calldrdave
Active Member
- Reaction score
- 209
- Location
- Lawrence, KS
Just a note: This wasn’t sponsored or anything. These are just my experiences I’m sharing because I’m in the mood and alone on Thanksgiving doing books and feel like writing.
Background:
We’ve pretty much been using RepairShopr for about six months in earnest, after about a 3-6 month trial and transition. When I started my business in 2003, there weren’t many tools like this out there. My previous employer used a pirated copy of Tigerpaw. I opted for good ol’ fashioned Google tools. My accountant set me up on Quickbooks 2001 for PC and I was good to go. As the business grew, I had to bring on a bookkeeper to get stuff into Quickbooks. I was responsible for tracking leads, scheduling clients, and following up with them. Of course, I also did service calls in my spare time! We’re a break-fix operation. Roughly 75% of our calls are onsite with three part-time techs that work as independent contractors.
Enter RepairShopr
When I went on an extended vacation, I handed over the keys for the business to a former technician. After he had watched my operations for a few weeks, he suggested RepairShopr. I was skeptical. Everything was working, so why change? A new system was an added expense I didn’t need. I had signed up for a trial and it was too complicated on first glance. Why should I take the time and expense to learn a product when I’m already successful?
Exit Bookkeeper
After about six years of working together, my bookkeeper went on to better things. Now I had to find an extra few hours a week to enter stuff into Quickbooks. My goal was to move away from day-to-day operations, not get back into them. Vacations are nice. As many people know, I also have a growing career in writing and I want to focus on that. This change in staff forced a complete reevaluation of how I do business.
My Criteria: Reduce Duplication of Efforts (But Use Redundant Systems)
I spent a few months evaluating a ton of options for managing my business. The cost wasn’t the factor. Since I bill out at $80 an hour, time is money. Saving time makes me money. Whenever possible, I wanted one entry to sync multiple places. I wasn’t going to change accounting systems, so any solution I had needed to sync to Quickbooks desktop.
The other criteria were to avoid having a single point of failure in our systems. If everything is in a closed system, I’m stuck. If the company gets bought out or goes under, I’m stuck. We’ve all been there before, most recently with Evernote. I wanted to be able to use Google calendars and contacts. Each of our techs schedules through that system and it allows us to keep our current system. Mostly I wanted a conduit to send things to Quickbooks and Google. RepairShopr met all these criteria and then some. I’ll go into detail below as I look at workflow and cost savings. If I quit RepairShopr, all this data is somewhere else, but I’m not planning on leaving. I tracked over six months the value RepairShopr has added to my business to see if it was worth the added expense and the learning curve.
Value at $400 a month: Tracking Calls and Following up with Leads
My previous system was to flag these items in Gmail for follow-up using a special tag called “follow up”. I’d then email myself with any notes on the call. This system was pretty good, but I wouldn’t have the client file in front of me. If I forget to detail what I was following up on, the lead was lost.
I forward all leads with the Leads module in RepairShopr. Everything is in one place, and I can annotate the notes. I might put things in like “waiting for client to get new computer” or “checking with spouse.” Then, every Sunday night/Monday morning I call or email to follow up. Clients are impressed with the follow through and I’ll get a service call a week doing this.
Value at $40: Pushing of New Customers to Google (and iCloud) with Zapier
When I created a new client in our previous system, I’d have to create it in iCloud, then sync iCloud to Google contacts. Then I’d have to create the client again in Quickbooks. Most systems I looked at didn’t sync info with both Google and Quickbooks. With RepairShopr, I create a new client then Zapier creates the contact in Google. Google is set to sync with my iCloud, just like the old system. RepairShopr then also sends that new contact info to Quickbooks when I sync the invoice. I estimate this duplication was about 2 minutes for every new client. We get a new client a day. That’s about half an hour a month I was spending in double data entry. Ideally, I’d like that info completely synced instead of pushed. Right now if I make a change in RepairShopr, that change isn’t reflected in Google. That limitation isn’t the end of the world because this stuff doesn’t change much.
Valued at $120: Address Correction With New Customer
We do most of our work over the phone. Occasionally we hear an address wrong. It might be 1555 instead of 5055. Sometimes there’s a difference between street and lane. When you’re creating a new customer, RepairShopr checks with Google for the correct address. This feature prevents us going to the wrong house. When we go to the wrong location, we’re late and the client is upset. If we’re significantly late, they’ll cancel. I estimate this feature is worth at least one potential service call a month, plus at least half an hour of travel time going to the wrong place.
