There’s no room for argument. To fulfill the demands of a paranoid customer base like uberized experiences, self-service technician tracking, and more, swimming pool service providers need to invest in the right pool service software. A simple move from a paper-based system to an online spreadsheet environment won’t cut it anymore. Spreadsheets and other outdated tools pave the way for a landmine of errors. Just a simple copy-paste error can end up in a scheduling mix-up and cost you a customer or ruin your reputation. The lack of access control can result in instances where your confidential customer data is compromised. A recent report from IOFM shows that businesses that use outdated manual tools spend around $6 to process an invoice. On top of that, almost two-thirds of businesses report expensive invoicing errors as a result of their manual invoicing process. You need a swimming pool maintenance solution that automates your operations end-to-end to provide the touch-free experience your customer base craves. If you are one of those people who believe that you can tide over another year or two without investing on the technology front, read on to know the seven reasons why you need swimming pool service software right now.
7 Reasons You Need Swimming Pool Service Software
- Your scheduling process is a nightmare
- Your team has trouble locating customer data
- You have no clue where your technicians are
- Routing is a tedious task for your team
- Your payment cycle is long and error-ridden
- Inventory tracking is always a hassle
- Your work order management process is siloed
1. Your scheduling process is a nightmare
While spreadsheets can manage the scheduling process of swimming pool businesses that are in their infancy, using archaic tools to manage the schedule of a growing team can cascade errors and cause an avalanche of expensive scheduling conflicts like double booking, unavailability of the technician, and more. If your technicians face the wrath of customers due to scheduling conflicts, then it is time to consider swimming pool service automation. An ideal pool service software, on the other hand, streamlines and simplifies your scheduling process. With drag and drop scheduling and a calendar-like interface, pool service solutions like Zuper make the scheduling process a breeze to manage.
2. Your team has trouble locating customer data
Paper forms and spreadsheets can seem like a fine way to store customer information when you are just starting your swimming pool service business. However, as you grow bigger, these outdated tools will hinder the visibility of important customer data and customer interactions. If your field technician has trouble pulling up your customer information and makes a series of calls to the back-office team to retrieve details of the job, your customer service experience will take a hit. This is where swimming pool service solutions come into play. Entry-level swimming pool service software can offer a simple database to store, access, and retrieve customer information. High-end swimming pool maintenance and repair software like Zuper will provide you with an array of features including the ability to capture customer’s location, visibility into their service requests (historic and current), an intuitive form to capture and store customer data, and more.
3. You have no clue where your technicians are
When your technicians are on the road and you have no clue where they are, you will have trouble answering your customer’s question about the expected ETA of their service technician. Your ardently prepared route maps can only offer you information on where your technician is supposed to be. Calling your technicians while placing your customers on hold will only add to the hassle. A powerful swimming pool service suite like Zuper will not only allow you to track your technician’s location in real-time but also keep your customers proactively informed of their technician’s ETA. Since the information is instantly available for them, the back-office team and customers can see and act on it immediately, if required.
There’s a better way to manage your pool service operations!
4. Routing is a tedious task for your team
Route planning is the most important aspect of any home service provider and swimming pool maintenance is no different. Paper-based route maps fall short whenever there is a change in the schedule or even when the traffic is high. Even google maps centric route maps don’t offer provisions for multiple stops. Manual route planning just eats away precious time of technicians that could be spent servicing swimming pools. What’s more, technicians don’t travel from one job to another in a straight route, the best swimming pool service automation tools like Zuper understand that. With Zuper, swimming pool service providers can route the right technician to the right job at the right time by automatically weighing in six key factors like the shift of the technician, technician’s skill set, availability of technician, location proximity, historical performance data, and weather/traffic conditions.
5. Your payment cycle is long and error-ridden
Did you know that 1 out of 3 invoices doesn’t match their initial estimates? This leads to confusion and unnecessary back-and-forth argument with your customer. Manual estimation and invoicing make the payment cycle move slower than sloths. With automated invoicing software for swimming pool service businesses, organizations can speed up their payment cycle and get paid faster without constant follow-ups. Swimming pool service software meticulously stores every payment document, thus making it easy to identify discrepancies in invoices or estimates. On top of that, Zuper lets businesses convert their estimates into invoices nipping any chance of invoice discrepancies in the bud. Additionally, Zuper allows customers to pay their invoices (partially or fully) online thus shortening the payment cycle further.
6. Inventory tracking is always a hassle
Inventory tracking and management are important to the success of every business. When your inventory management is siloed your warehouse managers will never know when they need to stock up your inventory. Insufficient stock levels will result in job delays and service delivery problems. The right swimming pool service and repair software helps standardize your inventory management and spare parts tracking. It helps service providers stay clear of inventory management risks like stockpiling and inventory shortage. With an ideal swimming pool service tool like Zuper, organizations can identify inventory gaps, predict future needs, and analyse consumption trends.
7. Your work order management process is siloed
While you can use online forms and spreadsheets to manage your work order management process in your starting stages, it will no longer be efficient as your team starts to grow. Outdated tools like spreadsheets end up creating impenetrable data silos that kill technician productivity and put a strain on customer relationships. These disparate data blocks restrict the visibility of work orders and waste away precious time that technicians could have spent completing the job. In a manual environment, back-office staff spend too much time hunting for the information and duplicating them manually. Centralized storage of work orders with distributed access control can reduce paper-related expenses, save precious time, improve efficiency, and eliminate process delays. A cloud-based swimming pool service software can shave significant time, reduce duplication efforts, and speed up the work order management process.
Summary
If your growing swimming pool service and maintenance business is already inundated with the problems mentioned above, it is high time you implement a swimming pool service software. The right tool can straighten out your crooked process while ensuring that it pile extra work on your already maxed out employees. If you are in the process of looking for a swimming pool service solution, then you are at the right place. Give Zuper a try and see how effortless swimming pool maintenance operations can be.
