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7 Best CRMs for Field Service Companies

Nick WerkerOctober 6th, 2020

How you run your business ultimately has the greatest effect on whether or not it will be successful. You can have the best employees, the best equipment, and the best of intentions, but none of that will matter if you can’t stay organized, communicate effectively, and provide a timely service for your customers. That’s why tons of field service businesses use CRMs that specialize in their industry! If you don’t know where to start looking for the right fit for your business, we’ve got you covered. Here are our top 7 recommendations for technologies — we’ve laid out what they offer, what it costs, what we love about them, and what we think they might be missing. This should give you everything you need to get started on improving your business!

This article is in no way a ranking of these companies. It is simply a list in no particular order meant to act as a resource in your search for improving your field service business.

Featured Companies


Fieldwork - fieldworkhq.com

Company Overview

Fieldwork boasts a platform that reduces office work and increases the amount of time you can spend actually helping your customers in the field. They have a brandable portal for your customers to login 24/7, providing them with access to their invoices, contracts, and history of the work they’ve had done with your business.

Features

CRM: The Fieldwork CRM keeps all of your customer information in one place. It is also where you can configure a host of integrations that allow you to stay organized, schedule appointments, send invoices, and even follow up with customers to get reviews after you’ve completed their projects.

Having all the information in one place is extremely important, because if a returning customer is calling, you’ll want to know the history of what you’ve done for that customer, any upcoming appointments you might have to change, and a place to put all of that person’s contact information and notes about the correspondence.

Calendaring: When setting up a new job for a customer, you’ll want to make an appointment to either meet that customer for an estimate, or schedule a time to actually perform the service. For that reason, it’s going to be of the utmost importance that any appointments you offer your customers get automatically booked into whichever calendaring system your company uses.

Of course, Fieldwork goes well beyond just scheduling times. Fieldwork allows you to set up recurring work orders, drag and drop jobs for different technicians, and lets you do all of that from your smartphone or computer. One click glance at your calendar in Fieldwork will let you view jobs in whichever stage they are in and will help you avoid overbooking.

Customer Portal: Fieldwork provides your customers with a portal that you can brand with your company’s information, logo, and more. When customers login to the portal, they can view their invoices, job history, and can stay in the loop with you – without having to call your office, taking time away from you, and making them wait for answers. They can even submit payments right from the portal, too.

Dashboards and Reporting: As a business owner, having information about your revenue, costs, and employee performance is the difference between running a successful company and struggling to make ends meet. Fieldwork provides dashboards that give you insight into these things and more, all provided by their automated data collection. Using this information, you can make better decisions that will lead to higher efficiency, and more profits!

Fieldwork also provides you with reports that can help to track any aspect of your business. This can range from your chemical usage to specific implementation effectiveness. Having more information on how your company is running can help you to continually improve and grow.

Pricing

Fieldwork starts at $39/month for 1 user on their Solo plan. (An important designation about “Users” is a user refers to someone who specifically is a technician who is out in the field. All office staff members get to use the platform at no additional charge.) This includes: phone and chat support, their CRM, calendaring, invoicing, mobile app, customer portal, and reporting. In order to continue adding features, the price obviously gets a bit more expensive. Check out their full pricing and included features here: https://fieldworkhq.com/pricing/

They also offer a 2 week free trial. Claim that offer here: https://app.fieldworkhq.com/signup

What We Love

The Branded Customer Portal: Branding your own customer portal legitimizes your business and gives customers the feel that they are really doing business with a professional. In today’s era, customers want to feel that their money is going as far as possible, and giving them access to their job history, invoices, and contracts, all inside of a platform with your company’s information emblazoned on it will definitely provide that sentiment.

The Flexibility and Number of Integrations: Fieldwork doesn’t lock you into using their payment solutions, their calendar, their accounting software, or anything else like that. They give you the flexibility to use the platforms you like, all while integrating the data you need between all the platforms you use.


Jobber - getjobber.com

Company Overview

Jobber’s main goal is to make sure that whether you’re in the office or in the field, you always have the tools to manage your business right at your fingertips. Jobber provides automated reminders to your clients, but also allows you to interact with your customers and let them have more control in their service.

Features

We spoke to Elana Ziluk, the Public Relations Manager for Jobber, to get an overview of the features, best use cases, and some inside info on updates they plan on making.

What sets your company apart from other field service technologies?

Elana: “While there are software solutions available that provide some of the same features and functionality as Jobber, such as scheduling jobs, managing crews, invoicing customers, and collecting payments, Jobber is the only field service software that offers free personalized training and support to customers over the phone, chats or email across all its membership plans. We do this because we’re committed to helping small business customers be successful at every stage of their business, whether you’re a sole operator or running a million-dollar company.”

