Ditching the Binder: How Best Kept Portables Streamlined Business with ServiceCore
Best Kept Portables is a family-owned business located in Bangor, Wisconsin. Owned by Melissa and her husband, Chad. The company provides a range of sanitation services, including portable toilets, hand wash stations, and handicap-accessible units. With 10 trucks on the road almost every day, they manage a large inventory of approximately 850 portable toilets. At the office, Melissa is the jack of all trades, she handles incoming and outgoing calls, bookkeeping, invoicing, data entry and so much more.
Before ServiceCore: A Complex and Inefficient Operation
Before adopting ServiceCore, Best Kept Portables faced several operational challenges that caused their day-to-day tasks to be inefficient and time consuming. Here is what they were facing:
- Pen and Paper Operation: Best Kept Portables managed their operation manually using binders, note cards, and physical route books for drivers.
- Time-Consuming: “I would go through these note cards and invoice people month by month, day by day. It was a complete nightmare,” says Melissa. The manual system required hours of work to organize routes and invoice customers.
- Inefficiency: The old system was prone to errors. Note cards would get lost, and there was no easy way to update or track changes.
- Lack of Inventory Tracking: Sometimes, Best Kept had to manually count units in the yard to keep track of how many units were available for rent.
- Long Billing Process: Despite using QuickBooks, the manual process of entering each transaction added a lot of time and complexity to billing and invoicing.
These challenges were opportunities for Best Kept Portables to improve. They highlighted the need for a more efficient and reliable system, setting the stage for Best Kept Portables’ transition to ServiceCore.
The Journey to ServiceCore
With the inefficiencies and limitations of their old processes, Best Kept Portables knew they needed a change. “Before ServiceCore, we did try one other routing system… Ultimately, it was way too many steps,” Melissa shares. The complexity of other solutions made them hard to implement and even harder to train staff on.
After a bad experience with another software, they decided to give ServiceCore a try. “We did a demo with ServiceCore and my husband was like, ServiceCore always stuck out for me… And literally he walked me through and it was one page to put in the delivery, the pick-up, the service, everything. And I caught on in like two seconds,” Melissa enthusiastically explains. The simplicity and user-friendliness of ServiceCore immediately struck a chord with them.
During the transition, Best Kept Portables was able to smoothly transfer customer data and set up new routes without disrupting their regular operations. The decision to switch to ServiceCore turned out to be a game-changer!
More Than Just a Software
Time and Cost Savings
One of the most immediate benefits of switching to ServiceCore was the time saved. “I would say the drivers save an hour or so, but us as owners putting those routes together and the invoicing, I can’t even tell you per day, but per month it’s drastic,” Melissa notes. This time-saving aspect translated into cost savings. When the drivers spend less time on the road, overtime and fuel costs decrease. Meanwhile, Melissa has more time to focus on growing the business.
Favorite Features
Melissa has high praise for ServiceCore’s features, particularly the automated billing and job tracking. “My absolute favorite features of ServiceCore for sure is the automated billing… and also being able to go in and see the jobs when they are completed,” she says. These features have not only made their operations more efficient but also more transparent.
Customer Support Experience
The transition to a new system can be scary, but ServiceCore’s team made it smooth. “Our experience with customer service and onboarding and all of that at ServiceCore, I will say absolutely no complaints. It is top-notch,” Melissa emphasizes. The support and onboarding teams helped Best Kept Portables through every step of the transition.
Conclusion
The journey of Best Kept Portables serves as a great example of how the right software can transform a business. Using ServiceCore has helped the company save time and money. If you’re wondering whether ServiceCore is a good fit for your business, click here to get a demo. Melissa sums it up best when she says, “If you’re thinking about making the switch to ServiceCore, do a demo, see what you think… it’s worth every penny to me, to be able to have that time back and all of the features that it has. It is such a game changer for us.”
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