Break the Profit Vise
Service contractors, you’ve got 2 huge problems. First, skilled workers are expensive and hard to find. We call this the “Skilled Labor Squeeze.” Second, small-time competition is undercutting you on price. We call these fly-by-the-night operations “One Truck Chuck.” With expensive labor driving costs up and cheap competitors driving prices down, you’re stuck in a […]
Scattered Data Could Sink Your Ship
Every day, we talk to service contractors that think the biggest problem with their business is double-data entry into their accounting system. We tell them the same thing every time. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface, it’s hard to see the hundreds of small, but cumulative inefficiencies caused by scattered customer […]
Bust Customer Service Data Out of the Silo
Integration is a popular topic at ServiceTrade. More people are coming up with ways to integrate their customer service data with other operational programs – their website, CRM, accounting, or marketing programs. Once shared across applications, data becomes information that can be used by people throughout the company. Are you thinking about all the ways that […]
A Tribute to Dying Technologies
James mentioned to me the other day that the VCR (for the kids, that stands for video cassette recorder) is no longer being produced. This brought on a wave of nostalgia. I remember my sister and I being so excited those times that our parents rented this new thing called a VCR and a stack […]
Southwest Airlines Figured Out How to Deploy 14,000 Devices So You Don’t Have To
I had not thought about how much our service contracting customers have in common with Southwest Airlines until I read an article about the airline issuing iPad Minis to flight attendants to streamline operations. Ok, so their territory is pretty big. And they have quite a fleet to manage. But they offer recurring services, and […]
Technology Separates You From the Liars and Thieves
We have several honest, high-quality air duct cleaning companies as customers, so it pains me to watch videos that have gone viral of unscrupulous contractors. The investigative TV programs Inside Edition and Dateline have both aired segments that show air duct cleaners ripping off their customers. These two reports made me cringe and laugh: Residential […]
Technology Tip: Move Photos from your Devices to Google Photos
How many photos are stored on your smartphone right now? I have 1,438 photos that take up 4.8 GB of storage space — but this is pretty low compared to some of the folks around ServiceTrade. Carrying around more than 1,400 images is pretty painless — until it isn’t. Have you ever hit the storage […]
To Do: Start Using an Online Task and Project Management App
In some ways I miss the old way I kept track of my to do list. It was a piece of paper with an item on every line. I would draw a small box to the left of the item, then a description to the right. When the item was completed, I colored in the […]
Daydreaming of Big Jackpots and 1975 Fuel Prices
I had to chuckle every time that I walked by the Powerball signs last week that couldn’t display full $1,500,000,000 jackpot because the signs have just 3 digits to show the number in millions. This past weekend, there was the opposite situation in Houghton Lake, Michigan where they didn’t need the dollar digit when the […]
Don’t Let the Back-Office Tail Wag the Company Dog
All too often, as field service companies are considering new software, they base decisions on their historical software usage patterns and let the tail wag the dog. Since accounting software is the primary, and often only, business application in use, companies search for ways to extend back-office capabilities to the front office and beyond. This line of thinking is understandable, but […]