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July 8, 2024 20 mins

In this episode, we dive deep into the world of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, particularly focusing on their importance for home service businesses. We explore what CRMs are, their benefits, and whether you need one for your business.

Johnny shares personal experiences and insights on using Jobber, a CRM tailored for home service providers such as landscapers, roofers, and cleaners. Discover how transitioning from pen-and-paper to a sophisticated CRM system revolutionized business operations, from scheduling and invoicing to customer communication and team management.

Learn about the different pricing plans Jobber offers, and get practical advice on how to get started with a CRM, even if you're just launching your business. The episode also covers the customer lifecycle and the seamless experience Jobber provides for both clients and service providers.

Tune in for a comprehensive guide on leveraging CRMs to enhance professionalism, organization, and growth in your home service business.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, thanks for listening in today. We're going to talk about CRMs.
What are they? Do you need one?
What one I use and the benefits of having one. So let's talk about that now.
Music.
So CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.

(00:23):
I think that is. So CRM. it's a software that
i have on my my phone
also on laptop and on my iMac
as well so um what what it really is
is just a way of running my whole business on uh up front i the one i use is
called jobber j-o-b-b-e-r it's a canadian company they're quite big and And

(00:48):
they're specific for home service businesses such as landscaping companies, roofing, plumbing.
HVAC, like window cleaning, gutter cleaning, cleaning, all those type of services.
And I've been with them from 2018 now.
I'll just go back a little bit, just explain what I did before getting Jobber.

(01:11):
So originally it's just started when years and years ago I had started just
with pen and paper, writing everything down, writing customer details down in a diary normally.
And it was names, addresses, what the job was to do, the price that maybe I'd given.
I would have wrote out the quotes on just a little bit of paper,

(01:35):
the bids on a bit of paper and gave it to them
or maybe texted them through occasionally emails
maybe for commercial customers but I ran
my business for a number of years like that and it
was okay a little I suppose disjointed
and disorganized but for getting started

(01:55):
it was fine and at that stage there probably wasn't well
I don't think Jobber was about and probably other softwares
there was limited selection I then did find it
was almost like one guy's software
that he had built i feel and it was called round partner and
it was helpful in that i could put in clients details and drag and drop their

(02:19):
jobs it was mainly window cleaning i was doing at that stage so i could drag
and drop the jobs into certain days and and it was fine but again very limited
didn't do any invoicing or anything like that on it.
So I used that for a while and then I started to, with the idea of bringing

(02:40):
on guys and expanding things,
then I came across Jobber, possibly through a podcast it may have been.
And I got a free trial with it, which they still have a free trial.
So you can, excuse me, you can go onto their website there. It's getjobber.com.

(03:00):
And you can sign up for a free trial. I don't think there's any credit card
required either, which is good.
And you can have a go at it, check out all the features and see what benefit it may be to you.
If you are just getting started out, on a side note, whether you get this jobber
or another CRM right now, or you wait a little while, it's up to you.

(03:24):
I would advise you to get it as early as you can.
I understand finances can be tight when you're starting a business,
but the level of professionalism that it brings and the organization really
is worth the money that would be spent on it.
It i just had a quick look there on jobber's website and they have a few different

(03:48):
plans that you can be on so they start from this is in us dollars so they start
from 49 or sorry 49 dollars,
that is for their lowest package and then hold on i'm just gonna get it up here if i can find it
again let me a second yeah so go to pricing so it's try for 14 days it's free

(04:12):
and then if you do an annual subscription which is what i'm on you'll save a
little bit more so their core package is.
49 which which will
let you do coding and scheduling and invoicing and
then they have the connect plan which allows you

(04:33):
to build their your processes a little bit better connect
your team as if you have other like
if you've employees or subcontractors and
then the grow plan which is I'm on it's 249 per month this is dollars and it
has sales and marketing and it has text message in a lot of other features that

(04:55):
are really like I'm on that one it is expensive That works at a couple of thousand
dollars a year, nearly $3,000,
maybe £2,100 or something like that.
So it's a significant enough expense.
But if I was starting again, I would be straight on to the $49 a month plan,

(05:16):
that core plan, which would just get you organized.
You don't have team members. it's an expense
but it will make you money because i
feel you can then provide a professional quote people value that and we'd really
encourage you to look into look into a crm such as jobber i only have used jobber

(05:39):
so i know there's other ones and maybe dependent on your trade that you're in.
There's maybe ones that are more specific to certain trades but jobber is so
easy to use once you get used to it and I just couldn't imagine running the
business now without it I could.
Yeah, it is. It is just fantastic. And especially as you bring on people,

