Front and centre on the Trio Maintenance Ltd website is this mission statement:
Three like minded friends had an idea to enter the London Property market and be different. Different in our approach, in our transparency and tenacious in our methods when contracting, buying, developing and maintain property in the real estate hub that is London.
‘The “difference” is about the way we service our clients and the way we run our business,’ explains co-founder Hugo Fonseca. ‘We have that never-say-no attitude to all our clients. So whenever they call us, it’s always a yes— and then we just resolve it on our end, and everyone in the team really puts in an effort to service them.’
In 2017, Trio was looking for a field service management system that would help them make that difference. The company was using an American job management solution that didn’t offer the ability to add subcontractors at a daily rate. Since Trio have a mix of 10 employees and subcontractors, and were planning to grow, that solution was going to get expensive… fast.
Then there was the lack of software updates. ‘We were with them for nearly three years and not much changed in that time,’ says Hugo. So when their annual contract was up, Trio decided to go looking for a new solution.
The Commusoft Difference In… Features and Integrations
Trio considered Commusoft because it allows businesses to add subcontractors at a daily rate – but passed it up because they were looking for a solution with maps. As they kept looking, though, they just couldn’t find job management software that fit their criteria.
A year passed, and Trio Maintenance Ltd was no closer to a solution. When Hugo finally circled back to take another look at Commusoft, the solution now not only had maps, but other exciting new features in the works as well.
Trio signed on in April 2018 and have been seeing the difference ever since.
‘Being different is definitely being more technologically advanced, and using Commusoft helps us give customers service they wouldn’t expect from your everyday maintenance company,’ says Hugo. ‘We definitely use Commusoft to try and make us stand out a bit.’
Trio Maintenance Ltd most recently started using Commusoft’s Outlook integration, which lets customer and job information appear directly within Outlook. Hugo’s excited to see how the new integration will help the company boost their productivity even more.
The Commusoft Difference In… Customer Service
Not long after joining, Hugo submitted a support ticket to the Commusoft help desk. He was trying to calculate the profit margin on jobs completed that month, and needed a profit report based on completion date rather than job date. ‘Completion date is more important for a profit report, as we want to recognise the profit when the job is complete,’ Hugo explains.
At the time, the Commusoft solution didn’t have the ability to filter the report this way. Two weeks later, it did. The client services team wrote back to let Hugo know that Commusoft had added that capability to reports based on his request.
‘I was pleasantly surprised,’ Hugo recalls. ‘I asked the guys, and within a couple of weeks they said, “We can do that”… and they did. Now I’m using it as a way to communicate with the staff what commission they’ll be getting that month, so everybody’s happy.’
When your company offers exceptional service to customers, you expect the businesses you deal with to offer the same to you. ‘But it’s not always the case, and it’s sometimes frustrating,’ laughs Hugo. ‘At Commusoft, everyone’s been really helpful. Nine out of ten times the support team come back within 24 hours. They’re fantastically quick at getting back to us and getting us information.’
The Commusoft Difference In… Responsiveness
A job management solution can impact every part of a field service business – so frequent updates are crucial for keeping the business with the times. After all, no one wants to be stuck with software that’s stuck in the past! ‘There’s always stuff being released, which I think is really, really good… and very well-communicated stuff as well,’ says Hugo.
Commusoft reaches out to clients frequently to stay in touch, gather feedback, and find out what new functionalities would help their businesses thrive. Hugo, for example, has regular meetings with Commusoft representatives to find out what’s coming up next and how it can benefit Trio Maintenance Ltd.
The Commusoft Difference In… Efficiency
Hugo reports that Commusoft has been a real time-saver for Trio, especially the QuickBooks integration. ‘That’s probably saving us a couple of hours a week, at least, on invoicing,’ he says.
‘Commusoft has also helped with the reporting side of things… it’s much stronger than what we used to have [with the previous field service management system],’ Hugo adds. Thanks to Commusoft’s reporting capabilities, Trio Maintenance Ltd is also able to create more accurate monthly reports – another major time-saver, and one that eliminates the hassle of having to fix incorrect reports as well.
