For some, the latest electronic gadget is the must-have toy of the moment, but a growing number of replacement contractors find hand-held devices to be serious business tools.

Source: REPLACEMENT CONTRACTOR Magazine
Publication date: 2007-09-01

By Jay Holtzman

As Todd Burgess finishes another call on his Moto Q smartphone from Motorola, he has no doubt about the impact the little gadget has had on his business.

“It's giving me an edge over some of the other contractors because I'm much more available to my customers and prospects,” says Burgess, president of American Deck in Baltimore. “Being that much more connected, I can get answers a lot quicker. I don't have to wait until I get back to the office to follow up.”

The technological gadgets that Burgess and a growing number of home improvement contractors now carry are the visible tip of the in-house computer power they're bringing to bear beyond their office walls. Most of the gadgets are of little use without a connection to the computers, software, and databases that comprise the nerve centers of the most successful home improvement businesses today.

The cell phones and digital cameras that were cutting-edge just a few years ago are now commonplace. These days, global positioning satellite (GPS) technology speeds home improvement contractors to sales calls in unfamiliar neighborhoods. With laptop computers and smartphones, wireless (and wired) Internet connectivity, reps, owners, and estimators are able to access company resources more easily, write more professional sales contracts, and manage their businesses more effectively. During the last decade, the home improvement industry has quietly undergone a sea change in its use of, and its attitude toward, new technology.

Burgess, for example, via an Internet connection, gains access to the software his company uses for scheduling, lead tracking, and project management that is practically identical to what he would have on his office desktop computer. “If somebody wants to set up a meeting while I'm on the road and I can't get it on my laptop,” he says, “I pull it up on my phone and schedule it there, on the spot.”

Windowizards, headquartered in Bristol, Pa., “doesn't have a ton of electronic gadgets in the field at this point,” says David Goodman, vice president. But smartphones providing a wireless Internet connection are a key tool that helps managers “make the most of our database,” he says.

Goodman's company-supplied smartphone lets him see how Windowizards' $2 million-plus annual ad budget is performing, virtually minute by minute. He can review the leads generated by a particular ad, the appointments that resulted, and how much the ad cost. “Being able to get at that data and see it quickly helps me spend my money much more wisely,” he says.

Similarly, Windowizards sales managers keep track of their sales personnel's appointments on an ongoing basis. “We live in a bookings world of how many appointments we set up. The sales managers want to be able to see that number going up all day long,” he adds, and they can do that from anywhere on their mobile phone provider's network.

The company does not supply salespeople with smartphones, but they have similar access to company information from any Internet connection. “They can come into our system through a Web page where they can see all their sales statistics, where they stand, and what's been invoiced,” Goodman explains.

The evidence suggests that more contractors are using more sophisticated technology more broadly, at least in part because competition is getting tougher overall.

“Industrywide, I think everybody is dealing with fewer leads and the need to be more professional, offer more service, and be more prompt,” says J.R. Girskis, president of Suburban Construction, in Davenport, Iowa. “People demand it, and a glossy brochure doesn't cover it nowadays.”

Contractors are “moving toward the Internet as a resource and jumping on wireless Internet access as quickly as they can,” says Dave Welch, an East Hartford, Conn., contractor and the developer of ConTracker EZ estimating software.

Welch sees evidence of contractors adopting more technology from the answers he received in a survey posted on the ConTracker Web site. The survey asks how respondents prepare estimates. When the site went live seven years ago, 70% of contractors said they were hand-writing estimates. Since then, contractors have been migrating to more automated solutions, first using word processing programs, then spreadsheets, and increasingly, software such as Welch's. Now, only about 10% of the contractors he hears from write their estimates by hand.

“Just about every contractor I know owns a laptop, and if they don't, they are asking me what kind to buy,” Welch says.

Welch developed software designed for field use because “as a contractor, we needed the ability to do our estimates quickly and professionally.” Once a contractor enters his own product and pricing information, using the ConTracker software he can “measure a roof, click a button, and the program can tell him how many square shingles he'll need, how many rolls of felt, boxes of nails, etc., then create the proposal, and it is all done on site on a laptop,” Welch says.

By doing estimates as you go, he says, “you're usually more accurate, you tend to forget fewer details, and you get quite a few kudos from the customer when they see a professionally printed estimate then and there.”

Suburban Construction took its giant step into the latest technology about four years ago. At a cost of some $40,000, the company consolidated its computer-based operations in a single, custom-written software package and, “upgraded all of our technology to make everything Web-based,” Girskis says. In addition, the company began providing smartphones and wireless Internet service to its salespeople.

