Laneys Inc.: Helping a plumbing, heating, cooling, indoor-air-quality and electrical company provide service “8 to 8 at the regular rate”
"Without a tool like WennSoft, we would not be able to support the size to which we have grown."
About Laney’s
Laney's Inc. is a locally owned plumbing, heating, cooling, indoor air-quality and electrical company that has been providing quality home and business comfort services to the Red River Valley area for over 40 years. They have developed a very loyal customer base due to their commitment to quality products, workmanship, and service after the installation.
Starting out as a small family business, Laney's has grown to employ over 80 employees and provide over 50 trucks, ready to meet their customer’s comfort needs. They have also become well known for their popular customer service guarantee: “8 to 8 at the regular rate!”
The Situation
Back in 1998, Laney’s was using an AS400 for Job Cost and Service Management, which had many shortcomings. It didn’t provide the flexibility and ability to drill down into expenses on the screen for job costs. The system was not integrated, which created extra work because information had to be entered twice.
“Working with our old system was extremely labor intensive,” said Terri Pattison, Controller for Laney’s. “We spent a lot of time entering and re-entering the same data, which wasn’t an effective use of our staff time.”
When the software and equipment became outdated, Laney’s decided it was time for a change. Laney’s worked with DFC Consultants to install WennSoft software solutions for their business. DFC Consultants, Ltd. is a turnkey consulting company standing customers apart from the competition. Their unparalleled consulting services provide value to customers by increasing their efficiency, accurate financial planning and budgeting through powerful business software.
Laney’s began using WennSoft Job Cost and Service Management Series. Job Cost is a financial solution that enhances organizational accountability by tracking and managing labor, materials, subcontractors, billing, P.O.s, and other related items. Service Management Series is a solution that improves organizations’ field service by capturing service calls, dispatching assignments, tracking resolutions and managing contracts.
Improved Job Costing
Approximately a third of Laney’s business is commercial construction, which requires a considerable amount of cost-code detail. Another significant portion of their business consists of remodel and replacement, which has less detail but still needs tracking.
Laney’s previously tracked their job cost codes on their AS400 system, however very few managers had access to their jobs online. They had to print a lot of paper for managers to review, and it took longer to have their information updated because of the double entry. Also it was cumbersome to access detail on the jobs.
By switching to WennSoft Job Cost, they simplified their processes, eliminated the need to enter information twice, and were able to give more access to staff. Managers are now able to review the status of their jobs very quickly and drill down to more detail if needed.
“It’s essential for us to have the ability to track each and every job cost so we know how we performed on each job,” said Terri Pattison, Controller for Laney’s. “WennSoft gives us that ability.”
Laney’s uses the information tracked in WennSoft to compare their actual costs to their estimated costs. This information aids their bidding efforts and helps identify training opportunities for their field personnel. “Having easy access to data from previous jobs improves our ability to create accurate bids,” said Pattison.
Improved Service Management
The service portion of Laney’s is an integral part of their operations. They currently have 23 technicians that they schedule and dispatch on a daily basis, and they handle more than 1,800 service calls a month. It is essential for them to have a system in place that can efficiently aid their customer service representatives in receiving and scheduling incoming calls from their customer base.
Laney’s used to manage their service calls manually. They scheduled the technicians on a dispatch board and entered information separately into their computer system. This was cumbersome and often resulted in their customer service representatives being unable to access the information. Either the amount of time it took to get the required information was time prohibitive, or they simply couldn’t access it. Either way, it wasn’t helping the customer service representatives.
Another problem they experienced was that there wasn’t a complete integration between their service module and the rest of their accounting system. In addition to having to enter everything twice, they were unable to link to some customer information – payables, receivables, general ledger information – in ‘real time’, which limited their customer service representatives’ ability to process service requests.
Laney’s has resolved these issues by using WennSoft Service Management Series, which gives their customer service representatives a valuable tool in handling a service call from beginning to end. Service Management Series provides full integration, which has paid dividends with their customer service representatives’ ability to be efficient at their jobs. It also allows their customer service representatives to access the job information quickly so they can review it or make modifications while they are processing the call.
“Using WennSoft Service Management Series helps us improve the quality of information we retain for each service call and made it easier to retrieve essential job information,” said Kevin Wolf, President of Laney’s.
WennSoft has made it easy for Laney’s to access their data. The solution completely integrates to the general ledger, simplifying the process to produce purchase orders, and manage inventory and payroll. Utilizing the user defined fields, they can create a variety of reports: everything from how many after-hours calls took place during the month to how new customers found them – information that is particularly helpful for their marketing purposes.
The ability to drill down into information – from customer records to service history to contracts – offers their customer service reps an efficient way to get to the stored data. The scheduling and dispatch segments of WennSoft have worked well in facilitating the scheduling of appointments and the delivery of their personnel to those calls.
“With WennSoft, they make things very user friendly,” said Terri Pattison. “For example, they offer an icon in the form of a traffic light to help our dispatchers know whether or not it is alright to open a ticket for a customer.” WennSoft also helps Laney’s manage approximately 2,500 service contracts the company has annually.
Bright Future Ahead
WennSoft has helped Laney’s increase sales without increasing overhead. From 1999 to 2008, their sales increased from $7.8 million to $12 million, and they have not had to increase their accounting staff.
In fact, they’ve become so efficient that one of their accounting staff members has been able to take on more work, helping with the scheduling of appointments and dispatching technicians on the remodeling side of the business.
In addition they almost doubled the service department sales with minimal labor impact. Their service department sales jumped from $2.2 million in 2001 to $4.1 million in 2008 and only required the addition of one dispatcher.