my revenue by 14% by the end of this year. When you look at that in terms of monetary value, it's a no brainer."

Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating, located in Bath, was started in 2016 by Managing Director, Nicola Seviour.

Nicola and her team were initially using a custom-designed job management software that was tailored to their business, however, this proved problematic. “It didn’t work. It wasn’t reliable and that hindered us right from the beginning,” says Nicola. She adds, “We were growing and I knew that we were in real trouble if we didn’t have a piece of software that could support us.” It was time for a change.

Moving to Commusoft

Nicola spent two weeks talking to people, searching the internet, and phoning software companies. She admits, “I wasn’t actually looking at Commusoft at all. But by chance I went on a review site and saw all the really good reviews and thought, ‘Let’s see what this is all about!’”

After speaking to the Commusoft team, Nicola trialed the software and before long, Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating were signed up and starting their training. When asked about the training process, Nicola replied, “It was amazing. I think your client services team are a real asset to the company. They were incredibly patient and their delivery was incredible.”

But it wasn’t just the training that got Nicola and her team off to a good start. Commusoft’s interface and user-friendly design helped too. “The thing that really grabs me with Commusoft is how it looks – it’s all very user-friendly and that helped me feel more confident on it right from day one,” explains Nicola.

Commusoft’s emphasis on after-sales service has also been critical. “I don’t feel that Commusoft has just sold me this software and told me to get on with it,” says Nicola, “I feel like you’ve backed us up and continue to support us as we grow. And that’s really important.”

Intelligent Scheduling and a 14% Increase in Revenue

From the start, Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating chose to implement Commusoft’s intelligent scheduling, which can radically improve job booking with optimised appointment suggestions.

For Nicola’s team, this has been one of the most important features, as she makes clear, “I love it –  I think for us and for me, it’s one of the best features”. Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating now use it 99% of the time when booking jobs into the diary. On the challenges of manual scheduling, Nicola elaborates, “If my engineers are driving all over Bath for their jobs, they’re going to cost me more petrol and they won’t be as efficient as I’d like.”

Nicola knew that to grow her business and revenue, she needed her engineers to fit in an extra job per day, which required a more efficient solution, “That means not travelling around so much… and it means I need an intelligent piece of software”. She explains further:

“As bright as my team are, it’s very difficult to manually find an appointment in the same area when the customer’s on the phone. So the intelligent scheduling has been amazing. It’s not disappointed us and it’s already made a difference.”

But just how much impact is intelligent scheduling having for Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating? Nicola’s done the maths on what one extra job per engineer, per day means for her business:

“I can increase my revenue by 14% by the end of this year. And that’s huge – that’s massive. When you look at that in terms of monetary value, it’s a no brainer. That far outweighs the cost of putting Commusoft on our machines.”

If you want to calculate your own possible return on investment for intelligent scheduling, try our ROI calculator.

Easier Scheduling, With Less Room for Error

Whilst intelligent scheduling is helping Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating improve revenue through greater efficiency, what role do supporting features like engineer skills and shift patterns play?

“They stop user errors… we all make mistakes, don’t we?”, admits Nicola. She explains how when a customer requires an oil service, the scheduling tool will only show the engineers who are qualified to complete that type of work, reducing the chance of sending the wrong person for the job.

Equally as important are shift patterns. As Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating’s engineers start at different times of the day, Commusoft won’t suggest appointments outside of those shift patterns. Nicola thinks this will be increasingly vital in the future:

“As we add more office staff and more engineers, it’ll be difficult to keep track of. If there’s a piece of software that’s just guiding us along the right track – that’s what we need. And that’s exactly what Commusoft offers us.”

It’s not only Nicola who is pleased with the improvements that intelligent scheduling is bringing to her company. The engineers themselves are also benefiting from the optimised proximity and travel distance between their jobs. Nicola recalls how an engineer rang her shortly after implementing this new feature:

“He called me up and said, ‘Today I’ve had a brilliant day! I didn’t feel stressed… didn’t feel like I had to race to the other side of town’, and he felt it worked much better for him. When I looked at it, I could see he’d done much more work that day than any other.”

