Trent’s Drains, a provider of 24/7 drainage services, had previously invested in a standalone CRM system but didn’t use it to its full potential. It was used to log some of the jobs, for some of the engineers, whilst others continued to use cardboard job sheets. Quotes and invoices were done in Word and job histories were kept in Excel. When Covid struck, and Trent’s only had frontline field staff, it reverted to tried and trusted job cards with supporting images, etc sent by WhatsApp.
“As we expanded this became unmanageable ;we had to work through mountains of job cards, ours as well as our customers’, scanning and matching them to quotes, purchase orders and photos, and we knew we needed to make a big change,” commented Louis Trent, Director and Co-Owner, Trent’s Drains.
Trent’s looked at a couple of options before reaching out to BigChange having had previous experience of tracking software from BigChange’s founder Martin Port, liking that the system managed tracking and fleet management alongside job scheduling.
Using BigChange, Trent’s can easily manage its growing client base. The CRM tools, linked to Google Maps and with What3Words integration allow for the easy identification of customer locations, even if they are off the beaten track on a private road or in the middle of a field or woodland area.
Intelligent job scheduling, taking into account engineer skills and equipment, has replaced whiteboards in the office and back-office staff have real-time visibility on engineers’ progress using the BigChange App running on a tablet or smartphone. This allows Trent’s planning team to monitor each operative’s time and react to changing schedules and circumstances.
Customisable job cards that can accommodate Trent’s requirements as well as those of its larger corporate clients are reducing the time it takes for engineers to complete reports onsite, removing the need to capture multiple customer signatures and eliminating the need to scan paper documents back at the office.
“Using BigChange, we can build different templates for different job types with a mixture of questions which, when completed, can be fed into different job sheets. This improves onsite productivity and reduces back-office administration.
“It’s not just about the engineers doing a great job in the field it’s about reporting on this service to the end client. We get a lot of feedback from our commercial customers; property agents, facilities managers, landlords, helpdesks, etc., who are not onsite to see what we have done, about the detail and speed of our reporting.” added Jozef Przytocki, Operations Manager at Trent’s Drains.
BigChange is also helping Trent’s manage the financial side of the business with an enforceable system whereby suppliers will not accept an order without a valid purchase order number, and integration with the company’s accounting system QuickBooks.
“With BigChange we can better monitor and manage our spending and have complete visibility of which job materials or tools may have been purchased for. We are also saving many hours a week with our accountants able to seamlessly access invoice and credit note data directly from QuickBooks.” concluded Jozef Przytocki, Operations Manager at Trent’s Drains.
A second generation, family run business with over 60 years’ experience in the drainage industry. Offering expert drainage services, including emergency drain unblocking, CCTV surveys and preventative maintenance, Trent’s team of satellite engineers covers the whole of the South-West from the depths of Cornwall over to Essex and up to the Midlands. Trent’s operates a mixed fleet of Jetting vans, tipper trucks and a 2,000-gallon tanker.
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