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Category: Field Service Management

Don’t Use Residential Software for a Commercial Service Business

Commercial and residential service contractors work completely differently. So why would a commercial contractor adopt service management software designed for residential contractors?

 

 

While they work in similar fields — HVAC, plumbing, electrical — commercial and residential service contractors work in altogether different ways.

Three key differences highlight the complex work demands that face commercial contractors — and reveal ways in which the right service management software can drive success.

Commercial contractors generally work:

  1. In long-term relationships wherein both maintenance and repair work is structured contractually.
  2. On complex systems of capital equipment that require years — sometimes decades — of precise, detailed, and documented maintenance.
  3. With facility owners and managers who require a clear understanding of the condition of the equipment in their facility so they can make good decisions that reduce the risk of costly downtime.

Let’s examine each of these three differentiators more closely.

Long-term relationships with customers wherein both maintenance and repair work is structured contractually.

The work of residential contractors tends to be transactional in nature — a home’s air conditioner isn’t cooling properly, so the homeowner calls for help. That homeowner may not experience a similar problem or interact with the same contractor again.

So, the residential technician must capture the homeowner’s consent and credit card information immediately, while still at the property, lest the company not get paid for its work.

This contrasts significantly with commercial service contractors who sign long-term contracts with customers detailing exactly what maintenance and service repair work is involved before a technician steps foot on the property.

The commercial service contractor performs their work under contract to make workload and cash flow more even and predictable throughout the year. In return, the customer realizes better outcomes with higher equipment uptime, fewer emergencies, and predictable pricing.

Commercial service contractors require software that manages the delivery of complicated recurring services on specific pieces of equipment within each contract. They also want to communicate information to the customer in a way that validates the value of the contractual relationship.

Complex systems of capital equipment that require years — sometimes decades — of precise, detailed, and documented maintenance management.

Commercial service contractors work with complicated, integrated, and expensive systems — the failure of which puts customers at serious legal, financial, and reputational risk.

The right service management platform helps the commercial service contractor intervene early by delivering on an established preventative maintenance schedule, staying ahead of potential problems, and mitigating that risk of failure.

Say, for example, a commercial technician performs routine maintenance on three compressors for which there are six blowers, and identifies that one blower needs repair. Consulting the equipment’s service history, the technician sees that the same blower has been repaired two times already for the same issue. At that point, the technician might escalate the repair to recommend replacement.

Likewise, commercial service technicians need to see incremental movement on potential problems — a pressure gauge registering 8% now, whereas it registered 4% the month before. More than seeing the potential problem, a commercial service contractor needs to share that information with the customer in pictures, videos, and notes to help the customer fully understand the problem, and appreciate that a repair may be necessary now or in the future.

Appropriate intervention on expensive and long-lasting capital equipment can extend lifespan — and help safeguard the customer against short-term and long-term risk.

With facility owners and managers who require a clear understanding of the condition of the equipment in their facility so they can make good decisions that reduce the risk of costly downtime.

A homeowner can tell right away that the residential contractor did the work they were paid to do because the problem went away.

The facility owner pays for annual preventative maintenance services that may not result in detectable changes. So how does the customer know that the contractor did the work they were paid to do? Moreover, if the contractor delivers their work well, the customer will see no disruptions, no downtime, and experience no drama.

To validate that customer’s trust, commercial service contractors must share reports with the customer that detail what equipment was maintained, when it was serviced, and if any problems were discovered. This is a challenge; commercial customers are busy with non-facility matters, so vendor interactions must be fast, easy, and readily available.

Modern commercial service management software should deliver reports online and offer other conveniences, such as the ability to request service and or view a detailed service history in a portal — showing work in ways that help keep the customer a long-term customer.

Putting relationships over transactions.

ServiceTrade enhances a commercial service contractor’s ability to demonstrate long-term value to commercial service contractors by fostering communication and transparency, and mitigating customer risk.

To learn how ServiceTrade can help your commercial service business build stronger and more transparent relationships with customers, request a demo with an application expert.

Solving the problem bigger than double data entry

Is the administrative burden of data entry in your back office the biggest problem you face as a service contractor? Just imagine how much easier life would be if you could eliminate all of that wasteful double data entry. Just imagine what it would be like if your technicians could capture data in the field that would flow directly into your accounting system without any additional steps. Your technicians, after all, are known for their accuracy and attention to detail when it comes to recording financial information, right? And, no big deal if they make a mistake! You can easily reconcile data on the backend and make adjustments all while trying to close the books, right? Is your blood pressure elevated yet?

