Commusoft Increases Job Booking by 4x and Triples Company Revenue
Commusoft was able to streamline productivity, organisation, and revenue growth while supporting the Premier Heating Solutions Ltd team as their business expanded.
Heating and Plumbing
15 employees
Reading, Berkshire
Commusoft is a completely scalable solution... We’ve quadrupled our workload, but we’ve only doubled our workforce.
12%%
Saved in parts costs
Premier Heating Solutions Ltd has been in business since 2015, operating out of Reading, Berkshire. Phil Mulvenna, the company’s Managing Director, sat down with us to highlight his company’s growth since utilising Commusoft in 2017, and recently upgrading to our Customer Journey Plan in 2020.
Customer service has been the backbone of the business from the very beginning. Phil explains,
“We believe in putting the customer at the forefront of everything that we do, and customer service being absolutely key. Working with Commusoft has allowed us to refocus on that, and being part of their Customer Journey package allows us to embody everything we preach”.
Before Commusoft
Before switching to Commusoft, the company was booking and completing “approximately 100 jobs a month”. They relied on a combination of T Cards and Microsoft Office to organise their workflow.
However, with a growth mindset, desire to expand, and need to better serve their customers, Phil and his team knew that these archaic systems were stunting their progress. He explains, “using Microsoft Office was obviously going to be a problem for us in the long term. It wasn’t a scalable solution and it was causing us headaches because we couldn’t do any reporting at all”.
Moving to a new field service software wasn’t a decision they took lightly; after all, the future of the business depended on the software they selected. Phil and his team weighed many other field services software before deciding to proceed with Commusoft.
But Why Commusoft?
Phil describes, “our industry, historically, has always been a couple of steps behind other industries that use software as a service…Commusoft is at the forefront of that growth and allows us to have access to the most up-to-date software solutions available. So, that really, really, helps us grow our business”.
The training process, and ongoing relationship maintained by Commusoft’s client services team, is another merit according to Phil.
He expands, “the training is great, and the help desk and ongoing support that you get from Commusoft is great. We deal with a lot of software companies for various different parts of our business and often it’s an email, and a couple days response, but these guys are really on top of it and that makes it a lot easier to do business”.
Intelligent Scheduling Boosts Productivity
Commusoft’s job scheduling software analyses driving timing and distance for engineers against newly booked appointments, making suggestions to office staff for the most efficient routing and scheduling. Phil states,
“We can pop in a postcode, and it tells us where our nearest engineer is on a specific day…we can get our travel time down to 10 or 15 minutes in between jobs. And that really helps us in a reactive sense, making sure we’ve got the person closest to that job who’s being booked to carry out the work”.
Automated Invoicing Smooths the Billing Process
Phil was concerned about streamlining the invoicing process when searching for field service software. His customers used to wait days while his office staff scrambled to assemble an invoice with the correct services and parts allocation. “Even though we were only doing 100 jobs a month, it was a time-consuming exercise”, he asserts.
Commusoft’s automated invoicing software was able to slash their invoicing time from days to “less than 30 seconds”; Phil continues, “now we’re able to automate the whole process, generate an invoice based on the settings we put into Commusoft, it allocates the parts to the job… and sends it out to the customer.”
Office staff can quickly send accurate invoices and concentrate on growing their business, and not the admin work that slows progress.
Stock Control Cuts Costs and Processing Time
Commusoft’s stock control software has impacted the business’ revenue by cutting unnecessary time and costs. Phil was happy to tell us that his company has “made some fairly significant savings. It’s allowed us to start buying our parts wholesale and we now carry a significant amount of product within our building. That has allowed us to save approximately 12% on our parts cost, which is touching on six figures”.
Functioning to maintain organisation, Commusoft “allows us to stay on top of stock management, so we don’t have to have a warehouse person managing that. We just have the auto-ordering system…and we receive those parts the following day. It’s a really, really, powerful tool, and you could argue it does the job of a warehouse manager”.
SLAs Support Customer Service
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are a pillar of a commitment to offering quality customer service. Phil explains, “as we’ve grown, SLAs have become far more important to our business”. Premier Heating Solutions uses SLAs in two capacities. The first is through a Tiered Membership program in which customers are offered same-day service. The other is for a time limit on return appointments.
Phil details how Commusoft aids this process: “SLAs are really important for our business; they help us track the service we offer. If the SLA isn’t met, I will get a notification, or my manager will get a notification, and we can look at why that happened, and be on top of the situation before it escalates”.
Ultimately, dedication to customers and following through on promises has contributed to the company’s growth: “If you’re able to deliver a service, and meet the promises that you’re making to your customers, it helps you scale up further.”
Looking forward With Commusoft
Company growth while maintaining optimal customer service are non-negotiables for Premier Heating Solutions.
