Green Team save 80 hours a month with CleanerPlanner

Please can you tell us a little about your business?

Green Team has been in business for 18 years and covers Harrogate in Yorkshire. We have a 1500-strong customer base consisting of 90% domestic and 10% commercial clients which we service with 3 vans and 4 staff. In addition to window cleaning we offer gutter cleaning, jet washing, conservatory roof cleaning and uPVC restoration.

What window cleaning software did you use before CleanerPlanner, and why did you move?

Prior to CleanerPlanner, we used Jobber which we had moved to from George. George was struggling to cope with the number of customers we had and couldn’t serve our business as it grew into a multi-van operation. We also wanted to reduce our admin time. Unfortunately, moving to Jobber did the opposite of that. It just hadn’t been designed for window cleaners – to give you just a few examples; you have to reschedule each and every job manually, the mobile app is overly complex and doesn’t work offline, job records are difficult to amend and worksheets have no pricing details. As a result our admin time tripled and some jobs fell off the radar, meaning we actually lost business as a result of the move.

We made the move to CleanerPlanner a year ago to combat those problems, and the improvement was drastic and immediate.

How easy was it to move over to CleanerPlanner and how long did it take you to get to grips with the system?

It was fairly simple – the CleanerPlanner team were incredibly helpful and imported our customers for us. The system is so user-friendly, it took literally minutes for me to get to grips with the system (and I do most of the admin work). Our MD, Michael, has almost no IT skills but even he was able to get used to using the basic functions of the system reasonably quickly.

Has CleanerPlanner saved you time, and if so, can you guesstimate how much time per week?

Absolutely, across the company it’s saved at least 4 hours a day in admin time, which has made a huge difference!

Has CleanerPlanner allowed you to take on more business?

Green Team has grown substantially in the past year and CleanerPlanner has played a key role in that. For example, our conversion rate from quote to customer is really good, and part of that is definitely down to the fact that CleanerPlanner allows you present a really professional, branded quotation to potential customers.

Has CleanerPlanner allowed you to provide a better service to your customers and if so, how?

CleanerPlanner has enabled us to be accurate and super consistent with our job scheduling, and our customers really appreciate that. Unlike Jobber and George, so much about CleanerPlanner is automated, so there’s also much less room for user error, which has virtually removed the risk of silly mistakes having knock on effects for our customers.

Being able to offer GoCardless as a payment option is also fantastically convenient for our customers – they don’t have to worry about having the right money or posting cheques and it means we don’t have to hassle them for payment either, we can just take it at the click of a button.

Are there any CleanerPlanner features that you couldn’t live without?

For us the ability to send bulk SMS messages has completely changed how we communicate with our customers. When you have a large number of customers, spread across different areas and being serviced by different members of staff, communication can be a challenge. But the bulk text feature allows us to keep our customers in the loop with minimal effort and time spent.

Has your debt management improved since using CleanerPlanner?

Again, GoCardless eliminates the problem of debts and debt collection. After using it for less than a year, at least 20% of our customers are signed up to pay with GoCardless and we are continually pushing to expand that number. We have even added GoCardless sign-up form on our website that links with our CleanerPlanner account – not only does it look professional but it’s almost effortless for us when customers sign up that way.

To summarize, how would you say CleanerPlanner has changed your business.

CleanerPlanner has played a key role in Green Team’s growth, enabling us to offer a better, more efficient and more professional service to our customers. When you combine that with the time it has saved the company, its been a huge asset to us.

What advice would you give to window cleaners that may be considering using CleanerPlanner?

It’s just a no brainer – like any change there is some effort required to adjust to it, but you will not look back once you have made the move.