Though it may feel like the infamous “double data entry” is your most important problem to solve, think again. Double data entry, also known as two-pass-verification, is actually an established quality control method where two people enter the same data separately into a system in order to find errors. Sound familiar? How often does your back office catch errors made by your service team? Never, right? Jokes aside, the back office and double data entry are not fully appreciated for their role in catching errors and making sure that financial data is accurate.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that all double data entry is good. With quality control in mind, you should eliminate as much unnecessary administrative burden as you can with integrations and bulk-data imports to your accounting system. However, the time spent on data entry pales in comparison to the time wasted on a much bigger problem that is often overlooked. This problem spans all the way from data entry to collections and leads to delays and issues in running your payroll and closing your books every month. You can refer to this as the “what happened” problem.

Be the back-office hero by solving the “what happened” problem.

“What happened” is killing your back-office efficiency and, even worse, tarnishing your customer service delivery. The good news is that there is a solution to this problem. ServiceTrade not only integrates with your accounting system or enables bulk data imports to reduce unnecessary administrative burden, it is specifically designed to answer the question “what happened?” by enabling techs to capture rich information about every job including pictures, videos, equipment details and issues, digital paperwork, payroll details, items used, and much more. All that information is not only easily accessible by your entire team, but also by your customer, so everyone will know exactly what happened on every job.

Just imagine what it would be like if your team knew exactly what happened on every job and had all the information they needed when accounting for work delivered. Just imagine not having to chase payments because customers understood exactly what happened on every job and pay you promptly because they know you did a great job. Double data entry may seem like the most important problem to solve, but “what happened” is the hidden problem that’s really killing your back-office efficiency.

Commercial Service Contractors – Can You Reduce Busy Work in the Busy Season?

Busy season is here for many commercial service contractors.  Being busy is much better than the alternative, but this busy season may be a good opportunity for you to examine your current operations and workflows and ask, “What are my people busy doing?”

Busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive. In fact, busy often means hurried, overwhelmed, and constantly running in reactive mode.  This isn’t good for you or your company. Eliminating the unnecessary busy work can go a long way in improving morale during a stressful busy season. Instead, focus on working smarter and increasing productivity across the board for all your employees.

For the purposes of this post, we are looking at the busy work that arises when customers are calling in emergency repair work.  Let’s look at four basic stages or phases of an emergency repair job to identify areas where you can potentially reduce busy work, and reduce stress levels for you and others in your company.

Phase 1: The customer calls

A customer with an emergency calls in a repair request.  One of your front office staff members fields the call and gathers all the necessary details.  They may scribble notes on a piece of paper, or type information into a spreadsheet saved to their computer.  Either way, it’s likely the beginning of information about the job being recorded everywhere but one central location, which is going to cost you a lot of time over the course of the job.

Busy work time drains:

Phase 2:  You schedule the service call

Once the work order is created, it’s time to schedule the service call, and fast. But unless you have real-time visibility to your techs’ schedules, an increased volume of emergency calls can create a lot of distracting, time-consuming phone calls in just getting the tech to the job.  The pace that comes with the busy season can make even the best organized spreadsheet or whiteboard outdated by mid-morning.

Busy work time drains:

Phase 3: Your service techs do the work

Once the tech is on site, questions they have about the location or facility will require that they search through a stack of papers, search their email, or call the office to get more information. Even worse, you may find the information your tech needs is on a piece of paper you can’t find, or in the head of an employee who is on vacation.

Busy work time drains:

Phase 4: You invoice the customer  

Once the tech drops off the paperwork (unnecessary in and of itself), the fun for the back office begins.  

Overwhelmed techs are filling out paperwork faster than ever.  Sloppy handwriting and incomplete descriptions can be an even bigger than usual source of frustration for your back office staff. Someone in your back office has to retype information from work orders into your accounting system. Techs are hard to get a hold of when your accounting team has a question about the paperwork, or, even worse, an irate customer calls in with a question about their bill.

Busy work time drains:

All these time drains assume the paperwork is already in the office. Waiting on paperwork to get back to the office is a common problem for commercial service contractors. Techs keep paperwork in their trucks until the end of the day or week, and then bring it into the office for back office staff to process. (Unless they’ve lost it somewhere along the way.)  While it’s more of a bottleneck than busy work, it’s a huge opportunity for companies who want to streamline processes. While you are identifying busy work tasks, take a look at this process within your organization to see if there are opportunities for improvement.

