How are you or your techs using Service Monster in the home?

[jkowalski]

Not what Im saying. But it's ok if you don't understand until I put something in front of you.

as always, my work is revolutionary but takes time to get to market when you have as big a ship as we do.

My peer group invented html and http. Nothing "blockbuster" here, lol.

 

[Shane Deubell]

I bet that is similar logic the CEO of blockbuster was saying back in the late 2000's.. "Pfft that online movie service called Netflix isn't what the people want, we've been around for decades and own the market." Whoops..

Brent man you dont get it.

Google became a powerhouse because of their ability to recruit, train and retain engineers/programmers. Plenty of competitors could have been as successful as them from a technology standpoint. They understood the culture of these workers and created an awesome workplace environment.

Technology is just a tool, no different from a rotary or crb. YOUR ability to recruit, train and keep these techs will determine your success.
Having a dashboard to know minute by minute fuel consumption will not...

 

[jkowalski]

Brent,

I want to add I do appreciate your point of view. You are not alone I'm sure and I'm sorry I have not been able to deliver a rebuild to you sooner. It's my life's major frustration.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Brent,

I want to add I do appreciate your point of view. You are not alone I'm sure and I'm sorry I have not been able to deliver a rebuild to you sooner. It's my life's major frustration.

Sorry to make it more frustrating.. Your software does have unique features that many other don't have, again sorry for being a d!ck.. SM6 is a step in the right direction.

 

[Hoody]

Hey Joe,

I saw Service Monster in it's infancy and I was able to view it not long ago. I have to say I can appreciate what has gone into it being a web developer and since I have been digging into web app development as well. For what it's worth I think it's a smart idea developing the framework that can support future versions and features now as that is more of the hard work. I get that it's not just typing a little code and boom things happen. It'll help you to bring features people want more quickly in the future. Keep pushing forward, great product!

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Brent man you dont get it.

Google became a powerhouse because of their ability to recruit, train and retain engineers/programmers. Plenty of competitors could have been as successful as them from a technology standpoint. They understood the culture of these workers and created an awesome workplace environment.

Technology is just a tool, no different from a rotary or crb. YOUR ability to recruit, train and keep these techs will determine your success.
Having a dashboard to know minute by minute fuel consumption will not...

The people who work at Google still have accountability with company's resources and the activities they do. Its not just about tracking for abuse, its about logistics as well. Let say a call comes in for a redo, or an estimate, or to pick up a rug or some task that needs to be done on a location.. you can pull up a map and see where every tech is live for scheduling purposes.. really there is countless applications for this type of tracking. You can still have your basketball hoop up and dart board for the recruiting power.. but like you said business is a game of numbers and you are overlooking technology to help make fleet ran companies be more efficient and save them money. Its not like NSA listening in on their conversations, you are just tracking your assets (fleet vans) in real time to maximize your profits. You always say a company needs to track and know its numbers.. same exact thing, just more in depth and has a bigger impact on costs more than you think.

 

[jkowalski]

Hey Joe,

I saw Service Monster in it's infancy and I was able to view it not long ago. I have to say I can appreciate what has gone into it being a web developer and since I have been digging into web app development as well. For what it's worth I think it's a smart idea developing the framework that can support future versions and features now as that is more of the hard work. I get that it's not just typing a little code and boom things happen. It'll help you to bring features people want more quickly in the future. Keep pushing forward, great product!

wow! Gold star for your in depth knowledge!!

 

[PrimaDonna]

SM is not so much for managing your day to day as it is a marketing and sales tracker.
Most small business operators have no idea what they sell of different services. SM will help you start to do this.

This is what I depend on SM for the most. I have 7 years of data at my finger tips that I can slice and dice many ways to get different reports. And it transfers to QB easily so I can use the data from SM in QB to see the company as a whole and how we are doing.

Very excited about SM6. Can't wait to try it. Love that we can add photos to the work order/account. It will cut down on all the notes/documentation since we can just snap a picture and that will tell most of the story.

 

[jkowalski]

oh Meg... You can add photos for sure, but why bother when I AUTO LOAD THE HOUSE PIC when you complete the address! Ta-da!

there are so many goodies on that screen.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Joe, sorry for being so rough with the critique of your product, sometimes I just don't know when to quit. You do have a good product, its good to hear that you are proactive about updating it's features for the ever changing business landscape.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Brent its good to ask questions and point out deficiencies in the products offered to us cleaners. Your comments help change the future landscape for all of us.

It just seemed to get a bit too personal there for awhile.

 

[hogjowl]

Joe, sorry for being so rough with the critique of your product, sometimes I just don't know when to quit. You do have a good product, its good to hear that you are proactive about updating it's features for the ever changing business landscape.

Oh come on! The rafts really not THAT bad!

 

[Desk Jockey]

You've just made friends with the chicken is all.

 

[hogjowl]

I just pray Fred never sticks me on that thing with danny!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Talk your ear off?

 

[hogjowl]

No, that's not what I'm worried about.

 

[Desk Jockey]

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Nah he deserves more respect than that.. has nothing to do about being banned. I was just being a d!ck for being so critical, which isn't cool.. but I nailed it on post 96.