What are some features that are most used?

Elana: “It depends on the industry but features such as job scheduling, assigning crew members or technicians to jobs, invoicing customers, and collecting payments are a few that come to mind. Our customers like our quote follow-up feature too because it allows them to win more work faster by setting up automatic email and/or text message follow-ups to clients about quotes they haven’t heard back on. In terms of payments, many of our customers use Jobber’s fully integrated payment processing platform called Jobber Payments because it allows them to manage client card information, payments, and deposits directly in Jobber.”

What are some recent developments you’ve made to your program?

Elana: “We actively listen to customer feedback and use it to inform what features we add to the product and ways we can improve the user experience. Though we are always improving our platform to suit the needs of our growing customer base, some bigger developments we’ve made in the last few months include the launch of online booking, automated customer quote follow-ups, and integrations with marketing automation platform Mailchimp and online task automation tool Zapier. We also launched an integration with FleetSharp GPS to allow customers to easily track the real-time location of their vehicles. By knowing exactly where vehicles are, customers can improve field operations through more efficient dispatching, smarter scheduling, and quicker response times for emergency requests.”

What are some examples of use cases you think work really well for your customers?

Elana: “Jobber’s client hub is one of our customer’s favorite features because it gives their clients access to their own self-service, online portal. Through the client hub, clients can check and approve quotes, view appointment details, pay invoices, print receipts, or request more work. This feature is particularly useful during something like a pandemic where social distancing is still mandated and/or encouraged just about everywhere. Providing contactless payment options can be the difference between winning and losing a job.

The client hub can be used in many ways to meet the changing expectations of homeowners. For instance, Greg Brooks, owner of Atlanta-based Brooks Landscaping, shared with us that one of his favorite features through the client hub is his ability to approve a quote. He can see when the initial email is opened and track the back and forth changes until it is final. Being able to access this through the Jobber app also allows Greg to give an initial quote onsite, because he has the client’s information on his phone or tablet all through the client hub. The speed in which we can get a quote to the customer is a big competitive advantage.

The client hub also adds a level of professionalism and sophistication to a business that homeowners expect from their providers. The more professional you appear, the more clients you will attract and retain.”

Pricing

To get a 1 user account with Jobber on a monthly basis you’ll spend $39 per month. If you pay annually, that price becomes $29 per month. Be careful! If you purchase the annual subscription there will be no refunds for partial months, months unused, or downgrades. We suggest, if you are interested in using Jobber, that you use their free trial (which gives you access to every feature they offer), and then upgrade to a monthly plan if you are satisfied. Once you’ve decided they truly are for you and your business, then you can consider locking in annually and saving some extra money! Here’s a link to their pricing page so you can read more: https://getjobber.com/pricing/

What We Love

Customer Portal: The customer portal really emboldens the relationship between the business owners and customers. Once quotes are agreed upon by both parties, approval can be given instantly and the job can get started.

Listening To Feedback: Jobber really listens to customer feedback and makes changes that their community asks them for.

Sneak Peek at the Future

Elana: “Over the next couple of months, Jobber will announce a couple of new features focused on improving the financial health of home service businesses, as well as more tools to help our customers win more and better jobs. We will also continue to help people in small business be successful by continually optimizing and improving our web and mobile platforms for Jobber’s 90,000+ users and by providing award-winning customer service.”


Service Titan - servicetitan.com

Company Overview

Service Titan’s goal is to improve your business by being the one-stop-shop for field service businesses to do everything they need, administratively. They not only arm you with a system that helps you keep track of customers, jobs, and invoices, but they provide solutions for your payroll, your marketing efforts, and managing your inventory and equipment. That could be why they’re trusted by over 100,000 contractors, according to their website.

Features

Service Titan has wisely categorized their features into two categories: in the office and in the field.

In The Office Features

Reporting: Customize your dashboard and display the metrics and indicators you choose.

Dispatch: Sure, any CRM can help you assign a job to a technician. But with Service Titan, you can categorize your technicians by which types of jobs they can perform, which allows you to make sure that you assign the correct technician to the job.

Call-Booking: Service Titan helps to automatically populate customer information as calls are coming in so that the people answering your phones have an easier time collecting information from your callers. It also helps you set up custom intake forms so that your receptionists can input information that you need in the specific fields you need them in, for sorting and analyzing.