Use this busy season to better your business

Commercial service contractors can save time for techs in the field, front office staff, and back office staff by reducing busy work that comes with a higher volume of jobs. Use this busy season as a discovery period to identify inefficiencies in your processes.  Then, you can use your slower season to implement solutions based on your findings. Otherwise, you’ll be losing time and money from the same busy season busy work this time next year.

Cyber Attacks in Fire and Life Safety

In 2019, there’s a fresh wave of ransomware hackers targeting US-based fire and life safety contractors that have legacy server systems. Several have been either forced to pay a bounty or face devastating disruptions when the cyber attack is unleashed.  If you believe you are safe because no one is going to notice or care about your business, you are wrong. And the weakest link on your network that hosts your legacy server systems is no match for the professional criminals that are extorting you.

 

Now is the time to move all of your critical customer operations data to a modern cloud architecture.  It is no longer a matter of being competitive in customer operations in your market. It is now about a choice to remain an ongoing business concern or be wiped out by a cyber criminal.  The idea that you want to connect all of your technicians and all of your customers to a server on your network for them to collaborate in delivering your service value opens up innumerable vulnerabilities.  It is just a crazy idea. If instead, they are all connecting to Amazon’s network (all ServiceTrade applications are protected by Amazon’s security) or Google’s network or Microsoft’s network, you are largely insulated from attack.  

No one keeps their financial assets in a safe on their property any longer – they trust a commercial financial institution to be a good steward and use computers to deliver interesting applications to protect those assets while growing their value.  It is time to take the same approach with what is arguably the most valuable asset of your business – your customer operations data. Who do you serve? What is the schedule? What equipment do they have? How do they pay you? What is your contract with them?  What new opportunities for revenue are at their locations? If this information is protected by Amazon or Google or Microsoft, your business can continue to deliver value everyday. If it is vulnerable because of a legacy server on your network, that value can slip away pretty quickly.  Don’t lose what you have worked so hard to build simply because you did not take the time to transition to a modern customer management platform.

 

Need help buying SaaS software?

You’ll always make good software-buying decisions when you follow the 6 pieces of advice in the Software Buying Guide for Commercial Service Contractors. Download and read it here.

5 Questions to Help Service Contractors Build More Valuable Businesses

Much of the popular culture in management consulting today is focused on the customer experience. Matt Dixon, the author of one of my favorite management books, The Challenger Sale, is spending many of his cycles promoting another of his books, The Effortless Experience.  Shep Hyken is a customer service guru with a new book called The Convenience Revolution.  And my latest book with Shawn Mims, Money For Nothing, focuses on the science behind making a customer feel good about their experience buying from commercial service contractors.  

Yet even with all of this focus on customer experience, I still find that most service contractors remain firmly entrenched in a war to optimize the effort expended in their back office instead of directing their management attention to enhancing customer service. I have come up with a couple of questions that might help challenge that back office focus if the goal is to build a more valuable business.

Question 1: How easy is it to hire a new back office administrator versus hiring a new skilled technician?  

This is an easy one, right? The answer is that hiring an administrator is very easy when compared to hiring a technician. Management’s focus should be on maximizing the productivity of each technician so that they deliver the maximum amount of revenue each day while simultaneously eliminating the risk a customer faces due to potential equipment failure.  Your goal should be to increase revenue per technician 20% per year every year. Never yield in the pursuit of greater productivity for the technicians. Hiring administrators is easier, so transfer as much work as possible off the technicians and onto back office staff.

Question 2: How easy is it for your customer to review and approve a new quote? 

If the answer is that they have to download an Excel file or PDF, print it, sign it, scan it, upload it, and email it back to you, that answer sucks.  That is difficult. Not easy. Compare that level of effort with an online quote with pictures and video of the issue and a single button to push to “Approve” (or request changes) and provide a purchase order for billing purposes.  Oh, and it never hurts that when the customer has viewed the quote online, the salesperson knows it has been viewed and can follow up to answer any questions. Don’t make it difficult for the customer to give you more money and remove risk from their environment by upgrading or repairing equipment (which is also good for you).

Question 3: Which is more valuable: eliminating all administrative overhead or showing an ability to sustain 20% revenue growth every year?

Again, it is an easy answer. Eliminating all of the administrative effort is worth perhaps 5 – 8% of revenue. Growth is MUCH more valuable if you can demonstrate you have a systematic way to sustain it due to your customer sales and service approach.  If you ever intend to sell your business or bring on a new shareholder, focusing management effort and technology purchases on enhancing sales productivity is where you should spend your thought cycles and investment capital.

