Mardon Group, national suppliers of waste and recycling equipment, has equipped field service engineers with mobile devices that synchronise in real time with the office.
The mobile app is part of a new system from BigChange that is reducing routine administration, improving customer service, and achieving new health and safety measures. Since adopting the 6-in-1 cloud based system, Mardon has saved around 8 days a month by automating its service schedule and has boosted customer correspondence with automated ETA notifications and real-time job reporting.
Before switching to BigChange, Mardon used a number of different systems including standalone vehicle tracking, field service software, Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, paper diaries and Google maps. “Our previous system did allow us to send jobs electronically to engineers, but we had really exhausted its capabilities and we had to find a lot of work arounds to achieve what we needed to,” commented Linda Thompson, Service Manager at the Mardon Group. “We had to wait for completed job reports to be sent back and we didn’t have real-time visibility of where an engineer was or what they were doing.
“The planning of our service schedule was also a huge headache,” Thompson continued. “We had to manually export relevant customer details, sort by location, check each contract and contact each customer with price and date and then record this in a paper diary. All of which took around 2-man days a month which simply wasn’t sustainable.”
As part of its selection process, Mardon considered a number of options including some of the ‘big’ players such as Sage and Salesforce before deciding that BigChange was the big change it was looking for and offered solutions that it had not even thought about let alone looked for in other systems. “The overall function of BigChange was very impressive and we felt it offered us as a company more than other systems. We also felt that the values and image of BigChange was very much in line with our own ethos.”
Using BigChange, which incorporates a mobile workforce app, customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, financial management, and business intelligence tools in one platform, Mardon has centralised and automated many of its processes and workflows. Integrated tracking gives real-time visibility of engineers working the field and daily, guided checks ensure driver and vehicle are ready for the day ahead. When combined with tailored risk assessments for each site or job, these elements have contributed to Mardon’s recent accreditation to ISO 45001 which covers occupational health and safety management.
The ability to create customised job sheets, which are shared directly to a mobile device together with any supporting site or customer details as well as relevant equipment history, allows engineers to concentrate on the job in hand. With all information available at the touch of a button this means field engineers can work directly with the customer to understand and resolve their issue.
“The ability to create complex worksheets and access relevant information means engineers can delve deeper into fact finding and issue resolution whilst actually on-site,” Thompson continued. “This gives the customer a better face-to-face experience, it also means there is more clarity on completed jobs sheets, which in turn means jobs are signed off and invoiced far quicker.”
Mardon is also using the CRM tools within BigChange to improve its customer relationships. Automated quotations, already populated with all relevant information, are saving around 2 hours admin time a day, and integration with Mardon’s accounting software from Sage, is achieving further efficiency gains.
“BigChange has dramatically improved both the quality and range of customer services we offer. It has also given us a mechanism to benchmark these areas and implement changes so we can continue to improve,” added James Tapp, Operations Director at the Mardon Group.
“In addition, the time that BigChange has saved us has dramatically exceeded our expectations. Taking everything into account this is in the region of one full time member of staff which is a significant resource for an organisation of our size.”
Mardon Group is an independent business that has over 20 years’ experience and has since grown into one of the major suppliers of waste handling equipment in the UK. Mardon is an ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 accredited company and its machinery is CE marked and comes with a full warranty, conforming to the highest international standards. Mardon has a team of fully qualified service engineers, strategically placed across the UK, offering an extensive range of training, repair, parts and servicing, anywhere in the UK and abroad, as well as at its facility in Devon. Mardon is proud to work with high street brands and household names including Wickes, HM Prison Services, Moto Hospitality, Travis Perkins, Poundstretcher, Suez Recycling, Veolia, NHS, GXO Logistics and Volvo.
About BigChange
Launched in 2013 and based in Leeds, UK, BigChange is a leading Field Service Management Software Provider trusted by more than 2,150 field-based organisations around the world. BigChange employs over 220 people and is recognised as an outstanding employer with a 2 Star Accreditation from Best Companies.
In 2020 BigChange was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation, one of the highest business honours in the UK awarded for the company’s contribution to international trade, innovation, sustainable development and promoting opportunity. The company has also featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and was named in the 2018 Deloitte Technology Fast 50.
BigChange is the complete Job Management system that’s helping field service businesses across the UK to win more work, take control of their operations and deliver winning customer experiences. Bringing customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, field resource management, job finance, business intelligence into one simple to use and easy to integrate system, BigChange liberates customers from inefficient paper-based processes and the complexity of multiple different technology systems that hold their businesses back.
For more information, please visit www.bigchange.com.