Valued at $160: Confirmation of Appointments and Location
I hate when clients don’t show up for their appointments. We’re there to do the work and then they aren’t there. It may be because we went to the wrong place (see above feature) or it might be because they had the wrong date and time. When we set an appointment, RepairShopr sends them an email confirming. It confirms the date, time, location and rules. That confirmation saves us from a missed service call. The rules we include in the confirmation like the right stuff to bring to an appointment (laptop charger) and the payment requirements. Letting them know this stuff ahead of time, makes sure we get the work done and get paid promptly. That’s worth at least one service call each. One for making sure everything is there and the second making sure we get paid. They have no excuse. When a client refused to pay, I proved to them they received confirmation of our policy and got paid. In theory, I should add the cost of preventing that person from going to collections as well.
Valued at $80: Ticket Attachments
Under our old system, we primarily used Google voice to accept incoming calls. Google would then transcribe the message, and I’d put the link on the calendar with the appointment. If the tech wanted to read the original email or look at screenshots the client included, I’d have to email the tech directly, or he’d have to look in our shared Dropbox. They’d forget to do that, and the service call wouldn’t go as well.
RepairShopr attaches a link to the ticket when it syncs with our Google calendar. That ticket lets me attach anything I want. I can include a pdf, an MP3, or an image file. Everything the tech needs for service is in one place. I estimate the time savings at least worth one service call here.
Value $360: Invoice Creation
Here are the big savings. Before I’d have to take the invoices and manually enter them into Quickbooks. That’s about an hour a week of my time. With the mobile app and the mobile website, my techs do it in the field. They can even enter payment and it all syncs with Quickbooks. I’ll still go into Quickbooks and enter the deposits. This system acts as a check-and-balance to the field work. At one point my bookkeeper did both data entry and reconciliation. I decided that was too risky. Since it was my business name on the line, I had to make sure the final books of the month were in order. That’s four hours of my time saved a month.
Value $240: Marketr Follow-Ups
After a few weeks, I’d contact a client directly to follow up on how service went. At the end of the month, I’d run a report in Quickbooks. I’d then use a bulk email program and drag the clients from it each month. It wasn’t hard, but it took about an hour to search manually drag 75-100 clients from my address book into the email program. Since it was the end of the month, the follow-up was inconsistent. If I saw someone at the beginning of the month, they’d wait 30 days to hear from us. If it was at the end of the month, it might only be a week since we saw them.
Marketr gives me consistent follow-up every two weeks. That snips client problems in the bud. I get about one or two calls a month that turn out to be less than complete satisfaction. Typically it isn’t our fault, the client just hates the news we gave them. Yes, your 10 year old Vista computer shouldn’t be upgraded to Windows 10. Yes, we agree it’s unfair. A ten-year-old computer should last longer.
When a client emails us a complaint back, we get to make it right with them. That response keeps them as a customer and makes a long-term relationship with them. My estimate is that’s worth about two service calls a month along with my time sending out those emails.
Net Value: $1,300
When I add this all up, I come up ahead of the game. My numbers show this as well. I have more time on my hands and I’m making more money than I did first quarter of 2016. Is it all RepairShopr? Probably not. However, I’m freed up to do other things. This net savings is just an estimate. Your mileage can and will vary.
Not Always Smooth Sailing
Our clients expect the best from us and we deliver on that promise. We’re the best rated and most popular computer repair company in our area. We also expect that same quality from our vendors. When they don’t deliver to us, we’re hampered in our ability to deliver to the customer. We strive for perfection.
Our transition to RepairShopr was rough. We had problems with the Quickbooks conversion and got into a bit of “blame the customer” problems. No conversion is ever rainbows, puppies, and unicorns. We got it resolved obviously or I wouldn’t be writing this. When tech issues have come up, I wasn’t always satisfied with the responses. The key I found is always to check their feedback system, which they use as a knowledgebase. I’ve been vocal through public and private channels about the quality of responses and I’ve noticed recent improvements. Just like in our businesses, personalities and cultures often conflict. I’ve adapted my approach to match the corporate culture. Sometimes I just ask for the ticket to be reassigned when it isn’t working out.
Overall, I’m really happy and thankful for the product. It’s changed my business for the better. The Technibble community has let me resolve problems that come up and share my limited skills in this product. I appreciate Troy’s patience with my high standards and expectations. Just because I complain doesn't mean I don't like something.