Question 4: How easy is it for you to show the customer the value of your work online?  

Or do you just send them an invoice with a bunch of text and cryptic accounting codes to represent the value you deliver?  If a customer has to wade through a detailed invoice, guess what is going to draw their eye?  You got it, the numbers on the far right and in the bottom right corner. Guess what they are going to want to talk to you about? The value you delivered? Nope. “Why does it cost so much?” is the most popular question generated by an invoice.

Make it easy for them to see that value without digesting a cryptic invoice.  It should be easy for them to see your work online in the form of service history for their equipment with photos, videos, risk assessments, quotes, etc. so that they see you are thoughtful and thorough in your approach to managing their important assets.

Question 5: How easy is it for your salespeople to show a new customer prospect how you are different?

Do you demonstrate the value of your unique approach to customer service?  Pitching a value proposition of “we try harder” or “we care more” or “we are cheaper” sucks. It is much better to show the customer an online experience where they can conveniently review and engage with your company on ways to reduce risk and eliminate disruptions through a rich set of service history and equipment risk analysis.  

If you cannot show prospective customers examples of this capability, what are you selling? Invoices? How do you expect to command a premium in the market compared to the low price competitor? Simple answer – don’t expect a premium and be prepared to compete on price.

I find all of these questions to be obvious indicators of where management should spend their effort – front office innovations that make customer service and revenue generation easier because the customer gets an effortless, or, better still, a feel good experience.  So where are you spending your management effort? Front office and feel good? Or back office? Think about it.

 

5 Reasons Why Hiring Millennials No Different Than Hiring Previous Generations

For the last decade, my career has been centered around recruiting and managing millennials. Plus, I am one.

When we talk about recruiting and retaining millennials, I know what a lot of people are thinking: I don’t want to.

Millennials have been labeled as entitled, unfocused, and job jumpers. Some even call us narcissistic. When you think about the stereotypical millennial, this may resonate:

 

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants.”

Said every generation about the next. Don’t believe me? This quote is from Socrates.

Love them or hate them, millennials should be embraced into your organization. That is, unless you’re ok not employing anyone between the ages of 23-37. This makes millennials the largest generation represented in the workforce today. We’re extremely underrepresented among skilled trade workers in the U.S.. There are a higher number of skilled workers over the age of 45 and a higher number of them between 55-64 getting ready to retire. So during the skilled labor shortage, the largest generation available to you is being underutilized. That’s the bad news. You need millennials in the business and in your industry, and right now, they’re not there.

The good news is that once you start attracting millennials, they can help you attract more. If you create an environment to retain them and help them to thrive, they’ll not only be the future leaders of your company, but they’ll help drive you forward.

So, what do they want? Millennials prioritize these five attributes when looking for a job opportunity:

  1. Money
  2. Job security
  3. Benefits
  4. Time off
  5. Great people

It doesn’t sound too different from what previous generations valued. What is different is how we define each of these. Remember, I’m an older millennial, and in 1998, I was 14 and a freshman in high school. This was the same year that Amazon started selling more than books and Netflix made it possible for me to rent movies without leaving the house.

About a decade later, I’d graduated college and moved to Montana with the dream of being on ESPN someday. It was also the time we went from

to

Suddenly, information was in the palm of our hand and we were connected with people across the country and around the world. We had an inside look into people’s lives. This was also the time of the great recession with home foreclosures, the stock market crash, and bank bailouts. And in 2008 we went from 630,000 Americans who were unemployed to 11,400,000.

Millennials grew up in a world of constant innovation throughout our adolescence. We became used to instant gratification, information at our fingertips, and glorified easy-money lifestyles. While many of us were impacted by the recession in our adult lives, we’ve really only seen a growing economy and we’re trying to optimize our own growth through it.

So let’s look at those five priorities again.

Money. As always, money is important. But what I hear is that millennials don’t want to pay their dues. They want it now. They don’t want to work for it. Well, you could blame Mark Zuckerberg. He became a millionaire at age 22 and a billionaire at age 23. So in one year, he want from a millionaire to a billionaire. It took Warren Buffett 26 years to do the same.

Social media has opened the door for us to see those glorified lifestyles. We get to see the best part of people’s lives. Lifestyles and experience let us show off the best part of our own. We want to be able to afford it. The skilled trade industries are increasing wages at a slower rate than others. Be competitive. Know what industries you’re competing against for employees.

