Four for the Office and Beyond

Zenbooker online booking and scheduling software (www.zenbooker.com) is a customizable booking system that enables a home services business to embed a customizable booking widget on your website so customers can get individualized real-time  price quotes, check real-time availability, and book the company’s services directly without leaving your page.

Using the software on a desktop or mobile device, your employees (a dispatcher or other approved personnel) can see the whole team’s availability and assign jobs to staff members with a click.

The solution supports multiple service territories with unique hours, services, pricing, and assignable service providers. Management can create custom options and extras to allow customers to see real-time price quotes that reflect their needs.

Zenbooker integrates with the payment solution Stripe, enabling acceptance of credit cards with online bookings, with the cards savable to customers, facilitating future bookings, deposit charges, and payment after the job is complete.

The software includes a mobile web app on which field personnel can see assigned work, mark jobs as enroute, started, and complete, and update notes. The solution also supports the ability for customers to cancel or reschedule jobs online, directly, in conformance with your cancellation policy.

CRM capabilities include viewing contact information, past and upcoming jobs, saved payment methods, and notes. You can customize your customer pricing to take into consideration customer location and time and day of the booking, coupon codes you may offer, and other parameters.

It is possible to set up automatic customizable text message confirmations and reminders as well as “on my way” messages with a real-time ETA. The software enables customers to schedule recurring services online and those bookings can reflect discounts for certain frequencies.

After completion of a job, you can send branded invoices and payment receipts and automatically request feedback from the customer rating the recent service/ The software can be configured so that your field service providers and office staff each have their own log-in and you can set individual user permission access.

Pricing:  per month, no contract. Free 14-day trial, no credit card required.

FieldPulse

FieldPulse (www.fieldpulse.com), geared to medium to large size HVAC businesses, is a full service solution that features scheduling and dispatch, the software’s standard residential dataset (customizable and configurable HVAC pricebooks to meet your own pricing needs with respect to items, markups and customizations, enabling you to manage proposals for the book of services you sell ranging from full system installs to flat rate repairs); estimates and proposals including variants (good, better, best); customer management including a booking portal; inventory tracking; GPS fleet tracking; and customizable invoicing and payments, including integration with QuickBooks.

The solution also features detailed timesheets, easily updatable logs and status changes for each job, HVAC pricebooks, and sales proposals, including a “maintenance” option that enables technicians to instantly sell from easily accessible sell sheets for options such as extended warranties, service contracts, and maintenance agreements that can be signed on the spot.

You can set up automated recurring jobs for maintenance contractors by creating one job and scheduling it to repeat at selectable interval options (e.g. weekly, quarterly, annually or custom ranges).   

The FieldPulse mobile app (downloadable at Google Play and the Apple App) requires a FieldPulse account and is available on mobile, tablet and web browser. The Dashboard enables you to create customer, job, estimate, and invoice and keeps tabs on that day’s job activities including schedules, progress, and notes.

Pricing: monthly fee per user, with flexibility to add, remove, activate or deactivate team members as needed.

EverConnect Live

EverConnect Live (www.everconnect.com, an EverCommerce NASDAQ:EVCM solution) lead generation solution provides contractors and businesses across the entire home services industry with highly qualified phone call leads at a fixed price. Featuring a quick set-up, it enables a company to start receiving phone calls and generating leads within days. The platform offers flexibility to dispute leads or manage the flow by starting, pausing, or scheduling.

Companies have access to an intuitive dashboard, allowing them to specify lead criteria and target and update preferred geographic areas and also allowing them to manage the flow by starting, pausing, or scheduling. The service also facilitates its customers (enrolled companies) to easily dispute leads through the online portal, helping ensure that they only pay for qualified leads.

Pricing: per lead, varying by service area and service vertical, billed weekly.

Repair-CRM

Repair-CRM mobile app for HVAC companies (www.repair-crm.com) is designed to enable creating work orders and tracking onsite jobs. The software features scheduling and assigning of service technicians to jobs, along with online booking pages that empower customers to request a new job, attach photos of work needed, and state preferred time windows.  

The software, which includes photo and signature capture, enables creation of invoices from jobs with a single click.

Three plans are available, all able to handle unlimited customers and unlimited parts and services. Starter, suitable for a solo operator; Grow, for 3 to 5 users; and Pro, for teams of 6- 10 users.  

Pricing: per month with fee dependent on plan.

Patti Feldman writes articles and web content for trade magazines and manufacturers of building products. She can be reached at [email protected].