(06:03):
employees and more customers and trying to organize things, it really will be
a benefit to your business.
So I'll go and just talk about some of the features then,
or the customer experience that people or clients would have with Jobber when they log onto my web,

(06:23):
or sorry, I look at my website and how the experience
from their side of things and then the experience from our
side of things the admin side of things so firstly if
a customer comes to my website there is a booking form
that they'll go on to and I have a customized questionnaire
in there the name address email you

(06:45):
know what services they're interested in where's their
problems with the gutters they can even add photos to that
like attach photos if maybe there's a dripping gutter they can
take a photo of that and they can fill all that in now that that form is provided
by jobber it's a jobber form and it's embedded into my website so when someone

(07:07):
fills in that form i get a notification on my phone that says you have a new
request for work and it'll come up i can.
Click on it tells me person's name their
dress all their problems that they write in there and and
then i can quickly schedule that i
can look at my schedule on jobber and can place that

(07:28):
survey that we're going to go and do a survey down on
that which will be going out and having a look at the property seeing what's
wrong with the guttering and providing a quote so i can then schedule that into
or an admin can or my wife who does it as well for me she can schedule that
survey into my calendar on jobber and.

(07:51):
Then that means I'll go on to our schedule for the, you know,
for a day of surveys or what, and we can then text or email the client a message
saying, thanks for your inquiry.
And here's your date and time for the survey that we're going to come out to.
So that's really good. So they get that. They can then click on their appointment

(08:13):
that they're given on the email or text.
They can just click approve that are sorry, confirm appointment.
Appointment so we know then that they're happy
for us to come that time so that's what
happens on their end they'll get those messages on
our end we have got their details and we have all
that we can put out a say in the schedule i've got about six thousand

(08:34):
maybe seven thousand six or seven thousand i
need to look a customer or clients on jobber
so it's really good to have all those clients in
one place all their email addresses addresses names
phone numbers i can add in little
notes about around their property or things we
need to be careful of letting dogs out or this or that there's also lots of

(08:57):
photos that have been uploaded or that we have uploaded to that before and after
photos all in that one client's home page really so anyway we will then so then
Then my employee that I have who will maybe go and do the survey then, he can,
on his phone, he has his own login as an employee and he can see his list of

(09:20):
work for the day or surveys.
In this case, he clocks in on Jobber on his phone app.
He can then click on the job that we need to go to. It'll provide directions to that house.
He can go, he can see the form that the client has filled in that talks about,
you know, where the problems are so he knows where to be looking.
He does a survey around the place, can chat to the client.

(09:42):
He can then take the photos, upload them on the jobber and back at the office
then we can see the photos that he's taken.
He can make notes and he can compose
a quote or a bid through jobber
all on his phone or ipad or whatever
and and then we can and he
can even or i can email or text

(10:05):
then that quote with photos across to
the the client again the client
will then get the quote and they can ask for changes through
jobber so they can request changes or they
can click approve and then that job can
be on jobber again can now that's
an approved quote or bid and that can then be

(10:26):
scheduled into our list of jobs so then
maybe another guy that i have will go and do that job and
again he can look at on the day of the job he can look at the phone he
can text the client to say he's on his way through
jobber and he can go here
there'll be photos of the problem areas so he knows where to
do the work on the house there's a

(10:49):
list of everything that he needs to do he can clock
into the job and clock out when he's starting to stop the timer
for that specific job so we know how
long it's taken him to do that work and then we
can also see by gps where he.
Where he is that time is he at the house and

(11:09):
how he's getting on and we can edit
his schedule through the day so maybe we want him to do
that job and then there's another job or call back or
survey that needs done close by we can drag and drop
from the office remotely then where we
need to go without talking to him on the phone we can all do through
that app job's all done then he can fill
in a checklist they say he's done all the lists of things on the job sheet that

(11:34):
he was meant to do you can fill in a form you can attach forms to his job so
there'll be like a little report on the gutter in that he can fill in for the
client and then the office can then send that.
The before and after photos, along with a guarantee form you can attach and
the invoice all over to the client when the job's done.

(11:56):
And then the client can pay online or by jobber payments, which is a card processing
facility, or they can put a card on file even.
And then they'll get an automatic receipt. seat
and and that's sort of the process of the
customer life cycle as such and all

(12:17):
the steps that jobber comes into so there's that's
just like the basic day-to-day now i know they've introduced marketing and they've
introduced ai features and other things which at the minute because i'm scaled
back a little i'm not using but hopefully in time here i will ramp things up
again and get using all the features that I'm paying for.

