National HomeCraft
Client Business
National HomeCraft (NHC) provides small to medium, non-emergency home repairs, such as roofing, decks, siding and windows. Currently, for example, National HomeCraft is focused on metal roofing services. NHC offers franchising opportunities, and based on projections, will grow to fifty branches by 2009.
NHC generates leads through print advertising and some web advertising. Leads are recorded and qualified in the Ocala call center, and distributed by printing the already recorded leads to be faxed to the salespeople in the appropriate regions. The branch office assists with securing financing, orders materials, notifies the subcontractor, generates forms for various agencies, and monitors the job through completion.
Business Challenge
National HomeCraft has a FileMaker Pro solution in place that offers limited data storage and process automation. However, this solution has apparently been the result of many small revisions, rather than a comprehensive development effort. Consequently, some parts of the solution do not share data as they should, so some data needs to be entered several times. Also, many functions were missing, such as invoicing and some of the forms for municipal agencies.
NHC needed a solution that could be used in the call center to collect leads, and which could support all the existing and future business units in one centralized system. The system would need to store and track leads, sales, contracts and purchasing.
Solution Provided
Extensitech developed a Servoy system for NHC. Data is entered at the call center, and immediately is available to the relevant business unit (such as a franchise office) for sales management and contract management. The data is also visible to the NHC franchise office. The system was expanded to include sales force automation functions such as distribution of leads to business units by region (zip code, county, etc.), sales activity tracking and reporting. The system also allows for tracking jobs, purchase orders and receipts of goods, invoicing and receipt of payments, and generation of relevant forms.
In the call center, users can enter new leads as they come in via phone, and also keep track of callbacks. The Servoy solution also allows users to generate faxes directly from Servoy, saving considerable time.
In the business unit, the sales manager can log in, view new leads for that business unit, and manage those leads from assignment to a salesperson through to either a contract or a lost sale.
Contract management capabilities in the system include management of materials, financing, installer teams, quality checks and payment tracking.
The Servoy system provides a central system for NHC, including its franchise office, franchisees and call center. New business units and users can be added quickly, and enhancements to the system can be implemented on the central system and “pushed out” to users, minimizing implementation time.
