Automate Collections With InvoiceSherpa
In today’s connected world, new online services are popping up each day to improve the connections between you and your customers. One connection that is critical is the payment connection, and we found a cool app called InvoiceSherpa to help you.
This fantastic product helps service contractors better manage their invoices and boosts cash flow by helping speed collections. Cash is the lifeblood of all small companies, and InvoiceSherpa can truly deliver more cash. Instead of monitoring your invoices and sending reminders, InvoiceSherpa does the heavy lifting of reminding clients about due dates, forgotten invoices, and upcoming payment schedules.
InvoiceSherpa reminder interface
From the InvoiceSherpa website —
Automated Invoice Reminders
The key to staying on top of your invoices and accounts receivable is letting customers know the current status of their invoices. Using InvoiceSherpa you can easily automate the entire process including reminders when:
- An Invoice is created.
- A due date is coming up.
- The invoice is past due.
- A thank you when payment has been received.
All of these items can be scheduled at different intervals with a unique template that you customize to fit your custom branding. Our goal is to be a seamless extension of your business.
InvoiceSherpa is one more example of the rapid fire innovation that is available with online services these days. If you still believe you should be running your service contracting business with a single “all in one” application running on a PC server in your closet, you are missing out on a world of great capability.
Nearby Now & ServiceTrade Can Improve Your Local Search Results
Consumers no longer turn to the yellow pages, newspaper ads, or direct mail to find the best service contractors. Instead, they turn to Google to answer the question “Who should I call?” To address this change ServiceTrade is happy to announce an integration with Nearby Now, a tool that helps the best service contractors showcase their great reputation online and improve local search results.
The Results
Need some proof that your company can dominate Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Try searching for an electrician in Atlanta or any surrounding city. For example, check out the results for these searches:
Atlanta electrician – https://www.google.com/#q=atlanta+electrician
Marietta electrician – https://www.google.com/#q=marietta+electrician
Sandy Springs electrician – https://www.google.com/#q=sandy+springs+electrician
Did you notice that TE Certified Electricians is at the top of the list for every search in the area? Amazing customer service and a Nearby Now-powered marketing strategy led by a digital marketing firm FOR service contractors, LeadsNearby, drive these revenue-generating results.
How Nearby Now Works
Nearby Now enables field technicians to check-in to each job throughout the day. Each check-in updates the Nearby Now check-in feed and network map embedded on their company website. Before the tech leaves the job, he or she can request a review of their service from the customer. Combined, the check-in data and customer reviews generate fresh, powerful content for the service contractor’s website that drive great search results and volumes of inbound inquiries.
ServiceTrade Simplifies the Process
The integration of Nearby Now with ServiceTrade simplifies everything about driving these outstanding results. Service contractors using ServiceTrade check-in to jobs with the mobile application as part of a process that enables amazing customer service. Instead of burdening the technician with extra applications and processes, the Nearby Now functionality is driven automatically out of ServiceTrade.
ServiceTrade enables smart service contractors to provide amazing customer service and the Nearby Now integration helps them broadcast their great reputation to the markets they serve. Give us a call at (919) 246-9901 to learn more.
Cloud Computing & Service Contractors – A Perfect Match
Service contractors need the cloud, but over and over again we see companies that are confused or unsure about how moving to the cloud will affect the operations of their business. Change is scary. As human beings, we are wired to avoid change, especially when it concerns a switch from what we are use to.
Cloud Computing
At a recent HVAC convention, our VP of sales witnessed two different speakers advocating the benefits of cloud computing for service contractors. Obviously, we are always pleased to have others singing the same tune. Here are a few excerpts of what was said:
The Cloud is Secure – One attendee described how all company data on their PC server was held hostage with Ransomware that cost more than $10,000 to remove. Huge organizations like Amazon, Google, and the US Government store billions of documents in the cloud. Virus protection and security are an integral part of data management and these large organizations would never store data in a location that wasn’t secure. Do you trust technology experts to build strong security or do you trust one of your administrative staffers to know about the latest virus, bug, or software flaw?
The Cloud is Cheap – There’s truly no reason to maintain a mail server anymore (or any other type of server, for that matter). Dozens of cloud applications can not only provide a hassle-free email solution, but a more feature rich solution as well. No one wants to pay an outside IT professional to be their problem solver. The cloud has lowered the price of software solutions by allowing software companies to put more power and more features into the hands of users. Cloud storage is essentially free. There’s truly no need to buy more file cabinet or PC hard drives.
The Cloud Empowers Your Customer Service – Items stored in the cloud can be accessed from any device – PCs, tablets, or smartphones. Your technicians can answer questions faster and with greater accuracy, even when they are in the field. Customers expect speed and accuracy. (Don’t we all use Google for fast answers?) Showing clients before and after photos, online work acknowledgements, past work history, or old invoices make you and your team shine.
The key point is simply this: Cloud computing is a perfect match for service contractors and their business operations. Embrace the cloud and prosper.
What is Great Customer Service Worth? About 20% and $41 Billion.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you know that Uber is a taxi service start-up that connects drivers with folks who need a ride. As a business, Uber connects riders and drivers (just as a taxi service does) and they collect a 20% fee on top of what is paid to the driver. As of December 2014, the company is worth $41 billion. Here is the Wall Street Journal article with the details on the financials. When examining Uber, I find some interesting lessons for service contractors. The key takeaway is:
How does a simple change in customer service practices lead to such a massive breakthrough in shareholder value?