Job Security. While most millennials don’t remember details around the last recession, we weren’t blind to the millions of people who were suddenly employed. For older millennials, we entered the job market and were suddenly competing with people with 10, 20, 30 years’ experience for entry-level jobs. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg went from a millionaire to a billionaire. So job security meant having the experience, the skills, the ability to self-improve, grow, and have the opportunity for growth.

It’s not just the second-highest priority that millennials look for while job searching, it’s also the second-highest reason why people leave their existing jobs.

Most millennials would prefer staying with the same company for the long haul but only if the growth opportunity exists. Ask yourself, when you have millennials who were in the business for a short period of time, how valued did they feel? Did they make an impact? Did they have an opportunity to grow, and did they know that?

Benefits. Traditional benefits like healthcare and retirement still apply – but those have become basic requirements. Lifestyle and experience have really expanded the concept of benefits.

This picture of me was part of a recruiting campaign for a company I worked for. There isn’t a software company that doesn’t advertise benefits like free snacks and things that some people call silly or distractions like Nerf guns, video games, or beanbags. They all play into the concept of lifestyle and experience that aren’t restricted to after 5pm. Ask yourself, what kind of lifestyle are your benefits supporting? Fun and fitness? Fun and creativity? Furry friends?

Time off. Growing up in a world when you’re constantly connected means that work doesn’t happen between 9-5. You aren’t restricted to an office or a desk. Because we’re constantly connected, the flexibility to step away is more important. We want the ability to take care of our personal lives, even if that’s during the week. Things like taking extended vacation is highly valued. I know these things are easier to do with office staff than with technicians, but I’ve talked to several companies who have worked with technicians on creating some level of flexibility. Get creative. It takes some work, but that work pays back dividends.

When millennials talk about time off, it’s not about unplugging. We’re addicted to our phones. We don’t unplug that much. It’s more than anything about flexibility.

Great people. Back during that recruiting campaign I mentioned earlier, I did a radio ad with a tagline “I have fun at work.” I wasn’t lying. I had a lot of fun at work. When I left six years later, the people were the hardest thing to leave. Looking back, the people kept me there for an extra year.

There are studies that show that having a work best friend increases productivity, job satisfaction, and retention. Those miscellaneous reasons in the chart above why people leave are often because of a toxic workplace and bad managers. So great people make a big difference.

Know what is important to all your prospective employees. Give your managers the resources and support to create an environment that makes everyone thrive. Millennials may value things a bit differently, but you’ll find that at the end of the day, they share common personal and professional goals with your more experienced employees.

Two Ways for Contractors to Attract More Service Technician Job Applications

Your reputation has always been important when recruiting talent because the best techs want to work at the best companies. But the mediums job seekers use to search for potential employers has changed. Word of mouth is still around but pales in importance compared to your company’s online reputation. Before a job seeker even applies, your website, social media presence, and online reviews help them through the first two phases of the job hunt: Discovery and research.

1. Be Easy to Discover

When a technician starts their job hunt and isn’t familiar with all the local companies, where do you think they start? Google, of course. They’ll search for companies in their industry and the top results will be the first companies they research. That’s how Google has trained us all. The top search results are the best bet, and searching for local companies is no exception. Fortunately, the fresh, dynamic content created by your Digital Wrap is exactly the kind of indicator Google uses to rank websites. Just by performing the day-to-day tasks associated with the services you offer, your techs will be collecting customer reviews and generating rich content that will help prospective employees (and customers) discover your company.

Millennials, almost exclusively, find and research new job opportunities online. Most of my millennial friends discovered, researched, and applied for their current job completely online without talking to a single person. From discovery on Google or a job board to exhaustive research of prospective companies, they did everything on their laptop or smartphone. They browsed the company website and social media for information about the mission and culture. Where applicable, they researched customer reviews. They paid especially close attention to the reviews from current and past employees.

Indeed and Glassdoor, two of the largest job listing websites, are the dominant players when it comes to company reviews by former and current employees. When you Google a company by name, the employee rating of that company on Indeed or Glassdoor are often in the top results. Very quickly, a potential candidate can see what real employees think about a company. This can work for or against you. From a job seekers perspective, zero company reviews is concerning, a bunch of bad reviews is a death knell, and a mix of mostly good reviews is a great sign. I say a mix because people will be suspicious of your reviews if they are all five stars. Just like with your customers, it’s ok to ask your employees to leave a review of your company, just be sure that the review truly represents what they think, not what you think. Don’t instruct them to leave a good review and be responsive and respectful of any results you receive.

