Switched On London Testimonial

"Our office staff are now able to manage their time much more efficiently - I'd estimate we've reduced our office admin time to roughly 30%."

C.P. Jefferies Ltd is a family-run company based in the Cotswolds. With approximately eight office staff and twenty field engineers, they offer plumbing, heating, electrical, and renewable services to the domestic market.

We caught up with Rob Williams, owner director of C.P. Jefferies Ltd, to hear how Commusoft has been essential in transforming their well-established plumbing and heating business.

How Was Your Business Run Before Commusoft?

“Prior to using Commusoft, the operations were more or less wholly run on a paper-based system. There was some use of Outlook diaries for service engineers. However, every engineer had a paper diary that they would fill out each day. It became clear that this was not a viable process for us going forward with the company growing.”

What was your biggest challenge before using Commusoft?

“One of the main problems with the system that we previously ran was the clunkiness of relying on a paper-based system. Trying to get real-time information e.g. knowing how many customers we’d visited in a week or a month was very hard. Knowing how many jobs we’d completed or how many jobs were still outstanding and hadn’t been completed was also very difficult. Boiler and Aga servicing is a huge part of our revenue stream and contributes a lot to what we do as a business. Trying to maintain a comprehensive service record of all of our customers on a paper-based system was not straightforward.”

How Has Using Commusoft Helped Solve This?

“C.P. Jefferies pride ourselves on offering a quality service – Commusoft has helped us do that to the best of our ability. Now, with each engineer having their own device, they can see which engineers previously attended the customer and works that have been carried out. With each of our engineers having their own individual diaries, our office staff are now able to manage their time much more efficiently. I’d estimate we’ve reduced our office admin time to roughly 30%, now that we’re using Commusoft.”

Discover Commusoft’s job scheduling software.

How Has Vehicle Tracking Helped You in the Field?

“Working in a rural location, we often find that phone signal is not great and engineers would end up driving back to the office to find out they were going into the next village along from where they’d just been working. Now, with the vehicle trackers we can see that they engineer is still on site and we can phone their next customer to inform them if they’re running late. Rather than relying on the engineer finishing their work, driving to mobile phone signal, and letting us know – by which time it’s too late for us to preempt it with the next customer.”

Explore our real-time vehicle tracking feature.

Would You Recommend Commusoft to Other Field Service Companies?

“For any company working in the plumbing and heating industry or electrical industry – it’s very handy having all the certificates that you need for oil, gas, LPG, and electrical – all built into the software. The biggest impact that Commusoft has had on C.P. Jefferies as a business has been consolidating all of the information into one area, whether that’s customer information, job information, invoicing, product, testing – it’s all in one place for everybody to see.“

Join C.P. Jefferies and 1,000+ businesses that utilise Commusoft’s job management software!

Rob Williams
Owner Director

"Commusoft is a big player; it really puts it all together for us, and without it, genuinely, we would be lost. "

G Jassal All Trades, based out of Glasgow’s West End, provides a variety of field service services to customers. Company Director Gurminder Jassal spoke to us about how his multi-trades business has flourished since implementing Commusoft’s Customer Journey plan in 2017.

Plugging Away With a Disjointed System

Gurminder describes his previous daily workflow as a “a jumbled mess” before finding Commusoft.

He explains,

“We used to run things was remarkably different from what we do now. I would have WhatsApp sent to an engineer, a text message sent to another engineer, a handwritten note…and a diary, which, simply, ran out of room because if you made a mistake or had to alter anything, you had to put a line through it…I was up till all hours of the morning trying to sort things out”.

Gurminder and his team knew this workflow wouldn’t support their business’s growth.

Revamping Daily Operations

Trading a chaotic workflow for a streamlined digital system wasn’t a difficult decision, but it was intimidating.

Gurminder expands,

“Using a new system can be daunting…you’re thinking ‘how much time is it going to take me to learn this? Am I ever going to get good at this? I don’t have time for it’, but my advice would be, definitely take the time for it…The service from Commusoft was great… They were always there, and that’s why we’re still here after all these years”. 

After settling in with Commusoft, Gurminder and his team wanted to organise their tasks. As a multi-trade business, easily distinguishing services was a necessity.

Gurminder elaborates,

“We can actually group the jobs into ‘plumbing’, ‘heating’, ‘decorating’, ‘miscellaneous’; having those separate files, I can simply pull them up and go ‘how much decorating did we do between July and August 2018’? I can [compare this], to July and August 2021. And I can say ‘that portion of the business is doing really well, let’s get a painter on our books’. Or I can look at something and say ‘why has it declined? Can we push it forward? Can we generate more social media? Can we gather more customers to increase the workload?’ And really, separating those out is very, very, important and it gives you information at a glance”.

With Commusoft, the G Jassal All Trades team are able to separate jobs by type, and can generate reports to keep track of all the moving parts. Learn more about Commusoft’s job tracking software and reporting system.

Focusing On Customer Satisfaction

Gurminder works to provide full transparency, availability, and service to his customers. He explains, “Communication for any business is really important. For a customer journey, it’s massive. In the trades business, unfortunately, there’s this stigma of ‘the plumber didn’t call me back’, or ‘the electrician didn’t turn up’, so people have their backs up sometimes. But Commusoft has helped us overcome that fear with our customers”. Gurminder expands, “Having Commusoft, and having a good admin team, combining those both together, has dramatically changed it because we get advanced warning of when a customer is going to be needing a service”.

Commusoft’s service reminders software keeps both our clients, and their customers on track, supporting PPM workflows, increasing the number of jobs booked, and boosting company profits. Gurminder explains, “[Commusoft] lets us gain more business as well because instead of a customer possibly forgetting our details, can’t find us anymore, they go online…we’re actually capturing them before they have a chance to go somewhere else, it’s really, really important for us”. Learn more about winning continued business with Commusoft’s service reminder software.

Custom Service Plans

On top of being a multi-trades business, G Jassal All Trades also offers tiered service plans for customers with their Homecare packages.

Gurminder explains,

“One of the sides of the business we have is Homecare…We have silver, bronze, gold packages, and this [offers] different levels of cover from whether they’re allowed call outs, how much parts are allowed, what the labour is, and really, what benefits they can capture from using our services…”

He continues,

“[With] Commusoft, we can look at the customer’s file, see how many properties he’s got, and what level of Homecare plan they’re on, and when the service is due. So we’re not being held back from providing a great service either… we’re happy because if we get in early, carry out the service early, we can pick up problems early, and that can save us a whole host of money. So it’s a really good benefit for us.”

With customised service plans, Gurminder and his team can ensure they’re always providing unrivalled service to their customers. Learn more about creating custom service agreements with Commusoft’s service contract management software.

Moving Forward With Commusoft

Gurminder’s engineers thrive with Commusoft and their new workflows.

He explains,

“So from their side, it’s a fantastic tool. They know where they’re going, what they have to do, and they can target and base their day around that…And the great thing is, because it’s all digital, we can actually add in what happened during the last service… [The engineers] can view who’s been there before, what actually happened, what’s the best course of action, and the customer’s having a seamless enjoyment of using our business”.

With Commusoft, Gurminder knows G Jassal All Trades can grow comfortably, and continue offering exceptional service. He explains, “[we] captured over 60% more services now than we did before…Anyone that’s out there, thinking of utilising a system, I would definitely recommend Commusoft…Anyone sitting on the fence thinking about doing it, I would definitely do it”.

Gurminder Jassal
Director

"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