Scheduling: When you’re updating your schedule with Service Titan, you can tag jobs with specific tools needed, languages spoken, and assign specific technicians to make sure that the job gets done in the most efficient way possible. And of course, with the proper tools.

In The Field Features

Customer Experience: Service Titan allows you to send appointment reminders and even short technician bios to your customers via text message so that your customers know when to expect you, and who’s arriving. Your customers can even see where your technicians are on a map, and know definitively when they are about to arrive for their scheduled appointment.

Payments: Service Titan allows you to offer your customers flexible payment plans, take pictures of checks or credit cards to enter payment, or send customers a personalized online payment portal.

Timesheets: Updating your employees’ timesheets has never been more automated. All of your technicians’ drive time, vendor runs, and time spent on the job are automatically documented on their timesheets. You can still manually fix timesheets, and all your timesheets are synced with your dispatch board so you’ll always know who is available for the next job.

Mobile: Your techs no longer have to carry around a clipboard and messy paperwork. With just a tablet, your techs can get customers to sign important agreements, have access to job histories, build estimates with a few taps, and more.

Pricing

There is no pricing available on the Service Titan website, but they offer a demo of their product here: https://www.servicetitan.com/demo

What We Love

The Mobile App For Your Techs: Letting your technicians carry all of their paperwork in their pocket instead of a messy clipboard means that no paperwork gets lost, and all changes update your entire system instantly.

Their Specialty-Specific Dispatching: Knowing which of your techs are the best suited for the newest jobs will help your staff assign the best person for the job, giving your customer the best service possible.


Workiz - workiz.com

Company Overview

Workiz offers home service professionals a slew of CRM, business management, and invoicing features much akin to the other top performers in the field service CRM industry. However, Workiz offers a few additional features that might woo companies who are on the fence about who to choose. They also offer an abundance of integrations with popular platforms that can help business owners ease their transitions into the platform.

Features

Voice & Call Tracking: Workiz offers a few features that are completely unique to the Field Service CRM industry. This feature is no exception — they are “the only field service management software that allows you to track the profitability of offline and online advertising campaigns.”

With Workiz, you have the ability to record your phone calls in case you need to go back and transcribe a conversation, or to monitor the performance of your new customer intake specialists.

You can also set up Auto Text Reminders for your customers so that whenever your scheduled job is with a specific customer, they’ll receive a reminder. You can set up reminders to go out a day before, the day of, and study the efficiency of your reminders in order to optimize your schedule.

Team Management: Workiz also allows for in-depth management of members in the field by offering up to 40 levels of restrictions. This means you can allow or disallow access to certain features of every user to make sure they always have access to what they need, and never have access to things that you don’t want them to.

Part of the team management also includes location tracking, which will allow you to make sure that your technicians are actually where they’re supposed to be.

Client Management: The Workiz CRM features a full call and client history. This even includes the parts you used, where the customer was located, whether they received any discounts and for how much, previous invoices and payments, and more.

Scheduling: “Workiz allows you to schedule and manage service appointments with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop calendar.”

For each type of job you might be offering a client, you can offer various types of inputs so that the customer can accurately book what they need from you, and you can show up to the jobsite with the right tools for the job.

Your calendar with Workiz will of course, sync with your favorite calendar solution; Google Calendar, iCal, Microsoft Outlook, and more.

Service Chatbot: Here’s where we talk about the stuff that no one else seems to be offering again; a service chatbot you can implement on your website.

You can build your custom chatbot in 3 minutes, according to their website, and you can even respond yourself, if you want! Check out more of the options on their website at workiz.com/service-chatbot/

Pricing

Workiz starts at $79 per month if you pay monthly, and $65 per month if you subscribe annually, but that includes up to 2 users. All plans come with live chat and email support.

Check out their pricing page for detailed breakdowns here: https://workiz.com/pricing-plans/

What We Love

Phone System: Workiz’s phone system is fully integrated with their platform, making running your business even simpler.

AI Chatbot: Building a custom service chatbot has proven to be an extremely effective lead capturing method for tons of field service companies.

Team Management: Robust team management allows for users to access the platform however they want, and keeps everyone on task inside of the organization.


Housecall Pro - housecallpro.com

Company Overview

Housecall Pro does not just say that they are a one-stop-shop for field service companies to manage their business. They practice what they preach; they not only offer a robust CRM system with advanced features, they offer marketing and advertising tools that will help you grow your business’ market share. They even have their own network of home service professionals, whereby they hold networking events, online groups, and meetups.

Features

Housecall Pro has neatly categorized their features in four different ways: scheduling, before the job, on the job, after the job, and growing revenue.