2. Be Easy to Research

If they find your company online, potential employees are going to look at your company website before they apply for a job. Is your website going to help recruit them? Does it have the information they ‘re looking for? Candidates aren’t just searching for a company that has an opening. They want to know about company culture and values. What do you stand for? They want to get a feel for what it’s like to work there. Is it fun? Is it challenging? They want to know what the opportunities for growth are. Will they advance their technical skill set or have an opportunity for advancement? They also want an easy application process. The bigger the barrier to applying, the fewer candidates you’ll receive. For example, a simple, mobile-friendly web form that collects their name and phone number with a call to action like “Are you a skilled technician and want to learn more about working at Aardvark Services?” will receive a lot more candidates than a Byzantine application process that asks candidates every possible question and requires them to upload a resume. You’ll definitely do more work to qualify candidates and get more that aren’t a fit but, in the midst of a skilled labor shortage, that’s an acceptable cost. Chances are, you’ll lose candidates you want before they even have a chance to apply if your application process is too difficult. Keep it simple.

Social media is a powerful tool when recruiting, especially Facebook and LinkedIn. When a candidate is considering a company, most will review the company’s social media profile and posts to learn about the brand. Compared to the corporate website, job seekers expect to find a candid representation of the company’s personality. Posts about company events, employees, and corporate values go a long way to help them get a better feel for the company.

It’d be nice if you could meet all of your hiring demand with a flood of great candidates that found you online, but that’s not going to happen for every company. Most likely, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and actively recruit new employees. Armed with a reputable brand and a strong presence online, it will be easier. All you have to do is ask.

For entry-level office and field positions, one ServiceTrade customer Guardian Fire Protection has another interesting recruiting approach. Once a month, they host an open door interview day. Anyone who shows up is guaranteed an interview. Now, some interviews are MUCH shorter than others, but everyone gets a shot. They advertise the event through craigslist, social media, and through their website. For a relatively low investment of time and money, they’ve filled multiple open positions. When they ask successful candidates that show up on the interview day why they didn’t just apply online, candidates often say that they didn’t feel like their resume was good enough.

If potential employees don’t already know about your brand, your website and reviews should drive discovery through search engine optimization. Once they discover your brand, your online reputation should drive their research to the conclusion that you are a great company to work for and that they should apply. You can do a lot to help your recruiting efforts by making the discovery and research easier for job seekers. Want a big bonus? Being easy to discover and research will help out your potential customers, too.

Smartglasses Face a Blurry Future

At the 2012 Google I/O conference, the big “reveal” was Google Glass.  A team of Glass-wearing skydivers live streamed their descent toward the roof of the San Francisco Moscone center where the event was underway.  It was an awe-inspiring stunt, but Google Glass flopped due to a buggy and ridiculous user experience, and the project was shuttered in 2015.  Or was it?

The website for glass proclaimed “Thanks for exploring with us,” but it also offered hope for the future with “The journey doesn’t end here.”  Of course, Google can waste money on pie-in-the-sky projects forever because they print so much pie-in-the-sky money with their AdWords platform.  But what about the rest of us?  When should we expect some breakthrough capability with smartglasses?  And what would that look like anyway?

I actually think other technologies that were related to the first glasses experiments are going to dominate our attention, and that is probably a good thing.  Smartglasses initially were a symbol for three separate and distinct technology advances:

  1. A heads-up type display that removes the need for a display screen to be positioned in your field of view.
  2. A hands-free user interface to be able to engage with an application to move the experience along without tapping on a screen or pecking a keyboard or zapping a barcode or whatever other input you choose.
  3. A camera application to capture and share the imagery in your field of view.

Let’s start with number 3 first.  I decided to do this blog post when I saw that Snap (the company behind Snapchat) just disclosed in an investor update that they are writing off about $40 million on Spectacles inventory they are not able to sell.  In case you have not heard, Spectacles are the smartglasses that are integrated with Snapchat to give the user a hands-free camera application to share the imagery in their field of view with the Snapchat application.  It flopped. But that is not the interesting bit.  The interesting bit is that the glasses were $129 including the charging case.  While not free, that is not bad for a first generation, new form factor camera with LED lighting, a power source, and the electronics for connecting to other devices.  I think experiments like Spectacles are going to lead to a simpler form factor for a lightweight, high functioning camera that attaches to your glasses or the bill of your cap.  It will simply be able to attach to whatever application you are running via Bluetooth or WiFi, and now you have a hands-free camera to snap images or stream video to applications running on your smartphone or tablet.

