Ben Yackshaw | Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Smart Service has a brand new answer to the routing needs of the modern service company: Smart Routes! Add route optimization to the already-prolific scheduling, dispatching, equipment tracking, and invoicing abilities of Smart Service to reap some massive time and fuel savings. How does Smart Routes work? Easy. Simply assign jobs to an employee, pick a day, then press a button. Smart Routes then arranges jobs in the most logical, efficient manner available. This module puts your business on autopilot! Like every one of Smart Service’s features, Smart Routes fits around the specific, individual needs of a service company. It all depends on how you’ve chosen to run your business. If you like, you can set a hard limit on […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Thursday, November 19, 2015
For businesses with a single warehouse or location, managing inventory is a relatively straightforward process. For the service companies of the world, things aren’t so simple. Most start with a centralized warehouse or office, then compound the complexity with a fleet of vehicles. After making and receiving a parts order, it’s sometimes tricky to track which truck or building items end up on/in. This is precisely why Smart Service’s Multi-Truck Inventory module is so cool. For service companies that need to track multiple, distinct inventories, there’s no better tool. Check out our brand new demonstration video to learn how it works: If your service company is looking for a better means of handling inventory, consider requesting a demo of the Multi-Truck Inventory […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Tuesday, November 10, 2015
We’re firmly entrenched in autumn, and that means only one thing: winter is coming. If you’re an HVAC company, you know that this is your last chance to get your customers ready for the wintery weather ahead. The best way to do this? Preventative maintenance! Now is the time to sell as many PM contracts as possible, and the Smart Service team has created a great tool to help you do precisely this. Our informative infographic makes the case for preventative maintenance as sound financial planning. Feel free to download this infographic and share it with your customer base in any way you like. One of the goals of the Smart Service blog is to function as an all-around resource […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Wednesday, November 4, 2015
When setting a service schedule, it’s possible to run across a job that simply cannot be scheduled right away. Sometimes, the job calls for specific weather conditions or backordered parts. If you don’t have a good system for handling these scenarios, finding a good time to do these jobs quickly becomes a nightmare. Panic at the scheduler can mean lost revenue, and even worse, lost trust. This is where the right service scheduling software can make a huge difference. Smart Service eliminates any margin for error through its handy waiting list feature. When a customer requests a service that can’t be scheduled right away (or when a previously scheduled job needs to be reset), the job can be added to Smart Service’s […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Friday, October 23, 2015
Most service businesses put a lot of time and money into building and maintaining their websites. If this effort weren’t already enough, many companies continue to pour money into marketing campaigns and SEO strategies in an effort to constantly drive traffic to their digital domains. Oftentimes, a website can feel like a money pit. After making so hefty an investment in yours, it’s important to get some return on all those hard-earned dollars. Enter Smart Leads. Smart Leads gives service businesses of all shapes and specializations the ability to turn website traffic into revenue. Check out this brief demonstration video to get an idea of how it works: Smart Leads ties a service request form on your website to the […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Wednesday, July 8, 2015
The latest versions of iFleet and Smart Service bring a very exciting new feature to the table: Dropbox integration! Once Dropbox is set up as your image directory in Smart Service, your field technicians will be able to access crucial customer and job information in the form of files saved to Dropbox. From the field, they’ll be able to pull up a customer’s old forms, photos, sketches, or work orders. Take a look at how it works: The first step is to create a Dropbox account (this is free, and can be done at Dropbox.com) on the computer (or server) on which Smart Service is installed. Then, you simply need to tie your Smart Service image directory into Dropbox (see […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Life is unpredictable, and so is the service industry. You can schedule a job thinking it’ll be a one-and-done affair, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so. Often, further attention (and subsequent trips) are required. Maybe you need to order a missing part and wait for it to arrive, or maybe a fridge you serviced earlier in the day started acting up again. Whatever the case, Smart Service has you covered. Our developers thought of everything when building Smart Service. Smart Service offers a multitude of scheduling options, regardless of whether or not you know the exact day you’ll return to finish what you’ve started. One way to alert the office that there’s a need to return to a job […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Thursday, April 2, 2015
Chemical tracking is massively important for pest control companies, lawn care businesses, and many other service industry disciplines. Relying on paper and pen to log (or prepare) this information is cumbersome at best and potentially dangerous at worst. The right lawn care or pest control software can go a long way to improving your job process and reducing your company’s margin for error. Bearing that in mind, let’s take a quick look at some of the chemical tracking functionality provided by Smart Service. The most flexible way to track chemical usage information in Smart Service is via checklists on job items. Once chemicals are set up in your QuickBooks item list, simply create a new checklist in Smart Service. Then, […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Friday, March 20, 2015
Smart Service was built to automate job processes for service companies the world over. It’s great for generating invoices as soon as a job is completed, but as any service industry professional can tell you, a job isn’t always finished when the technicians leave the site. Often, you have to return a second time or purchase additional parts before work can continue. As the job grows in complexity, so do your invoicing needs. As always, Smart Service has your back. Batch invoicing in Smart Service is perfect for jobs that require multiple trips, extended purchase orders, or the services of more than one technician. Build your bill one piece at a time, then click a single button to send that […]
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Ben Yackshaw | Friday, February 27, 2015
Is your business ready to embrace the paperless revolution and go mobile? If you’re on the fence about augmenting your job process with service software, Plumber Magazine has a fantastic article profiling a company that did just that: Seattle’s Jim Dandy Sewer & Plumbing. The piece is a must-read, so be sure to check it out. The Plumber Magazine article does a great job of detailing the progressive thinking and managerial prowess it takes to make dramatic improvements to a business. Here are some of the highlights: “The software adoption has paid off in many ways, not the least of which is a newfound confidence for Spencer based on the power of real-time communication with the field.” “I was able to […]
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