Sanitary Environmental Recyclers Corp. (SERC) is a growing portable toilet and dumpster rental business. SERC wanted more time to focus on their customers, but they were drowning in manual tasks.

Business was booming, and managing their growing customer base with handwritten notes and error-prone spreadsheets was no longer an option. With thousands of customers, manually managing jobs was taking the team 25 to 30 hours a week. SERC needed a tool that cut wasted time, managed jobs, optimized routes, tracked inventory, and automated billing.

“When I first started my portable toilet and dumpster rental business, I didn’t have as many customers as I do now. But as we grew to thousands of customers, it got to the point where we were limiting our growth because we couldn’t keep up with all of the manual tasks,” says JB Bresett, General Manager, SERC. “We needed a better way to get it all done without jeopardizing our customer service and decided that we needed to move from spreadsheets to software.”

Challenges:

• Inventory management
• Billing headaches
• Improving efficiency to refocus on expanding services

More Jobs, More Paperwork

SERC was facing a challenge any business owner would love to have: not enough time in the day to keep track of increasing jobs. Customers depend on SERC for prompt deliveries and servicing of their rental units. The success of a portable toilet & dumpster operator like SERC hinges on its ability to manage jobs without over or under-booking their inventory efficiently. Manually trying to coordinate schedules was an inefficient, time-consuming, and error-prone process that didn’t suit a growing company.

Bresett says that in his line of work, accuracy is critical and that even a single error could mean ruining someone’s event with no restrooms for their guests. “We realized that spreadsheets and Quickbooks were no longer enough to keep delivering the level of service our customers came to expect and that we needed to replace our processes with a more effective and efficient solution so we could have time to manage and grow our business.”

Managing Inventory and Billing Portable Toilet Rental Customers Was A Nightmare

SERC shopped around for a software option and a fellow portable restroom operator led the company to ServiceCore. The software’s ability to automatically track inventory and invoice customers convinced SERC that they’d be able to regain confidence in their scheduling and billing – essential for any growing business. Having a solution that could manage portable toilets, dumpsters, and septic jobs was also a big factor; SERC has a variety of services and needed software that could give them complete visibility over their portable toilet and roll-off dumpster inventory without having to use crude workarounds — like with other software companies he checked out.

One of the biggest improvements SERC saw with ServiceCore was the time they saved billing their customers and collecting payments using ServiceCorePAY. By putting the majority of their customers on autopay, customers have a better experience, and SERC gets paid faster.

SOLUTION:

SERC is using ServiceCore to cut wasted time, manage jobs, optimize routes, track inventory, and automate billing.

Benefits Gained by Using ServiceCore:

• Improved inventory management and optimized routes
• Eliminated invoicing errors and reduced past due invoices
• Cut wasted time spent on manual operations by over 70%
• Increased customer satisfaction and repeat business