In our 2013 Green Industry Benchmark Survey, we found that those businesses using field service software were much more likely to have experienced a year-over-year revenue increase than those that didn’t use software. Which, when you think about it, isn’t all that unexpected. Software helps you better manage your data and your employees, which in turn helps bring in more revenue.
So that got us thinking about specific ways irrigation software could make a green industry business more revenue. Here are three tips:
- Route More Efficiently – When I owned an irrigation business, I focused on the eastern part of the Twin Cities – mainly St. Paul and its eastern suburbs. But I also took work on the west end of town, which, for folks familiar with the Twin Cities, can be quite a drive, especially when the Twin Cities highways are notoriously always under construction.
I learned very quickly the importance of having well-defined routes. And my irrigation software helped me immensely. If a customer called, my irrigation software highlighted when I had a tech in the neighborhood, enabling me to suggest a time that limited my drive times. As a result, I had a tight route that my techs could follow.I found that I was able to schedule an additional 1 or 2 jobs per day – per tech! Because they could spend more time out in the field – and less time in slow-moving traffic – I was able to significantly improve my revenue. In fact, I’m guessing routing more efficiently alone paid for the software a couple times over.
- Use Assessments to Find Additional Revenue Opportunities – I went to Valvoline the other day to get my oil changed. While I was there, they mentioned about 6 other scheduled maintenance items that my car needed. Instead of a $30 oil change, I pulled out of the garage with a nicely tuned up car and a nearly $200 bill.
Guess what? Irrigation software can help you do the same. HindSite uses a feature called assessments to help you gather data in the field. Basically, assessments are a series of questions that your tech must answer before he can leave a job site. Our customers use them to ask their technicians if there is any other work on-site that can be performed. It can be a great revenue generation tool.
- Leverage the Power of Your Data for Upselling Opportunities – Last weekend, the Twin Cities got hit by a series of storms that dropped upwards of 4 inches of rain, downed hundreds of trees, and left some without electricity for days. One of my friends commented “And I woke up the following morning to see that my sprinklers were on. I forgot to turn them off!”
That’s a great opportunity for an irrigation business owner to upsell that customer a rain sensor. And, if you’re using the previously mentioned assessment feature of your irrigation software, you can capture that data while you’re out in the field. Simply ask your tech “Does the system have a rain sensor?” If the answer is no, you can immediately alert the office, who can then prepare an email or direct mail piece. I saw one irrigation business that would time delivery of those emails to a storm, and ask “Was your sprinkler system on during last night’s storm?”
Mining the data you collect for upselling opportunities not only helps you generate some more revenue, but it also shows your customers that you care about delivering a top-of-the-line irrigation solution.
There are many other ways irrigation software can increase your revenue – better customer service, no more lost bills, virtually eliminating non-productive time – but any one of these three alone will not only increase your revenue, but also pay for the software itself.
Want more tips on how to grow your business? Then download our free eBook, 6 Simple Things Your Field Techs Can Do to Grow Your Business today!