As a result, using any Internet-enabled device — a laptop computer, a BlackBerry or other smartphone, PDA (personal digital assistant), or pocket PC — “we can get into company records via any Internet connection,” Girskis says. A salesperson can read e-mail, view his lead tickets, or deal with problems on a job from the car or any remote location, for example. Or he can retrieve information about earlier company projects on a prospect's block or neighborhood in the middle of a sales presentation. Girskis can monitor the entire production process from anywhere in the field, any time.

The original development costs, he says, though “a significant chunk,” resulted in a capability that “handles all of our day-to-day operations,” with costs amortized over many years. But, he adds, those costs are insignificant compared with the added benefits of the technology.

Those benefits include tremendous time savings and fewer errors. “When everything is Web-based, you aren't writing things down all the time,” Girskis says. With less paperwork, he was able to reduce the office staff from six people to four. Salesmen don't have to remember to check for e-mail, since it is automatically downloaded to their phones. Girskis personally saves at least four hours a week on paperwork, and others realize similar savings.

Girskis believes that using the technology has boosted sales effectiveness in several ways, including reducing the number of two-call appointments. “That opens up more [sales] time slots throughout the week,” a substantial cost-saver.

More subjectively, using this technology has a psychological effect, he asserts. Having whatever information you need at your fingertips makes you feel more organized. “You feel better about yourself,” he says, “and if you're feeling good, you are going to be selling.” Prospects seeing the use of sophisticated technology may fear you're high-priced, Girskis says, but when your pricing is close to that of other contractors, “your credibility goes up two notches.”

The laptop computer, whether connected to the Internet or not, is the workhorse that carries company resources and automation into the field for Dial One Window Replacement Specialists, in Anaheim, Calif. President Charlie Gindele worked with a developer for two years trying to create an automated solution to writing better job estimates in the field before the effort faltered. He hasn't given up. “I was such a believer in [the concept] that when it didn't pan out, I developed a big Excel spreadsheet to accomplish the same task,” Gindele says.

The spreadsheet contains everything a salesperson needs to write up a thorough, accurate, and professional proposal on the laptop that all Dial One Window Replacement Specialists sales reps are required to carry. (The company subsidizes the purchase; the salespeople own their own machines.) This information includes size and pricing information for all the company's product lines, an electronic version of the company contract and associated forms, and a calculator function. The spreadsheet forces salespeople to “consider all the options,” Gindele says. The program makes it easy for sales reps to show homeowners multiple product choices without repetitive typing, and it significantly reduces the number of errors.

“When you're punching a couple hundred pieces of data into a calculator, it is pretty easy to miss something or to transpose a number,” he says. “This eliminates all those mistakes.”

Dial One sales personnel also are required to carry a portable printer. “All our sales guys are able to print out a price quotation in the field that's complex and professional-looking,” Gindele says.

These are just the beginning of the benefits. Salespeople must e-mail the company a copy of every proposal they make so that “we have a permanent record of it and we know exactly what was quoted,” Gindele says. When they close a sale, reps also e-mail the contract, price sheet, and all pricing details back to the office. Processing the job can begin immediately, “before the paper arrives in the office. And it is easier to check that things weren't omitted. You don't have to spend as much time crunching the numbers because you don't have to verify the math and the spreadsheet automatically takes the appropriate discounts,” Gindele says.

It's hard for any gadget to match that level of enhanced efficiency, but efficiency isn't everything. Of all the gadgets that home improvement contractors carry, they probably love their GPS navigation units best.

“About half our salesmen have them in their cars, and all our techs have them,” Gindele says. “We don't cover a large geographic area, but there are 3.1 million people in Orange County, and a lot of houses and a lot of streets that are hard to find. I'll never be without it, because it makes my job so much easier,” he adds.

A GPS unit is simpler and safer to use than any map, agrees Joe Perri, sales rep for Stanek Windows in Cleveland. “I'm 44 now, and for the last few years it's been hard to read a map while driving and figuring out where I'm going,” Perri says. GPS saves him a lot of time, “especially in winter, when you can't even see the streets for the snow.” Even more important, however, “it eases my mind because I'm not worrying about where I'm going. Your stress level is a lot less,” he says.

In big ways and small, these gadgets and the technology they make so widely available are changing the way home improvement contractors do business, many say.

Today's homeowners are accustomed to being surrounded by technology, Gindele points out. “You go in there with a pad and paper and handwritten forms and you look like you're from the Dark Ages,” he says. “In our case, [this technology] has enhanced our professionalism and therefore instilled greater trust and confidence in the consumer. And if you can't instill trust and confidence in the consumer, you probably aren't going to make the sale.”

Girskis agrees. “This technology is changing everything. Time is money, and people are so impatient today. Customers must have an answer right away, and when you can feed their hunger, you're going to make more money.” <i>—Jay Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Jamestown, R.I.</i>