Uber has effectively changed one thing in the customer experience associated with a taxi ride – they have dramatically improved customer service by providing rich information to the customer throughout the service cycle. Uber has done this by eliminating the aggravating service uncertainties and the unknowns that are inherent in hiring a taxi. There’s no need for the customer to jump up and down on the curb to hail a cab or berate a dispatcher who has no better information than the customer on the real whereabouts of the driver and a likely pickup time. The Uber customer simply touches the application on their smartphone, chooses the driver/car with the best value for their needs (arrival time, type of car, price), and then collaborates with the driver from pickup planning through to drop-off and billing. The ride is essentially the same, but everything about the customer service experience is different. Thus, in exchange for amazing customer service and 20% above what is paid to the driver, Uber has built a company worth $41 billion.
Think about the parallels with the service contracting space. Great service contractors will tell you that a premium price is achieved through great customer service. Any contractor trying to run the business simply as a markup on skilled technician labor is ultimately going to fail. Yet most service contractors have a customer service approach that resembles that of a taxi company. The customer is only engaged via phone calls and a paper receipt at the end of the “taxi ride.” How valuable is that customer experience? Not very. How much more valuable might a service contracting company be if it were to adopt an Uber style approach to customer service? Much more.
Here are the lessons from Uber on building a premium brand through great customer service:
1) Engage the customer online throughout the service process: Customers do not want to speak to your dispatcher about status. Also, it is inefficient and likely prone to errors. Show them what is happening online – the driver, the arrival, the problem, the fix, the fees.
2) Images are more powerful than text: Show the customer, don’t tell them. Uber shows the car en route to the customer. Give the customer photos and images of what is happening with the equipment being serviced. Humans learn from stories and images.
3) Make it easy for them to engage your company: Uber does this by being ever present as an application on the phone. You can also do it by being easy to find online, by being in their inbox with regular correspondence about your recent service delivery, by providing service history online, and by allowing them to initiate service online.
Service contracting is definitely different than a taxi service, but the customer service experience has certain parallels. New Internet services are coming on the market everyday attempting to “Uberize” the service contracting business. Because the dynamics of service contracting are more complex than a taxi ride, it is unclear if these emergent Internet brands will gain the momentum of Uber. What is certain, however, is that great brands stem from great customer service. There’s little doubt that service contractors can dramatically improve the value of their business by embracing many of the elements of customer service that make Uber worth $41 billion. What steps are you taking to create a premium service contracting brand by engaging your customers online and pulling them into the service process?
Selling Services? Consider Adding Fine Wine and Artisanal Cheese
As the Internet shrinks the world and arms consumers with information on how much things should cost, the service contractor’s service area will shrink as well. Customers will have information on which contractors are nearby, and they will make judgments on who can likely deliver the service for less due to lower expenses for travel time. Customers will also be armed with information regarding what service calls for common repairs and replacements should cost. They will simply Google:
“How much should it cost to repair [insert service item here]” ?
Google sends back advertisements, forums, customer reviews, articles, and a whole host of information to arm them in negotiating for better pricing on common “bread and butter” service calls. With a shrinking service area and pricing pressure on “bread and butter,” how can the service contractor maintain margins and growth? One strategy is to offer the customer “Artisanal Cheese” to complement the “bread and butter.”
Add some “Artisanal Cheese” to Your Services
Why do grocers always place the bread, butter, eggs, milk, and other daily consumption items at the back corners of the store? So the customer has to walk past craft beer, tasty snacks, soda, candy, fine wine, and artisanal cheese to get to the commodity items. Everyone knows what bread and butter should cost, so grocers do not make any money on it. Artisanal cheese does not face the same pricing pressure because it is a niche item that does not suffer the same comparative price scrutiny. It is a “treat” that customers will “splurge” to enjoy. If you are a service contractor, offering the service equivalent of artisanal cheese is a great way to maintain growth and profit as the Internet inevitably shrinks the service area for bread and butter. Artisanal cheese, however, needs to be packaged differently than bread and butter. It is typically merchandised in a fancy wrapping inside an attractive display that also contains complementary items which likewise command a premium margin. It is offered in the context of the consumption habits of the customer, often with expert reviews (wine spectator for example) that help the customer feel good about the purchase even at a high price.
So, the service item analog should be thoughtfully packaged for consideration by the customer as part of a standard call for delivering bread and butter. During the bread and butter call, the opportunities to sell artisanal cheese should be documented and presented back to the customer in a way that relates the thoughtfulness of the recommendation. These are upgrades, improvements, retrofits that all bring incremental value to the customer. How might they be received if they are laid out in bad handwriting on a coffee and tobacco stained accounting ticket? How much more receptive might the customer be if they are laid out online with photos and other rich supporting documentation that purports the superior quality of this premium service item (artisanal cheese)?
Fancy wrapper? Check.
Attractive showcase? Check.
Complementary items offered? Check.
Premium margin? Check.
A better customer service experience and better profits? You Bet.