Thanks!
Background:
We’ve pretty much been using RepairShopr for about six months in earnest, after about a 3-6 month trial and transition. When I started my business in 2003, there weren’t many tools like this out there. My previous employer used a pirated copy of Tigerpaw. I opted for good ol’ fashioned Google tools. My accountant set me up on Quickbooks 2001 for PC and I was good to go. As the business grew, I had to bring on a bookkeeper to get stuff into Quickbooks. I was responsible for tracking leads, scheduling clients, and following up with them. Of course, I also did service calls in my spare time! We’re a break-fix operation. Roughly 75% of our calls are onsite with three part-time techs that work as independent contractors.
Enter RepairShopr
When I went on an extended vacation, I handed over the keys for the business to a former technician. After he had watched my operations for a few weeks, he suggested RepairShopr. I was skeptical. Everything was working, so why change? A new system was an added expense I didn’t need. I had signed up for a trial and it was too complicated on first glance. Why should I take the time and expense to learn a product when I’m already successful?
Exit Bookkeeper
After about six years of working together, my bookkeeper went on to better things. Now I had to find an extra few hours a week to enter stuff into Quickbooks. My goal was to move away from day-to-day operations, not get back into them. Vacations are nice. As many people know, I also have a growing career in writing and I want to focus on that. This change in staff forced a complete reevaluation of how I do business.
My Criteria: Reduce Duplication of Efforts (But Use Redundant Systems)
I spent a few months evaluating a ton of options for managing my business. The cost wasn’t the factor. Since I bill out at $80 an hour, time is money. Saving time makes me money. Whenever possible, I wanted one entry to sync multiple places. I wasn’t going to change accounting systems, so any solution I had needed to sync to Quickbooks desktop.
The other criteria were to avoid having a single point of failure in our systems. If everything is in a closed system, I’m stuck. If the company gets bought out or goes under, I’m stuck. We’ve all been there before, most recently with Evernote. I wanted to be able to use Google calendars and contacts. Each of our techs schedules through that system and it allows us to keep our current system. Mostly I wanted a conduit to send things to Quickbooks and Google. RepairShopr met all these criteria and then some. I’ll go into detail below as I look at workflow and cost savings. If I quit RepairShopr, all this data is somewhere else, but I’m not planning on leaving. I tracked over six months the value RepairShopr has added to my business to see if it was worth the added expense and the learning curve.
Value at $400 a month: Tracking Calls and Following up with Leads
My previous system was to flag these items in Gmail for follow-up using a special tag called “follow up”. I’d then email myself with any notes on the call. This system was pretty good, but I wouldn’t have the client file in front of me. If I forget to detail what I was following up on, the lead was lost.
I forward all leads with the Leads module in RepairShopr. Everything is in one place, and I can annotate the notes. I might put things in like “waiting for client to get new computer” or “checking with spouse.” Then, every Sunday night/Monday morning I call or email to follow up. Clients are impressed with the follow through and I’ll get a service call a week doing this.
Value at $40: Pushing of New Customers to Google (and iCloud) with Zapier
When I created a new client in our previous system, I’d have to create it in iCloud, then sync iCloud to Google contacts. Then I’d have to create the client again in Quickbooks. Most systems I looked at didn’t sync info with both Google and Quickbooks. With RepairShopr, I create a new client then Zapier creates the contact in Google. Google is set to sync with my iCloud, just like the old system. RepairShopr then also sends that new contact info to Quickbooks when I sync the invoice. I estimate this duplication was about 2 minutes for every new client. We get a new client a day. That’s about half an hour a month I was spending in double data entry. Ideally, I’d like that info completely synced instead of pushed. Right now if I make a change in RepairShopr, that change isn’t reflected in Google. That limitation isn’t the end of the world because this stuff doesn’t change much.
Valued at $120: Address Correction With New Customer
We do most of our work over the phone. Occasionally we hear an address wrong. It might be 1555 instead of 5055. Sometimes there’s a difference between street and lane. When you’re creating a new customer, RepairShopr checks with Google for the correct address. This feature prevents us going to the wrong house. When we go to the wrong location, we’re late and the client is upset. If we’re significantly late, they’ll cancel. I estimate this feature is worth at least one potential service call a month, plus at least half an hour of travel time going to the wrong place.
