Sera™ field service management software (Sera Systems, www.sera.tech, 888/302-6228) is a SaaS platform for HVAC, plumbing, and other home services businesses. It has three main components: a Customer Hub that sits on your website; the Tech App, accessible in the field; and the Admin Portal, which acts as the command center of the business for dispatchers, office managers, and owners and includes the Dynamic Dispatcher for automatically assigning the right technician for each job based on priority, capability and availability of the technician.
The Customer Hub booking widget affords customers the ability to schedule (and reschedule) service appointments and receive immediate confirmation and updates and also check service history, accept estimates, and view invoices and pay them.
The Tech App, with multi-quote presentation of good, better, and best, and two-column quoting to show membership savings, includes a task-picker that helps technicians with suggestions and add-ons during the quoting process.
The Admin Portal offers tracking of real-time metrics, with 100+ live KPIs on the dashboard and real-time financial and KPI reporting. Management can see profitability categories such as average ticket price, service plans sold, and job closing percentages. An intuitive Dispatch Portal for viewing schedules and manually assigning or changing jobs allows dispatchers to check the status of technicians and track all aspects of work orders.
The software allows contractors to find efficiencies by tracking each minute of an employee’s time and features location GPS services allowing notification of real-time updates to customers about tech arrivals.
Sera Tech integrates with QuickBooks CallRail (www.callrail.com), a platform for call analytics to improve customer acquisitions); pulseM (https://pulsem.me), an online review platform for home services (see February 2021 column); Bluon (www.bluon.com), an HVAC platform for technicians contractors, and distributors (see April 2021 column); Global Payments (www.globalpayments.com) payment solution; JB Warranties (https://jbwarranties.com), a national provider of extended warranties to HVAC and plumbing industries; and Sera Payments, powered by Stax (www.sera.tech), an app supporting customer payment in the field, the office, and online; and other software solutions.
Pricing: monthly subscription with annual contract, scaled by number of field technicians (administrators and owner are free), and includes set-up with input/assistance from onboarding specialists when importing your data (history, customers, price book); a customizable HVAC or plumbing price book; live training for your technicians and office staff; and unlimited access to Sera Academy for training new hires.
Service Pro
Service Pro (www.msidata.com) is an end-to-end, cloud-based field service management platform for automating field service work. Suitable for commercial and industrial service organizations, the platform (desktop and mobile) supports management of the entire field service lifecycle, from calls, quotes, and scheduling to mobile work orders for technicians and invoicing.
An intuitive and flexible Schedule Board features a drag-and-drop visual scheduler to digitize and optimize scheduling and dispatch the “best” tech for every work order. The platform also includes parts and inventory management, and management of service contracts and preventive maintenance.
Additional modules that can be added to the core platform include Business Intelligence, to identify, track and improve critical business KPIs; Technician Tracker to ensure knowing where your technicians are at all times and improve customer communication when enroute; a Customer Portal that gives clients access to their service history and provides a path to request and manage service requests; and APIs, connecting Service Pro with your ERP, CRM, or other software, allowing for third party applications to pull and push information between solutions.
Pricing: per agent license per month, billed annually, plus one time set-up fee based on the number of licenses.
ServiceDeck
ServiceDeck (www.servicedeck.io, 800/459-2666) is a field service management solution, suitable for small and medium-sized businesses, featuring smart dispatching and field worker management tools, a mobile app for technicians, a customizable customer portal, and an AI-powered marketplace that can be tailored to your business.
Dispatching takes advantage of “smart scheduling,” enabling visualizing your company’s daily workload and availability of technicians and teams when assigning and scheduling jobs. The software can track labor and hours for use in invoicing and reporting.
The Customer Portal, free for your customers, allows them to view and manage open requests, quotes, invoices, and job status and communicate with you via online chat.
Invoicing features include the ability to single-click to convert a job into an invoice and to customize invoices to fit your brand identity. ServiceDeck lets each customer choose a preferred method of payment (i.e. cash, credit card, checks).
The Mobile App gives workers the means to review their schedules, update timesheets including their status on the field, request time off, and update job-related files with notes and photos.
Document management enables storing job-specific document in one place and lets team members attach project images on the go.
An integrated Visual Questionnaire, crafted to streamline the initial quotation process, serves as a guided form, collecting crucial project details. Through a conversational AI assistant, potential clients can convey their project specifics, allowing service providers to deliver precise, prompt price estimates without the need for direct human interaction.
An AI-powered marketplace connects service providers and buyers, with algorithms matching clients with providers.
ServiceDeck offers email templates and the ability to create your own for sending quotes, invoices, invites, and other communications.
Pricing: free for one user; Team: fee per user per month. Enterprise, featuring on-premise set-up and customization.
Patti Feldman writes articles and web content for trade magazines and manufacturers of building products. She can be reached at [email protected].