Item number 2, the hands-free user interface, is actually here today.  It comes in two parts that everyone will quickly recognize.  The first is the earpiece/microphone that we have all used or seen others use (Jawbone is a popular brand that has done well in the market).  This allows you to give audible input to an application (likely running on your smartphone or tablet) and receive audio back from the application.  The second part is Alexa (or Siri, pick your assistant).  I think Alexa is actually going to be the game changer because Amazon is so good at productizing computing infrastructure for folks like ServiceTrade to incorporate in our applications.  We also have experience with Google and Microsoft – there are good reasons why Amazon is the market leader by a pretty wide margin.  I believe Alexa will be another example of their market-leading competence in this area.  The applications you use will have an Alexa interface that enables the technician to move the workflow along by saying “Alexa, move the workflow along (as a proxy for whatever application option makes sense.)”

Item 1, the heads-up display, is the hard bit.  Not because this is new or novel because pilots, for example, have been using heads-up displays in aircraft since the mid-90s.  It is difficult because shrinking it to work in a miniature and mobile environment like a pair of glasses is a difficult piece of physics.  The display only works correctly if the user can see the application interface in the same plane of focus as the other items of interest.  If I understand what I have researched, it appears the approach being used by Google Glass is a near retina display. The image is projected directly onto the retina, so there is no issue with the depth of focus. The information is just “there” for the retina to absorb without refocusing on a “closer” screen display.

What Google Glass got wrong (in my humble opinion) was trying to introduce all three elements in a single device, while simultaneously assuming that the applications where we might use the technology were readily available.  None of the technologies were significantly evolved to enable an “all in one” device to be successful.  I am not a fan of “all in one” applications anyway, as I find they typically suck at most of the things they try to achieve for the sake of claiming a longer checklist of “features.”

Instead of the “all in one” that flopped for Google (although the physics breakthroughs they achieved with the display are impressive), I believe you will begin to see small changes sneak up on you.  It is easy to imagine someone with a Bluetooth Jawbone and a visor-mounted camera collaborating via Facetime with a remote colleague.  There’s nothing extraordinary here because all of the technology is well developed already.  I can also imagine a technician setting up their tablet beside a piece of equipment and asking Alexa to play and pause and rewind a recorded video of how to repair a complex piece of equipment – hands-free with an interactive application that we already use every day.

There is a phrase in my industry called the “consumerization of IT.”  Basically, this phrase means that the end-user consumer applications for new technology will generally lead the market before the commercial applications become available.  Seems counterintuitive until you realize that consumer spending makes up 70% of the US economy.  It just makes sense that the titans of technology such as Amazon, Apple, and Google, would focus their research and development dollars to address the biggest available market.  If you want to experiment with things that likely will work to improve your commercial application, don’t look for some big breakthrough from a wildly new and different application.  Instead, focus on the commercials that you see during the holidays that demonstrate how you can display an eggnog recipe and play holiday music by commanding Alexa to do so.  Pay attention to the display of best-selling gadgets at Best Buy from companies like Jawbone that connect to applications on your phone.  Then go play around in the context of your work for customers and find innovative ways to put these consumer breakthroughs to work for the benefit of your customers and your company.

Keeping Score is Not the Same as Winning

Every major sports venue has a prominent scoreboard so that fans and participants alike can easily review the score with a glance to the outfield or upward at the jumbotron.  Knowing the score is a critical element in decision-making.  No point in running the ball up the gut in football when you are behind by 3 touchdowns with five minutes left in the game.

Imagine trying to coach the game, however, by looking at the scoreboard instead of watching the action on the field.  Ever notice what is happening with the coaches on the sidelines during the game?  Doesn’t really matter what sport.  The coaches are riveted to the action on the field or on the court, right?  They may glance at the scoreboard occasionally, but most of their attention is directed onto the field of play.  So that they can make adjustments during the game to accentuate what is working and compensate for what is not.

Why is it, then, that commercial service contractors so often obsess over the accounting systems that measure the score while completely ignoring the customer service systems that provide real-time feedback regarding the action on the field of play?  Keeping score is not the same as winning.  Winning means that everyone is executing the plays for the business to the best of their ability and in the interest of great customer outcomes.  Accounting systems and accountants have almost zero impact on the game, and yet they are often placed at the very center of decisions regarding how to execute a winning game plan.  That’s like asking the statistician to draw up the winning play on fourth and long with the game on the line instead of entrusting it to the offensive coordinator.  The score at any time in the game matters, but it is a small element in a winning coaching strategy.