Customer Satisfaction and Improving Communication

From the outset, Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating wanted to offer a service that’s different to other companies. Nicola explains, “We answer our phones until 10 in the evening and we always turn up… customer satisfaction is an absolute priority.”

Commusoft enabled the company to double-down on their commitment to customer satisfaction through tools like the online booking form, which allows work to be requested through the company website. Nicola details why this is essential for them:

“We live in a world where everything needs to be done online. Customers can go to the front page of our website now and book an appointment at their leisure, any time of the day. We’ve found that it’s really popular.”

It’s not only job bookings that can be done online, but accepting quotes and paying invoices too. When discussing the estimate portal, Nicola remarks on its simplicity, “The customer gets an email saying you need this part, it’s going to cost this much money, and all they need to do is click to accept the job.” Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating always back up their quotations with an automated SMS message too, “It’s just polite – and we’re making sure that they’ve got the information they need in a timely manner.”

The whole process is quick and easy for the customer, thinks Nicola, “It’s really to do with the speed and the fact that they can do it online –  from their phone, even when they’re on the bus going to work. It’s all done seamlessly.” As a result, Nicola says, “We get more sales. It’s that simple.”

A Wide Breadth of Benefits

Implementing Commusoft has led to a variety of other benefits for Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating too.

Saving Admin Time for Everyone

“Commusoft on a whole saves us a tonne of admin time.” Nicola remembers how engineers used to bring handwritten notes into the office for staff to decipher and type up into the software. “We don’t do that anymore. Everything is much speedier.”

Faster Invoicing and Improved Cash Flow

With Commusoft, Nicola’s team can get invoices out much quicker. “Before, it would take 4 to 5 days to send out an invoice. Now we get an invoice out to a customer within 10 minutes of finishing the job, which means we are much more likely to get paid quicker.”

It’s Easier to Train New Staff

Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating are a growing company, recently hiring a new pair of hands in the office. Nicola explains how Commusoft has made that process smoother: “When we take somebody new on, we need a piece of software for them to be able to pick up and run with. Jane, our latest hire, is already picking it up quickly.”

Engineers Are Happier

It’s expected when adopting any new system that there will likely be some scepticism. Nicola tells us how this was initially the case for her engineers, “They didn’t want to use it to start with. After 48 hours of launching though, I was getting messages saying, ‘This is brilliant. This is saving so much time!’”. It was apparent that the Commusoft mobile workflow was proving better for the team. Nicola adds that, “Previously, they would leave the customer’s house, sit in the van, and do their paperwork. Now, when they leave the customer’s house, both the job and paperwork is finished.”

Quickly Import Supplier Invoices

“I was manually entering our supplier invoices the long way round… these great big lists my supplier would send over.” Commusoft solved that issue with the automated supplier invoice import, allowing users to drag and drop them into the system in seconds, as a result Nicola says, “We haven’t looked back – we use it all the time.”

Future Growth With Commusoft

Looking to the future, Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating are planning to expand their geographical service area. As Nicola summarises, “We’ve got a model now that works and Commusoft supported that really well – all we need to do is expand into new areas and take on additional engineers.”

On top of that, Commusoft still has further functionality to offer and new features in development, which Nicola is eager to try. “I want to start using other tools you’ve got, like the stock control software. Plus, any new features that you introduce, I will be right there as your guinea pigs to try them out!”, laughs Nicola.

When asked for any last remarks, Nicola concludes, “Overall, I am really thrilled with Commusoft and I know it’s going to make a big difference to the business.” With a predicted 14% increase in annual revenue from intelligent scheduling alone, we couldn’t be happier about the clear and positive impact Commusoft is bringing to Ace Energy Plumbing and Heating.

Nicola Seviour
Managing Director

"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 the past 40 years 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 engineers 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 engineer 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 engineers do it from site. Not only do invoices not get missed, but the engineer 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 diary. If it’s a call-out for that day, which happens very often, it will appear in real time in the engineer’s diary. The engineer 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 engineer can then invoice and it will automatically send off the after-care email asking for a review. It’s all made very engineer friendly and very easy to use. The communication between the office and engineer is instant.”

Would You Recommend Commusoft to Other Tradespeople?

“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.“

Lincoln Smith
Managing Director