(12:38):
I'm not using all the features that I'm paying for, but there's some specific
ones that I really like, like the text messaging where multiple of our team
be reading and responding to text messages.
I think some of the other, I need to look through all the features of each plan,
but I just remember at the time now it was a year or two ago that,

(13:00):
yeah, I just really like all those features that I
have in the grow plan I could probably lower it
down to another plan and it would work fine the business
especially now with a smaller team but yeah and
the prices has just went up a little bit as well there so it is an expense I
just know from 2018 that it has got me more organized it allowed me to grow

(13:22):
the business more when I was wanting to do that it's it automates parts of your
business which which is fantastic.
And it really is something I would consider if you're, even if you are starting
out and even if it's not Jobber, but I would look to some way of having all

(13:43):
that information, not in pen and paper.
But on a software that they can give you good support, which Jobber can.
They're a big enough company that they have good support if I need them at any stage.
They're only a text or call away. Their support's been very good.
So without it being an advertisement, all for Jobber, I'm not getting sponsored for this at all.

(14:04):
But I have just found them to be very good.
And I have no intention to look at any other type of software,
although there are other ones.
There's probably other ones with different features. yours but
for now this one is fantastic it does sync
with i think quickbooks and other other softwares and
other apps that it can link into

(14:24):
so yeah that's so crm is just about keeping you organized it's also for you
it's good and that it keeps you organized keeps your team organized especially
if you have multiple team members but it will also keep the the client i know
our Our clients really like the experience,

(14:44):
customer service experience with Jobber and with the emails that we send.
We get a lot of reviews on, oh, we're efficient, professional.
Organized, all those type of things.
And Jobber is really one part of that. Now, of course, like any tool, you have to use it.
You have to get trained up on it. You have to invest time into it.

(15:05):
You have to customize it.
So there's work on the front end, but really good.
Really really happy with jobber really happy
having a crm and we'd advise you
to look into it get a free trial even if
you're starting out or thinking of starting out have have a play about with
jobber have a play about with any other ones that maybe you've came across make

(15:28):
up your own mind i just like the user interface with jobber the platform and
it's really good so that's about it for today. I hope that was helpful.
If you have any questions at all, please let me know and be keen to answer them.
If you have any other thoughts about CRMs or other ones that you know that are

(15:48):
great or you're using, again, let me know.
And yeah i would just say say get on it and
give it a go these things and their
investments in your business now of course you you need to have work you want
to have a few jobs i don't want you going into debt for for things like jobber
or putting that on credit cards and you know you can get in where you fit in

(16:10):
with it but if you can can work your way to getting onto one of these These CRMs,
I think they're really a game changer for your business.
And yeah, thanks again for listening. Please subscribe if you haven't already.
Again, if there's any topics that you'd like me to cover or talk about, then please do.
If you'd like to be a guest on the podcast and just share your own journey working

(16:34):
in the trades or with guttering or whatever that is.
Yeah, but lovely to speak to you about that.
And that's it really. I had a good day today. day it's monday
here and yeah i
started i was actually doing a pharmacy job this morning
on a high street so i was there

(16:54):
for about half six this morning got got to
it early while there was no people on the pavements
so i could put the ladders up safely without worrying
about people walking around them so it was nice and quiet it's
summertime so a little bit quieter anyway away schools are.
Right and there's less traffic and
people around especially at that time and got that

(17:17):
job done yeah for about eight
o'clock it was done just as things were starting to liven
up the street so got that done shop was
closed the pharmacy and was able to work
away got that one done and then headed to
a big detached property where it was quite high had
to cancel it last week because of the wind but was

(17:39):
able to get to today got them cleaned out there was downspout block
there was a joint leaking at the back got them
all cleaned out got the fascia boards and soffits gutters
all washed downspouts a couple of repairs cleaned
out and so it was from half six to i
think it's about quarter three three o'clock now so i'm
going to finish off here and get home the sun's out and

(18:01):
get out into the garden and play with the kids for a bit
so a good day good start to the week i'm off this
week on friday for a day and a few days
the following week so sort of trying to get these jobs in
i think it's rain tomorrow again so imagine there'll be be a few more inquiry
or sorry requests coming in through jobber those invoices for the pharmacy this

(18:24):
morning and for the bigger detached house today they were sent as soon as i
left the job my wife had sent those
invoices and reports and photos all through and sometimes before I get home in the day the.
The people will have paid they'll have received an automatic
receipt back and it's really

(18:47):
good we can ask for feedback we can ask for google reviews
so much that can be done so i hope
that helps a bit long winded at the end but good to
chat with you again i'll be on here again soon
and in the meantime hopefully hear from you any show notes or links sorry any
links or how you get in touch with myself will be in the show notes so have

(19:09):
a look at them and thanks again for listening uh today and have a good one whatever you're up to go get it.
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