To be fair, customer relationship management systems, electronic commerce, and customer service applications (along with marketing automation) are newer applications on the market relative to the older and more established accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.  It is worth noting, also, that these newer applications focused on sales and customer service are the fastest growing breed of applications on the market.  It makes sense.  If you are going to compete in today’s fast-paced and online markets, you have to observe and measure what is happening on the field – play by play – instead of just waiting for the score to be tallied.  How are the salespeople performing on their calls and quotes?  How are the technicians performing identifying opportunities for repair?  How are the customers grading your customer service via online reviews?  How often is the service level agreement being met or exceeded?  None of these items register in the accounting system, but all of them will have a profound influence on your ability to win the game.

There is nothing wrong with glancing at the scoreboard a few times every quarter to tweak the playbook.  Winning consistently, however, means a relentless focus on the play by play action in the field while making constant adjustments.  Keeping score is not the same as winning.  Remember this maxim when you prioritize how you invest in applications for running your business.

Case Study: Ressac Implements Sage Intacct with ServiceTrade Integration

For more than 85 years, Ressac has established itself as a high quality, low-cost commercial contractor for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration systems. Specialties include low-rise office parks, mall retail, and big box retail sites.

 

THE CHALLENGE

Ressac recently implemented ServiceTrade to improve their service management and customer service. While this solved their challenges on the service side of their business, they were still using an outdated version of Dynamics NAV, a server-based accounting platform, to maintain financial records. “We were so focused on making improvements to the service side including customer service and earning more revenue that accounting was an afterthought,” explains Nick Rohan, CEO at Ressac. “We lacked real-time visibility into our financial information,” he says, “and we had to double key everything.”

With no transparency into financials such as working capital and cash flow, decision-making was more like guesswork. In a very competitive industry, and with a profit margin as low as 5-7%, it was critical to know the current situation when making business decisions. And since data wasn’t being shared between the accounting system and ServiceTrade, the finance team carried a large time burden related to too many AP and AR manual processes.

“Connecting to the old accounting system was cumbersome,” Mr. Rohan explains, “and we had a lot of issues getting into the system.” And with no AP approval process in place, service managers had to approve purchases, which took them away from more strategic job-related activities and created time-consuming invoicing of their clients. Additionally, data siloed within spreadsheets led to inefficient and time-consuming reporting processes throughout the organization.

Ressac desired a cloud solution that could streamline its AP workflow and approvals and provide real-time visibility into its multiple locations’ financial results. Sage Intacct’s financial management software was selected and was seamlessly integrated with ServiceTrade to eliminate many hours of manual data entry and reduce costly errors inherent in their old system.

 

THE SOLUTION

Nick recalls, “We relied heavily on ServiceTrade’s recommendation of Sage Intacct. When we looked at various systems,” he says, “what sold us on Sage Intacct was the reporting.” And selecting Wipfli as the service partner was easy. Wipfli provided full-service implementation, integration assistance, and ongoing support through a collaborative team approach as Ressac navigated through the process. “We liked the feeling from Wipfli, and had confidence in the team we were talking to,” explains Nick.

Everyone worked together to ensure a smooth integration. “The ServiceTrade integration is behind the scenes, so you don’t really notice it,” reports Nick. “With the Sage Intacct and ServiceTrade integration, we’re operating differently now,” he says. “The time we’ve saved on double data entry allows us to code our transactions, which allows for better financial reporting.”

With real-time visibility and transparency into their financial results across their multiple CA locations, Ressac now has the “right information at the right time” to make critical business decisions. “We’re getting more information out of our systems and doing a lot more meaningful work,” he says. The improved financial reporting means Nick Rohan and his team can easily see where their financials stand on a day-to-day basis.

What’s more, according to Nick, “the thing we really enjoy with Sage Intacct is our ability to access it anywhere from a browser, whether we’re at home or out of town. We can get in and see our daily runs and see how cash is doing,” adding, “it’s been fantastic!”

Overall, with Sage Intacct in place, Ressac taps into deeper financial and operational insights and is able to tackle more strategic issues, keeping the whole organization focused on their customers. Now the pressure of competition is less of a burden as Ressac has the insights its team needs to “grow strategically in existing markets and into other regions.”

 

LEARN FROM RESSAC’S EXPERIENCE

Key Requirements

Key Challenges

Key Outcomes

 

EXPLORE INTEGRATIONS

ServiceTrade can help whether you’re looking to integrate your current accounting system with our application or explore a new accounting solution. Call your representative to talk about the best way to start weighing your options and understanding the scope of integrating ServiceTrade with your accounting or other operational applications.

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