Rather than being stressful and disjointed, Phil and his team were able to seamlessly navigate the leap from 100 to 400 jobs with Commusoft’s support. Phil elaborates,
“That’s 400 jobs managed well, where there aren’t mistakes, or a lot of callbacks. Before, it was 100 jobs, all over the place, with a few mistakes a day…we’re able to make sure any follow up queries are dealt with in the moment, whereas before, all of those things may take two or three days to put together; we were constantly chasing our tail. It’s been a real gear-shift for us to have something like Commusoft.”
This growth has saved the company on hiring costs, thus increasing overall revenue. Phil explains, “although we’ve had to double our workforce, we haven’t had to quadruple it. So the features Commusoft offers us has allowed us to significantly grow and take our business to the next level”.
It wasn’t just the Premier Heating Solutions team who noticed the improvement; their customers reacted with staggering positivity to the change in services since switching to Commusoft. Phil shared that they have received “over 1000 five-star reviews online”. He attributes a portion of this accomplishment to Commusoft saying, “we wouldn’t be able to offer the service as efficiently as we are, or, as effectively as we are” without it.
Phil was excited to tell us that Premier Heating Solutions is “anticipating having very significant growth over the next 12 months. We’re looking to add around a million in revenue to the business. That’s completely doable with the systems and processes that we have in place. And the beauty of Commusoft is that it’s a completely scalable solution”.
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PCL Heating and Gas Engineers
"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 and Gas Engineers, based in Whitehaven, Cumbria, 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 personalised 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 personalised experience.”
Analysing 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!
"We certainly wouldn’t be able to run our business as we do at the moment without the use of Commusoft. It’d be impossible to do. "
Switched On London provides plumbing, gas & heating, and electrical services to customers in southwest and central London. Company Director David Whyte joined us for a chat over Zoom to tell us about his team’s experience implementing Commusoft’s Customer Journey plan.
Stock Control
As a multi-trades business, Switched On London uses a large variety of different parts. Organising stock, and facilitating the movement of parts through the business is essential for keeping David and his team working efficiently.
David explains,
“We’re vastly cutting down on the repeat buying of stock we already had, and the general rotation of that stock. We can see that we’re spending much less in this department than we were previously. And also, [there’s] much less wastage, which would be an obvious loss”.
With a Stock control system, each part is accounted for, and our software supports multi-location stockroom workflows, like engineer vans, the office, or a dedicated storeroom. Learn more about Commusoft’s stock control software.
Automated Invoicing
Just like other field service businesses, an uncomplicated, and quick invoicing process is important for David and his team. As Customer Journey users, Switched On London utilises automated invoices to both take the pressure off their team, and get paid quicker.
David elaborates,
“We get Commusoft to automatically generate invoice[s]. And in quite a lot of the situations, automatically send it out to our clients as well. [There’s] much less time spent doing repeat tasks…it allows us to contribute much more time to interact with our customers, and [take] more enquiries”.
Automated invoices boost company productivity, meaning office staff can accomplish more each day. Digital invoices also help company reputations, cultivating a professional image, and making it easy for customers to pay for services online. See how Commusoft’s automated invoicing software can help your business get paid faster.
Custom Forms
Custom forms are becoming a foundational part of Switched On London’s daily workflows. Whyte explains, “We’ve created ones which we can use for any damage… rather than just writing it and taking a photo”. This form ensures Whyte’s engineers are gathering better-quality data, directly from the field.
Whyte describes a popular custom form his team utilises: “each client can sign a disclaimer…the flexibility of creating anything you want available for basically the engineer or customer to sign is now available to us”. He also elaborates on the benefits for his business: “It just gives us a lot more avenues of where we can cover our clients, or cover ourselves while completing tasks”.
Custom forms help businesses like Switched On London capture the information that matters to them; directly from the job site. Learn more about Commusoft’s custom forms feature.
Prospering With Commusoft
Whyte and his team are always looking forward. Dedicated to effective communication, and great customer service, Switched On London continues to win more business, strives to provide unrivalled service, and knows they can grow comfortably with Commusoft’s suite of tools.
Whyte concludes with this: “We certainly wouldn’t be able to run our business as we do at the moment without the use of Commusoft. It’d be impossible to do”.
David Whyte
Director
Switched On London operates out of southwest and central London, providing plumbing, gas & heating, and electrical services to domestic and commercial clients.
London, England
30+
Electrical
Switched On London
Custom Heat Ltd
"There is no way we could run our business efficiently and effectively... we just simply could not run it without Commusoft."
"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
A trusted, family-run heating and plumbing company with decades of experience.
Rugby, UK
100+ employees
Electrical
Custom Heat Ltd
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