Southeast HVAC News

Michael & Son Services automates Field Service Operations with MO.S.T. Contractor Software.

Michael & Son Services is a Plumbing, Electrical, HVAC, Remodeling Residential Contractor
that started servicing the Washington DC metro area, and has expanded operations to
Richmond VA, Norfolk VA, Baltimore MD, Raleigh NC, Charlottesville VA and Charlotte,
NC.

Michael and Son was established in 1976 by current President, Basim M. Mansour’s father,
Mousa "Mike" Mansour. On June 1, 1990, Basim’s Father died at the age of 47. At
the age of 19 Basim took over the family’s business. But his father did leave him something, a great foundation. He taught him to never to give up, and he left him an incredible work ethic.

In the midst of a recession with lots of well established companies failing, he survived
with the help of his mother and his need to survive to provide financial support for his
mother and sister. When Basim took over Michael and Son in 1999, Michael and Son was
strictly an electrical contractor with 3 service trucks. In the past 13 years Michael and Son has seen great success, expanding to over 290 service vehicles in multiple disciplines and locations. Michael and Son’s strong growth can be contributed to their commitment to customer satisfaction and with their company motto “If you can’t, we can” attitude.”

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As the company grew so did its infrastructure. More customers meant more staff required
to deal with the calls and the resulting increase in paperwork. This created a vicious
circle of inefficiency and office bloat. Any new initiatives were hard to put in place
as technicians were already spending too much time on managing their paperwork and
adding new people in the field meant more people needed in the office, which was not
optimal for continued efficient growth or for properly working with the customers.

With an eye to the future Michael and Son realized that to succeed their service technicians would be required to not just perform the duties for which they are best at; fixing the homeowners’ immediate problems as effectively as possible. But they were also required to be salespeople, product specialists, field admin clerks, and most importantly, professional representatives of the company.

Managing everything manually frustrated technicians by having to fill in comprehensive
notes, writing in line items and making sure that all values added up properly, while at the
same time making sure all documents were easily readable and made sense to the customer and the office staff who had to enter all the paper tickets into the existing office system so that some electronic record is properly kept.

This all slowed down the technicians from getting to calls or affected their ability to show a customer all the options. In many instances field personnel did not have the proper paper documents; such as, manuals and price books. Modifying a price book by adding, removing or editing prices became a costly and time consuming operation with no guarantee that all the service techs had their books up to date as they should be.

Michael and Son needed a software solution that could be flexible enough to deal with the immediate issues and still offer flexibility to future growth visions the company had.

The main areas to address were:

• Increase efficiency and productivity out in the field with tools to help quote and present options to customers;

• Reduce data entry frustration for field and office personnel;

• Reduce duplication of work and mistakes of data entry created by re-keying of paperwork in the office;

• Manage “office bloating” which occurred when staffing had to increase to manage the dispatching and handling of all the new field personnel;

• Distinguish themselves from competitors with increased professionalism;

• Increase the speed and thoroughness that tickets can be reviewed;

• Give the technician easy to use “tools” to help present to customers options and benefits;

• Easily update field techs with updated pricing from the office;

• Field employees needed better information and sales tool to provide better customer service and increase 1st time trip repairs.

Although Michael and Son had an existing software solution in use they needed to find one that would not only help them with their existing challenges but also offer them the ability to handle future growth and changes that would occur as they grew. What
made the MO.S.T. solution interesting was that the principal partners were in the HVAC industry and the solution they created did not just focus on the usual patterns of dispatching, customers and invoices but for the first time presented a solution that gave the technicians out in the field the means to be more efficient and professional in how they presented their findings and proposals to the customers.

To do this Michael and Son gave all its field technicians Motion Computing Tablet PC’s and HP Mobile Printers. With such a large undertaking and wanting to reduce the impact that any software change has on the flow of business the software launch was
phased in. Many technicians were hesitant with the prospect of using the Tablets, especially those with limited computer experience; however, training evolved into a well honed machine that showed the techs that the computer was not a change in the way they do their work but an enhancement to help them do it easier and in many cases,
quicker. In essence, technology just became another “tool in their belt”, which gave them more ways to provide better customer solutions such as:

• Track and view customer equipment;

• View customer history;

• Add materials used;

• Create purchase orders in the field;

• The ability to see previously made recommendations to the homeowners;

Duplication of data between the field and the office was reduced with the data transferring electronically from the field. Service techs on the system were able to transfer their work immediately and not wait for weekly meetings or need to drive back to the office to return paperwork. They were now able to easily process credit cards without relying on the office staff. Service techs are great at diagnosing and fixing problems but are not always comfortable presenting to the home owners so the special MO.S.T. features like Quality Control checklists and Diagnostic Review screens helped them present options to the homeowner making it easier, not to men􀆟on for efficient and professional.


Benefits extended out to the office, which saw an increase in dispatching efficiency so that not only did an increase in service techs not require more dispatchers, but the company was able to reduce the number of existing dispatchers required to handle
the current load.

Michael and Son, Inc. continues to grow and with the flexibility and adaptability of the MO.S.T. solution, any new and existing initiatives can be met.

 
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Regions: Washington DC Metro Richmond, VA Norfolk, VA Baltimore, MD Raleigh, NC Charlottesville, VA Charlotte, NC

Industries: Residential Electrical Plumbing HVAC Generator Wood Burners/Fireplace Remodeling Contractor

Customer Profile: Residential Service Contractor with 500 employees.

Challenges: Reduce paperwork, increase technician efficiency and productivity, handle inefficient scheduling and manage growth in sales without huge increase in overhead.

Solution: MO.S.T. Contractor Software Contact 1-877-667-8001 x117 www.mostfor.com