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CRM Systems

Hi all

In our cleaning business we use a system called Jobber for our scheduling etc etc, works great but was wondering if any of you have any recommendations for a system that works well in garden maintenance etc ?

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  • PRO

    Hi Mike,

    We've used Jobber for 6 years for our garden and grounds maintenance business and find it works great. Could you not set up another account for your garden maintenance business?

    • Yep looking at that but its another £230 p/m which is quite a lot (for the full monty)

      • PRO

        Yikes- we've been with Jobber for years and under their legacy pricing the charge us significantly less than that. 

        I would approach them directly to ask if they would be happy to discount their product for your other operation as a gesture of goodwill.

  • PRO

    Hi Mike.

    I recently did a bit of a run-through of some of the various offerings for my own business. Jobber wont integrate with my accounts package which I can't change easily - actually wouldn't want to anyway.  I eventually landed at Fergus and Tradify as being the only ones with sensible pricing - there were loads of others at much higher monthly prices. 

    I am in an early trial of Tradify as it had some fairly powerful features which they also look to be expanding when customers request them.  They offered me 3 months at half price, which works out at £30 for an extended trial and seems like money well spent. I cant give you a good overview of it yet as I have 6" of hardpacked ice and snow on the ground, but my initial thought is it is very strong for trades which use lots of materials like joiners and electricians.  More labour based firms might not get so much out of it.............

    my 2cents

    • Have gone with jobber again as it works, have gone for the $90 per month which allows up to 7 users , 30 for 1 user , they have also given me 3 months free as an existing client which helps, a lot of landscapers are using it and it and for me it's more about knowing the system and what it can do for me

  • I can see it might just possibly be of use if you have many, many dozens of small clients and can’t easily keep track mentally, as there may be just too many people and variables involved. Personally I have never used this type of software/service as I have a smaller number of larger clients. For example one client of mine, a local Council, has just extended my contract for a further three years. The contract is worth £8250 per season. At this level you don’t really need software to know where you are.

    A diary and a biro are very effective. I would suggest that a diary and a biro are equally as effective even if your clientele is 100 pensioners. Also, once you are into the swing of things with any ‘round’ or list of clients, it takes on its own logic and rhythm. Work tends to be clustered together and so you know that you mowed the grass at client A on the same day as client B and C. So you are not likely to miss or forget anyone along the way.

    Most work is fortnightly and so memory is not likely to be a problem.

    I think anyone just starting up might be worried about organising, but in reality it’s not that big a deal. Use pen and paper and make a start. See how you go before spending time and money on software or online services.

    • PRO

      We find Jobber useful for managing and monitoring multiple teams. Our staff fill in the times for every job and what they've carried out, which can be monitord in real time. Gone are the days when pens don't work or timesheets that have got wet, gone missing etc. Each van has its own internet equipped iPad, the batteries last at least a working week.

      • Agreed and the scheduling (paperless) is great and its in real time, we also use the gps on the jobs so staff just click a button and it gets them to the address, lots of other great features.

    • We use it for a number of other reasons, reporting, tagging, marketing, invoicing etc etc, difficult to scale a business up on a diary, if you are a small or one man band then i get the reasoning but not a business that has ambition to grow, you need systems and procedures.

  • I just use outlook. I simply add the the new clients details to the day of the week and set up recurring visit or every 2 weeks.

    Seems to work fine and I have 180 plus clients and 4 staff who each have their own calendar.

    Each day I print off their work and they simply mark it as done and any other notes

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