5 Reasons Why Your plumbing Company Should Go Paperless
We have all been there before. You're searching through the insurmountable pile of documents that come your way to find the right one. Meanwhile, your prospect is waiting and needs an answer as soon as possible - you need quick and simple access to your records.
Major corporations around the world are moving towards paperless solutions. While plumbing companies operate in a very 'low-tech' industry, they are missing out on powerful CRM software that can streamline their operations, provide a greater customer experience, and greater returns on their investment.
It's time to consider employing Serwiz CRM software to help your company go paperless. Let's discuss five of the major reasons why you should make a consideration today:
Greater Productivity
Simply put, time is money. The more efficiently you can make use of your time, the greater the amount of money you can make. Serwiz allows you to operate with extreme efficiency by streamlining the lead capturing, estimating, scheduling and invoicing process.
Lead Capture
Serwiz has the ability to funnel customer leads from your company's website and any other lead-generating services you use. The digital transfer of this information saves your company time and the hassle of manually inputting this information yourself. Consider that an employee may take about 8 minutes to enter a prospect's information into your system. At an average of 10 leads a day, Serwiz can save your company 40 hours a month in data entry alone!
Going paperless allows you to eliminate tedious tasks, like sorting through documents. Consider this, as you go paperless you will have less documents to sift through each day. Your employees will spend less time sorting and distributing documents, then shredding or filing it. More of these activities are done digitally - emails go to the proper address, estimates are signed electronically and there is no sorting, filing or shredding involved.
Ask yourself, are your employees being productive... or are they simply busy? With the power of Serwiz, you will eliminate inefficient tasks that keep your employees busy so that they can focus on tasks that keep them productive. In the end, your bottom line will thank you generously.
Operating on paper is expensive. Printers, scanners, copiers, fax machines - they all cost money. Aside from their purchasing cost, you must factor in ink, maintenance, and paper. Studies estimate that each employee uses about 10,000 sheets of paper each year. This paper costs around $500 per employee. Once you factor how many employees you have to provide paper for, the numbers start to add up quickly.
Let's examine the other costs a little further. Printers, scanners, copiers, and fax machines increase the startup costs of a business. If you're a new entrant in the plumbing industry, you want to keep your startup costs as low as possible while you focus on growing your revenue. With Serwiz, you can minimize your startup costs and replace them with a low monthly fee.
Also consider the variable costs associated with time spent on printing, preparing and handing off paperwork.
How about the losses from errors and ommissions that cut into your profits?The losses can results from claims settled out of pocket, or even from simple calculation errors during estimating.
If your office staff is tied up in preparing and handing off paperwork, they are not available to respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner. We live in an era of instant gratification, nobody wants to wait long for a response - or a document for that matter. By going paperless, you can eliminate intensive paper-based processes. Not only do you save on the supplies - your employees get that time back for more productive activities.
Easy Access and Retrieval of Information
Managing your operations on paper is expensive and inefficient. Employees in the paper-intensive plumbing business spend up to 30% of their time looking for notes and documents, and 10% of those notes and documents are either lost or misfiled. Multiply that by your payroll to see how much you can save by going paperless. Additionally, lost work time doesn't account for the many related indirect costs, such as delays in processing and the resulting customer frustration.
When you are searching for an address, do you still check your address book? Of course not, you check Internet search engines like Google or Yahoo for quick results with minimal effort. Searching for documents within Serwiz is a similar comparison - you can spend an hour sifting through paper documents or you can search Serwiz and find your desired results in seconds. Compare the ease of searching up anything in Serwiz to the time wasted in shuffling through a disorganized filing cabinet or stacks of paper to find what you're looking for, and the answer is simple.
Serwiz gives you unmatched power at your fingertips so that you can spend your time on more productive efforts that build your business. You can take advantage of our pipeline views, dashboards and reports to measure and monitor the key performance indicators for your plumbing company.
With our cloud-based system, you will run a more effective operation in the office and out in the field as well. Your field representatives will have access to the information they need at their fingertips. This translates to more efficient customer interactions - given that they can answer many more questions onsite without the need for follow-ups.
Take a moment to consider the implicit benefits as well. When your field employees are empowered with more information available to them on the field, they will no longer have to call your central office so frequently. If you currently have multiple employees in the office for the purpose of answering phones, you have the option of assigning them to more productive tasks that put money in your pocket.
Collaboration - Sharing Information
Paperless operations foster greater collaboration. By seamlessly sharing information, each employee is informed on the latest changes. Are multiple employees working on a customer issue? Serwiz makes it easier for them to remain on the same page by storing all relative notes online and in a central activity log for each employee to review.
Under the paper method, generally, notes are scribbled down on a sticky note on one employee's desk. It is up to that employee to spread the message to all other employees involved. Unfortunately, when the phone continues to ring - these updates can slip through the cracks. By using our plumbing company software as a central hub for all customer notes, call logs and updates, you ensure that all employees are looking at the same information and that they have the most recent information.
Greater Customer Satisfaction
We live in a digital era where our customers expect to have requests filled briefly. Your customers will appreciate their document requests being filled within seconds when you operate paperlessly via Serwiz. All it takes is just a few moments to find copies of their requested documents and submit them via email.
Serwiz eliminates headaches for both the company and their customers. Our goal is to streamline the process for both parties - your business, and your customers. When you offer a quality service with greater convenience, you earn satisfied customers. This leads to repeat sales and better reviews - which carry a lot of weight in our digital environment.
Becoming Environmentally-Conscious
Moving to a paperless operation via Serwiz is not only the most profitable decision you can make, but it's also the most environmentally-friendly one! The Daily Green suggests that paper accounts for a quarter of landfill waste. Studies show that we can prevent the emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases in the U.S. via modest decreases in the use of office paper. Not only does the disposal of paper affect our environment, but the production is detrimental to the environment as well. The mechanical harvesting of wood has simplified the paper creation process and made it much more affordable to the average consumer - at the expense of our forests. According to statistics collected by The World Counts, an environmental protection database, forty-percent of our world's timber collection is intended for the production of paper products.
We destroy 30 million acres of natural forests annually. This affects our wildlife, as we are downsizing their natural habitat. The destruction happens from the moment we cut the tree down for paper all the way up until we burn it at landfills. As paper burns, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - which is harmful to humans, plants, and animals when inhaled.
We must play a role in protecting our environment - it's not too late make a positive impact. By reducing your paper consumption, you're not only helping your plumbing business - you are helping the world.
The true cost of paper lies in the handling of the paper in every step along your workflow, not just the printing of information on the paper itself.
Serwiz CRM software is the paperless solution that will take your business to the next level. From true mobile accessibility to a convenient customer portal - we are the first and only software provider in our class. With convenient features that streamline operations, save money, and lead to a greater customer experience - there is no reason not to give Serwiz a shot. Call us today to become one of our happy and satisfied customers. For more information, check us out here.
