In the plumbing and heating industry, businesses constantly struggle to multitask complex off-site jobs, back office tasks, and demanding customer expectations. But maintaining this level of coordination can often feel like you’re keeping too many plates spinning. 🤹♂️
So how can you juggle these varied requirements, all while improving job efficiency and customer satisfaction? Enter: gas engineer software. The right plumbing and heating software can transform the way your business operates, delivering improvements in productivity, customer service, and, ultimately, bottom-line results.
In this article, we delve into the potential of the right software, showing you how it can take your on-site and off-site coordination to the next level, and why it should be at the top of your toolkit for business growth. 🔨
Spending too much time on paperwork? 📄
Let’s be real, managing a plumbing and heating business can feel like you’re drowning in admin tasks. Engineers, burdened with completing timesheets and conducting vehicle checks, can become lax in these responsibilities.
Office teams, in turn, spend excessive time chasing incomplete timesheets and manually correlating data, further exacerbated by the need to cross-reference the timesheets against vehicle tracking systems before inputting into payroll. Plus, ad hoc and inefficiently documented vehicle checks often result in neglected fleet maintenance, leading to significant downtime and costly repairs.
Without an effective system in place, the risk of errors increases, potentially impacting customer satisfaction and the company's reputation.
The good news: BigChange brings a solution to these challenges. Our gas engineer software enforces real-time submission of daily and weekly timesheets, eliminating delays and manual data collation. Not only is the data automatically compiled into a report, but it can also be cross-referenced with integrated vehicle tracking, providing a comprehensive view of operations.
Let’s take a look at how it improves coordination, specifically…
Connect your team and boost your business
From managing on-site repairs to scheduling jobs and resources efficiently and providing real-time updates to clients, coordination is the glue that holds operations together. And the right software, like BigChange, helps you to manage this easily.
Here’s just a few ways it does this:
Real-time updates and communication
In an industry where things can change in an instant – a sudden equipment failure, a traffic delay, or an unexpected client request – having a system that provides real-time updates is invaluable. Gas engineer software allows your on-site team to receive instant updates through a mobile app to communicate effectively with the office staff. Engineers and back-office teams can share job statuses, report issues, or ask for assistance at the touch of a button.
Streamlined job scheduling and task allocation
One of the standout features of gas engineer software is its ability to optimise job scheduling and task allocation. The software uses intelligent algorithms to assign jobs to engineers based on their skills, location, and the nature of the task. This way, every job is matched with the best-suited engineer, ensuring efficient and high-quality service delivery.
Resource and inventory management
Running out of parts in the middle of a job can be both frustrating for the engineer and detrimental to customer satisfaction. But gas engineer software keeps track of vehicles and inventory in real-time, ensuring engineers know what parts they have on hand and what needs to be replenished. This reduces the likelihood of disruptions and boosts on-site productivity and first-time fixes.
Accessible information at your fingertips
With gas engineer software, engineers have access to crucial job details, customer histories, gas safety checks, and technical manuals right on their mobile devices. This access to information not only saves time but also enables engineers to provide a more personalised, efficient and compliant service.
Improved coordination with the customer
Delivering top-tier customer service in the domestic market can be a complex task. Homeowners, often impatient and unpredictable, can unintentionally disrupt the schedule, resulting in costly no-access jobs. To combat this, businesses can use the tech to send appointment confirmations, reminders, and real-time updates.
Enter BigChange – an all-in-one solution
As we’ve touched on, running a plumbing and heating business comes with no shortage of headaches - from chasing payments to coordinating engineers and office staff. But what if there was an all-in-one solution designed specifically to address these pain points?
Enter BigChange - the leading job management platform built to simplify and streamline plumbing and heating operations. With powerful features to automate everything from scheduling and dispatch to invoicing and inventory management, BigChange gives business owners back their time while boosting efficiency and profits.
Aside from boosting coordination, here’s some of the ways it can help your plumbing and heating business:
- Simplify Gas Safe compliance: Gas engineers must complete industry-standard paperwork. With an automated system, pre-populated digital gas safety certificates can be sent to customers and stored securely in the cloud, avoiding manual paperwork. Certification reminders also help you stay on top of renewals.
- Manage Service Reminders: Tracking annual servicing and reminders is tough without automation. With a system like BigChange you can send automated reminders for servicing jobs, helping you win more repeat business.
- Improve First Time Fix Rates: Seeing job history and managing van stock helps engineers fix issues on the first visit. This increases jobs per day, boosting profitability.
- Win competitive installation jobs: Automated, branded quotes help showcase your expertise over cheaper competitors when bidding installations. Customers can e-sign quotes and you get automated reminders to follow up.
- Slash admin work: Forget chasing paper timesheets. Automated systems can capture timesheets, cross-check to GPS tracking, and auto-compile payroll reports, saving hours of manual work.
- Deliver 5-Star customer service: Automated confirmations, reminders, and real-time ETAs with live tracking links emulate delivery services and reduce no-access jobs. Post-job reviews can also be requested to boost scores.
- Get paid faster: Real-time communication and forced capture of job materials expedites invoicing. Automated reminders also reduce late payments, improving cash flow. Plus you can sync the system with systems like Xero and Sage.
- Retain and empower engineers: Reduce admin so your engineers can focus on serving customers, not paperwork. Optimised scheduling also frees up 1-2 more jobs per week per engineer.
- Step back From operations: Automated processes and workflows allow directors to replicate their skills into a scalable system. This reduces workload so you can finally take a holiday or focus on business growth!
In summary, the right technology can help plumbing and heating companies address many pain points, retain the best engineers, keep customers happy, reduce admin, and boost the bottom line.
To bring these points to life, let's look at a real-world example. 👇
Mini Case Study: Blackhall Plumbing and Heating's Transformation with BigChange
Blackhall Plumbing and Heating, a long-established family-run service provider in Edinburgh, embraced BigChange's job management system to modernise their operations. Since implementing BigChange, they've seen not only improved customer service levels but also reduced environmental impact and operational costs, marking a significant stride in Blackhall's technological evolution and setting the stage for a future-proof business model.
Their engineers are now able to receive job details instantly, have a clearer view of their tasks, and manage their inventory more effectively, leading to increased job completion rates and improved customer satisfaction.
Plus, BigChange supported Blackhall's green initiatives by efficiently scheduling and routing their electric fleet, aligning with their commitment to environmental sustainability and paperless operations.
“BigChange supports every aspect of the business. From initial enquiry, right the way through to invoicing and payment; BigChange allows us to capture and record information and share it within the business to inform decision making, and with our customers to improve service levels.” Stuart Blackhall, Business Director, Blackhall Plumbing and Heating.
To sum up, the right software can greatly enhance on-site coordination in the plumbing and heating industry, resulting in more efficient operations and happier customers. By digitising and simplifying key processes, this technology ensures your engineers can focus on delivering top-quality services, not on navigating logistical hurdles.
Boost cash flow in the plumbing and heating sector
Running a plumbing and heating company comes with many pain points. But new technology can help streamline operations, reduce admin, and boost your bottom line.
See how BigChange’s gas engineer software, with its ability to streamline on-site and off-site coordination, is a game-changing solution that can equip your business with the tools it needs to succeed. See how much you could save or talk to an expert or book a demo now.
