Trimming mistakes from your customer list

If mistakes in your customer information have caused wasted time for your office staff or work crews, it may be time to upgrade your systems from spreadsheets to contact management software.

How your business stores and tracks data for customers and leads is contact management. The process typically begins with a new contact from a potential customer and getting the basic name, address, email and phone information. Manual take of customer data by staff can be prone to errors and requires time. Automating customer intake with a form on your website benefits you and your clients in multiple ways.

Better customer experience

Customers today expect efficiency in their experience through web-based tools. By automating your intake process, you give your customers control of when they create an account or make a request. This can go beyond a basic “contact us” form to include a drop-down lists of available services or preferred contact method.

Reduces administrative time

During your busy season, call volumes can push more customers into your company’s voice mail system. Administrative staff must then return phone calls and gather relevant information—assuming the customer didn’t move on to the next business in their search. Enabling customers to enter their own information saves time for the customer and your staff and creates at least a little “stickiness” that may prevent the customer from calling your competitor.

Reduce data errors

Customers enter their own information into a form with greater accuracy than staff taking information by phone. Typos in an address or zip code can cause misrouting of work crews and delays in payment due to invoices going to a wrong address.

Keep data consistent

Using an online form lets you set controls for how data is entered. For example, a drop-down list for state that uses postal abbreviations rather than the full state name makes the data cleaner if you decide to do a promotional mailing. Drop-down lists for services in a customer intake form help your staff consistently communicate the customer’s needs. For example, if the customer needs a sprinkler system repair, one staff member may call that are pair while another may call it maintenance.

Create a hub for integrating other automation

Many other aspects of your business can become more efficient with automation, and it all starts with good customer information. An online intake form can feed information into other automation tools like quote and estimating systems, creating work crew schedules and routing, and invoicing and payment. It also provides insight for your sales and marketing efforts, such as how new customers find your business or where you might want to add more customers to make work crew routing more efficient.

EServ’s customer intake tool goes beyond basic “contact us” information, letting customers select the type of service they need and when they would like the work done. The tool guides the customer in providing additional information and even lets them upload photos of the work to be done. This information feeds other components of EServ, including work orders, payments, estimating, crew scheduling and routing, and inventory purchasing.

With only partial implementation of EServ's small business operations software for the service industry in 2021, our sister company Millard Sprinkler increased business 20% net over 2020. With Millard Sprinkler’s full implementation of EServ, we’re looking for partners to help us improve and advance its development. If you’re interested in being part of the EServ Evolution, please complete our contact form and a member of our team will be in touch.

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