 

[jkowalski]

No worries! As always, I want you to do what you feel is right for your business. If that's not ServiceMonster then so be it.

Just look at the long term to though. It's super easy to throw a web application on amazon, hook it to an iOS app, and declare open for business. My 14 year old son could do it in a few weeks. Perhaps over time it would become a full CRM but its easy to throw a couple hot button items in and say "we're better!" But I worry about deceptive business practices.

I love competition. Truly. It gets my blood going and you always run faster when someone is in the blocks next to you. But when we started in 2003 we were grilled on the security of your data. In 2007 the questions disappeared (iPhone). And now people are handing over their info freely. They have no idea what the company is doing with it or who they are sharing it with. Sometimes the business models are in conflict.

Just be eyes wide open and careful about moving to quickly.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Brent is just a pia ...

From Mr kettle.

 

[hogjowl]

My four customers are safe with you Joe.

 

[Desk Jockey]

 

[idreadnought]

Joe, I use your software and for the most part i am very very happy with it. One thing that drives me and my office manager crazy is the accessibly of Techs. I want the tech to be able to see his schedule and jobs and print them. I think the tech should have access to 7 days schedule before and 7 days ahead but only a specific route that applies to him. I have had issues with techs looking at other techs routes and complaining about volume of work or why that guy got a better job than he did. At this point they access schedules through google calendar and it doesn't provide much information. We then email them route packets to print each night because they dispatch from their homes in most cases.

I like to keep things low tech as much as possible. Printing a route packet each day works very well and then the paperwork and payments are turned into the office every couple of days. I have no desire at this point to go paperless or use an app
exclusively

Please Please Joe I am begging you to give a tech security role that allows viewing/printing of only one route for a 14 day window. If you do this I will be 95% happy with your software.

next you could step up and integrate customer communication features that many other management programs have for other industries. I know a program that will robo call a customer with a pre-recorded message reminding them about their appointment the next day. It is in a different industry but the feature is included, runs automatically and costs 4 cents per call. Text sent to cell phones are also available and again included and cost per text is only 3 cents per.

 

[Shane Deubell]

But are you willing to pay for it is the question...
and more importantly are the majority of users willing to?

 

[idreadnought]

with my customer mailings and service charges Service monster gets over $4,000 per year. Anything that saves office time is usually a great investment imo

 

[Mikey P]

Jesus..

I see a banner increase in the near future

 

[Shane Deubell]

with my customer mailings and service charges Service monster gets over $4,000 per year. Anything that saves office time is usually a great investment imo

Nobody can make a product for anomalies like you and Tom king. Most guys are $50 -$150 k.

 

[jkowalski]

with my customer mailings and service charges Service monster gets over $4,000 per year. Anything that saves office time is usually a great investment imo

Joe, I use your software and for the most part i am very very happy with it. One thing that drives me and my office manager crazy is the accessibly of Techs. I want the tech to be able to see his schedule and jobs and print them. I think the tech should have access to 7 days schedule before and 7 days ahead but only a specific route that applies to him. I have had issues with techs looking at other techs routes and complaining about volume of work or why that guy got a better job than he did. At this point they access schedules through google calendar and it doesn't provide much information. We then email them route packets to print each night because they dispatch from their homes in most cases.

I like to keep things low tech as much as possible. Printing a route packet each day works very well and then the paperwork and payments are turned into the office every couple of days. I have no desire at this point to go paperless or use an app
exclusively

Please Please Joe I am begging you to give a tech security role that allows viewing/printing of only one route for a 14 day window. If you do this I will be 95% happy with your software.

next you could step up and integrate customer communication features that many other management programs have for other industries. I know a program that will robo call a customer with a pre-recorded message reminding them about their appointment the next day. It is in a different industry but the feature is included, runs automatically and costs 4 cents per call. Text sent to cell phones are also available and again included and cost per text is only 3 cents per.

granted ill add this to the backlog and get it in the next sprint. (the tech security part you asked for).

 

[WillS]

We finally settled on a scheduling software and Service Monster is it!!! We are excited to be using SM now!!!! I haven't had time yet to setup everything but think this is the best route for our business. Much better than writing out 3 schedule books by hand and hand writing invoices for each tech & job. The bullshit with HC and other apps made me turn away from them. SM seems like it's worth the money for us in the long term. I'll update with how we start to use this program once I can get into the nitty grit of it and look forward to their mobile updates etc in the future. So far you have our small business as a customer for life. Thanks for your help Joe and Sam.

PS. When I spoke to Sam he said they would be adding an option in the future to allow us to upload our postcard template instead of using a generic service monster template. This would be awesome to since we spend quite a bit on getting these graphics designed for our reminder cards.

Btw: it integrates with fittlebug which is great w the amount of jobs we have been booking through fittles online scheduling. It's always exciting to see these large jobs booking online through Fittle without even calling us. So far we haven't had one cancel from fittle bookings and job sizes have increased with online booking. Boom!

 

[Mikey P]

A graphics person who could be paid per project would be nifty too..