Before The Job Features

Scheduling: Create, edit, and delete items from your schedule easily from your computer or smartphone using the Housecall Pro app. The calendar is completely collaborative, so you can keep employees updated with notifications right to their phone.

Estimates: Housecall Pro’s estimates eliminate the need for paper invoices. They even help you automate your back office work.

Online Booking: Customers are trying to book jobs with you at all hours of the day and night. Give them the option to book their own times by using online booking with Housecall Pro.

On The Job Features

Dispatch: Making sure that the correct technician shows up to the right location for the right job is imperative to your business. Set arrival windows, assign teams, and mark locations that update all devices instantly in your organization.

On-my-way Texts: Automate your on-my-way texts to let customers know when they can expect you!

Live Map GPS: View where your employees are at a glance, and in case of an emergency job, know exactly where the closest tech is.

Custom Text & Email: The key to superior customer service is communication. Housecall Pro helps you communicate better by allowing you fast and easy access to text and email with your customers.

After The Job Features

Invoicing: Invoicing is no longer a hassle. Automate your invoices and collect payments with a few clicks (or taps).

Follow-up Marketing: Provide better customer service by following up with customers after the job is over! Secure a customer for life.

Grow Revenue Features

Website Builder: Housecall Pro actually has a platform that will help you build a website. For the first level of this service, you get a website and hosting for an entire year, free. Check out more about their website builder here: https://www.housecallpro.com/website-builder/

Local Service Ads: If you’re using Local Service Ads with Google, you can use Housecall Pro’s calendaring system to allow prospects to book jobs directly into your calendar, straight from Google.

Pricing

Housecall Pro starts at $65 per month for their monthly plan, and $49 per month if you subscribe annually. This comes with 1 user, but also includes a lot of other useful features without having to upgrade immediately. Additional users with every package are $30 per month. Check out the detailed pricing information here: https://www.housecallpro.com/pricing/

What We Love

Integrations: Housecall Pro integrates with pretty much anything you could ask for.

Extracurriculars: They offer so many features outside of just being a CRM that help field service businesses market themselves and network for new opportunities.


Kickserv - kickserv.com

Company Overview

Kickserv’s main goal is to help business owners stop spending so much time on administrative tasks and analytics, and spend more time actually helping customers.

Features

Job Management: Through Kickserv’s extremely user friendly platform, you can input new jobs, assign techs, schedule jobs, provide estimates, and charge customers. Being able to provide a quote is the first step to closing a deal with a new customer, so once you agree on a price with a customer, you can get that customer to pay right away.

Scheduling a team of technicians can be a very complicated endeavor. With Kickserv’s scheduler, you can create simple or complex schedules, add as many or as few employees to a job as you need, and avoid double-booking to ensure that your customers are never left waiting.

Marketing: Track your leads, and start getting even more of them. Inside of Kickserv is the “Client Center,” which gives you insight into your generated phone calls, forms, emails, chats, and whichever other mediums of lead generation you use. The Client Center will tell you where the customer found you and show you exactly which of your marketing methods are helping you capture the most leads. Make better marketing decisions with all of the information available to you!

Kickserv offers a ton of additional help getting your field service business noticed. Check out the additional solutions they offer here: https://www.kickserv.com/our-features/marketing/

Listings Management: If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know that the key to a strong local presence on Google is having accurate and strong citations. By managing your listings on important and local directories, you work to increase your visibility to prospects.

Mobile: Your technicians can stay completely connected to all of the information in your database when they’re out on the job. They can see detailed histories, upload photos and documents related to the job, send invoices, and more.

You can even use this app to stay in communication with your employees while they’re out on the job. Send notes, requests, images, and invoices for your techs to have right when they need it.

There are also GPS check-ins to find your employees and make sure that the duration of the job isn’t taking too long, or keep your customers updated if one of your technicians is stuck in traffic.

Pricing

Kickserv actually has a free plan! Up to 2 users, their CRM, customer center, over 20 business reports, and a whole lot more. The main thing you don’t get with the free version is onboarding and training, so make sure you’re confident that you can figure this out by yourself.

Check out the different packages Kickserv offers and more about their free plan here: https://www.kickserv.com/pricing/

What We Love

Ease of Use: The layout of the features and information inside is extremely aesthetically pleasing. From a design standpoint, this platform is the easiest to look at and glean information from at first glance.

Extracurricular Activities: They have tons of options for helping with your business’ marketing.

There’s a free version!