Valued at $160: Confirmation of Appointments and Location
I hate when clients don’t show up for their appointments. We’re there to do the work and then they aren’t there. It may be because we went to the wrong place (see above feature) or it might be because they had the wrong date and time. When we set an appointment, RepairShopr sends them an email confirming. It confirms the date, time, location and rules. That confirmation saves us from a missed service call. The rules we include in the confirmation like the right stuff to bring to an appointment (laptop charger) and the payment requirements. Letting them know this stuff ahead of time, makes sure we get the work done and get paid promptly. That’s worth at least one service call each. One for making sure everything is there and the second making sure we get paid. They have no excuse. When a client refused to pay, I proved to them they received confirmation of our policy and got paid. In theory, I should add the cost of preventing that person from going to collections as well.
Valued at $80: Ticket Attachments
Under our old system, we primarily used Google voice to accept incoming calls. Google would then transcribe the message, and I’d put the link on the calendar with the appointment. If the tech wanted to read the original email or look at screenshots the client included, I’d have to email the tech directly, or he’d have to look in our shared Dropbox. They’d forget to do that, and the service call wouldn’t go as well.
RepairShopr attaches a link to the ticket when it syncs with our Google calendar. That ticket lets me attach anything I want. I can include a pdf, an MP3, or an image file. Everything the tech needs for service is in one place. I estimate the time savings at least worth one service call here.
Value $360: Invoice Creation
Here are the big savings. Before I’d have to take the invoices and manually enter them into Quickbooks. That’s about an hour a week of my time. With the mobile app and the mobile website, my techs do it in the field. They can even enter payment and it all syncs with Quickbooks. I’ll still go into Quickbooks and enter the deposits. This system acts as a check-and-balance to the field work. At one point my bookkeeper did both data entry and reconciliation. I decided that was too risky. Since it was my business name on the line, I had to make sure the final books of the month were in order. That’s four hours of my time saved a month.
Value $240: Marketr Follow-Ups
After a few weeks, I’d contact a client directly to follow up on how service went. At the end of the month, I’d run a report in Quickbooks. I’d then use a bulk email program and drag the clients from it each month. It wasn’t hard, but it took about an hour to search manually drag 75-100 clients from my address book into the email program. Since it was the end of the month, the follow-up was inconsistent. If I saw someone at the beginning of the month, they’d wait 30 days to hear from us. If it was at the end of the month, it might only be a week since we saw them.
Marketr gives me consistent follow-up every two weeks. That snips client problems in the bud. I get about one or two calls a month that turn out to be less than complete satisfaction. Typically it isn’t our fault, the client just hates the news we gave them. Yes, your 10 year old Vista computer shouldn’t be upgraded to Windows 10. Yes, we agree it’s unfair. A ten-year-old computer should last longer.
When a client emails us a complaint back, we get to make it right with them. That response keeps them as a customer and makes a long-term relationship with them. My estimate is that’s worth about two service calls a month along with my time sending out those emails.
Net Value: $1,300
When I add this all up, I come up ahead of the game. My numbers show this as well. I have more time on my hands and I’m making more money than I did first quarter of 2016. Is it all RepairShopr? Probably not. However, I’m freed up to do other things. This net savings is just an estimate. Your mileage can and will vary.
Not Always Smooth Sailing
Our clients expect the best from us and we deliver on that promise. We’re the best rated and most popular computer repair company in our area. We also expect that same quality from our vendors. When they don’t deliver to us, we’re hampered in our ability to deliver to the customer. We strive for perfection.
Our transition to RepairShopr was rough. We had problems with the Quickbooks conversion and got into a bit of “blame the customer” problems. No conversion is ever rainbows, puppies, and unicorns. We got it resolved obviously or I wouldn’t be writing this. When tech issues have come up, I wasn’t always satisfied with the responses. The key I found is always to check their feedback system, which they use as a knowledgebase. I’ve been vocal through public and private channels about the quality of responses and I’ve noticed recent improvements. Just like in our businesses, personalities and cultures often conflict. I’ve adapted my approach to match the corporate culture. Sometimes I just ask for the ticket to be reassigned when it isn’t working out.
Overall, I’m really happy and thankful for the product. It’s changed my business for the better. The Technibble community has let me resolve problems that come up and share my limited skills in this product. I appreciate Troy’s patience with my high standards and expectations. Just because I complain doesn't mean I don't like something.
Thanks!