ServiceMax - servicemax.com

Company Overview

ServiceMax offers some of the most sophisticated features for service businesses that we’ve encountered. Their processes help you handle everything from calendaring and scheduling, to systems that keep track of your warranties, parts, and even help find productivity gaps in your technicians.

Features

Warranty and Contract Management: ServiceMax will actually help you manage your contracts in order to maximize your revenue growth, but also to protect your assets by keeping accurate records of warranties.

Parts, Returns, and Depot Repair: One of the most frustrating things for both you and the customer is leaving a job without completing it because of a missing part. Asset 360 allows you to manage spare parts effectively so you don’t overstock, or have shortages.

Zinc Real-Time Communication: ServiceMax Zinc is a reliable, powerful, and easy to use communication platform built exactly for the needs of service professionals. It offers a ton of features you never even knew you needed.

Mobile Field Service: Each of your technicians can use the ServiceMax app that has shown an increased productivity by 23% on average.

Scheduling and Dispatch: The ServiceMax scheduler and dispatch system makes one-click recommendations for resources, times, and schedules. It includes map layers, personalized views, shift management, project scheduling, crew management, and more to help you get the right people to the job, every time.

Work Order Management: ServiceMax allows you to control your work orders from start to finish, from the creation of the work order, to assignment of the job, to execution.

Schedule Optimization: ServiceMax’s schedule optimization is actually powered by an algorithm that will make recommendations on the most efficient way to schedule your jobs and optimize your routes.

Remote Triage: In order to avoid unnecessary “truck rolls,” ServiceMax uses artificial intelligence to help troubleshoot before you send a technician, and help to drive down inefficiencies.

Pricing

ServiceMax does not have a section on their website about their pricing, but you can check out their various demo options here: https://lp.servicemax.com/servicemax-demo-options.html

What We Love

New Salesforce Asset 360: ServiceMax has joined forces with Salesforce, which has peppered its platform with actionable features that empower users and strengthen the business to customer relationship.


Smart Service *bonus* - smartservice.com

Company Overview

Smart Service is a tool for the field service industry that empowers businesses to add additional features to Quickbooks.

Features

We spoke to Benjamin Yackshaw, the Marketing Manager of Smart Service, to get an overview of the features, best use cases, and some of their customers’ favorite parts of the Quickbooks integration.

What sets your company apart from other field service technologies?

Benjamin: “Many programs offer robust scheduling, work order, and dispatch features, but Smart Service distinguishes itself by combining these with seamless, real-time QuickBooks integration. Smart Service works as a direct QuickBooks add-on, meaning every move made in Smart Service gets duplicated in QuickBooks in real time. This helps service businesses simplify their workflow, eliminate double data entry, and keep all of their records in one easy-to-use software system.”

Which industries make up a majority of your users?

Benjamin: “HVAC, plumbing, electrician, pest control, pool service, appliance repair, fire protection, septic, and garage door businesses represent our core industries, but Smart Service proudly serves dozens of field service verticals: everything from construction and chimney to locksmith and solar panel service.”

What are some features that are most used?

Benjamin: “Thousands of service companies from all over the US and Canada use Smart Service for scheduling, dispatch, billing, customer management, work orders, routing, inventory, estimates, time tracking, custom forms, payment processing, and employee tracking.”

What are some examples of use cases you think work really well for your customers?

Benjamin: “Any field service company with at least one office dispatcher and one field technician can benefit from digitizing their scheduling and work orders with Smart Service. Companies that have grown beyond pen and paper scheduling or have grown frustrated with another field service management program’s clunky QuickBooks integration make ideal Smart Service customers.”

What are some recent developments you’ve made to your program?

Benjamin: “Over the last few years, we’ve upgraded our user interface, added a plethora of text messaging features (primarily to remind customers of upcoming service dates), and have added built-in payment processing at an unbeatable rate.”

What are the software’s plans for the future?

Benjamin: “We provide major content additions/updates every quarter, but shy away from promising specific features in advance. However, customers and prospects can always review Smart Service update information at https://www.smartservice.com/updates/

Pricing

There is no pricing available on the Smart Service website, but they offer a free demo of their product here: https://www.smartservice.com/free-demo-form/

What We Love

Powerful QuickBooks Integration: Lots of field service crms offer integrations, but none offer the level of compatibility with Quickbooks as well as Smart Service.

Customer Service: Any Smart Service customer will tell you, any field service CRM product can be great. But it takes great people to support the consumer who uses it. Smart Service’s team is an award winning Customer Support team.


Is there a software you think is missing from this list? Reach out to nick@ringsavvy.com to let us know any thoughts you have on the piece.