Smart Service Reviews

Smart Service has been a God send to my company. We are now also "almost" paper free.

Comments: Efficiency - Efficiency - efficiency.
And did I mention efficiency???

Pros:

Being able to use iPads or tablets in the field. By being able to use tablets we take away the technicians penmanship errors and can have the customer sign work orders so there is no confusion of who said what later.

Cons:

Not being able to track individual extinguishers by date and have them update to when service is needed.

Smart Service for Pest Control

Comments: It's been a long and arduous process learning to work with the software and customize it to fit our needs.

Pros:

The software is very customizable. It has the features we need to apply data to ensure consistent service to our customers.

Cons:

Due to the customizable design it requires admins that are highly skilled in software use and development. Not easy to navigate, conflicting layers/windows for data.

Smart Service from a Person who is not techie

Comments: Inefficient work order processing and management.Inaccurate billing and time tracking.Poor route optimization and long response times.Incomplete service history records.BenefitsStreamlines processes and increases efficiency.Improves accuracy of billing and work order management.Provides comprehensive service history.

Pros:

Improves the accuracy of billing by accurately tracking the time spent on each job.Increases efficiency by reducing manual time tracking processes.Optimizes service schedules and reduces travel time, increasing efficiency and cost savings.Improves customer experience by reducing response times.

Cons:

May require staff training to ensure accurate time tracking.Potential for time tracking errors and discrepancies.May require a significant investment in technology and training.Potential for routing errors and inefficiencies if the system is not properly optimized.

Good in theory, but impractical in implementation

Pros:

For the regular dispatching features, I was able to learn completely on my own with no instruction, becoming our in-house "expert." It is intuitive enough that I found solutions for problems that tech support thought had no work-around.

Cons:

The program as a whole is outdated and clunky, built around Microsoft Access, limiting its modern application. For example, if you have a customer with 10 locations and 15 total jobs, and they change their billing address, you have to manually go change it 26 times, in a clunky system that is not fast at all. Adding a new customer takes forever, especially if you have a location and job to enter as well. There is also no feature to have an AP email for their default QuickBooks email, while still have primary contact's email prevalent. Scheduling is nice that a job can recur indefinitely, but if a job cancels, you have to change its recurrence pattern PRIOR to inactivating the job, or it still comes up on the schedule. It also has no features for a job to occur for a certain period of time, or to recur on a seasonal basis. If your customers have multiple services per invoice, it is a huge pain. The "Batch invoices to Quickbooks" feature requires the user to post each individual batch one. at. a. time. Again, on a slow, clunky system. Many of the advanced features have not worked for us at all, or were not as advertised in the demo. Granted, the most annoying part (the scheduler does not work for us) is largely due to our painfully slow cloud system, making it inoperable. If you want to print a schedule for each employee, be prepared to pay for an upgrade (ours was $600) so they can program a custom report for you, that is iffy on how often it works on the first attempt. (Ours works on the second attempt every time.) The "Prospect" feature is useless... it doesn't transition over to "Customer" well at all. It is also impractical to use many features integrated with Quickbooks-- it requires syncing for anything useful, and with a large customer database, that is completely impractical for the frequency required. Bill your customer a flat rate each month? Forget about it, unless you cheat the system and create two jobs-- one that is the real job for your employee and charges nothing, and one that only your accountant uses. Bottom line: It's intuitive to figure out basic functions, but there is SO much room for error, and something simple like an updated address once took me 2 hours to complete for our largest customer. They need to do a complete overhaul of their programming and add some basic features before I could recommend Smart Service to anyone. We've found that to make it work, it requires constant ingenuity to come up with a work-around for design flaws.

Smart Service

Comments: It has been a good experience. It handles well with Quickbooks. We are switching to a better software after being on this for 5 years.

Pros:

It is fairly user friendly. I do like the posting and dispatch screens. Easy to read, easy to post. The ease of changing information is good and bad. From an accounting perspective, it is a bit soft on that aspect.

Cons:

It took me longer to get the hang of this software than most softwares I have used. The reporting is not the best. Reporting is difficult to get what we want. It either has too much information or too little. I would like to see the ease of changing accouting information alot harder. It is too easy for the field techs to change.

Workforce management made that easy!

Comments: Overall, software is awesome I have wonderful experience and the software helped our company a lot of effective workforce management.

Pros:

What I like about the software is that aside from the fact that this is a scheduler, employees are being notified of the schedule/task update real time. Useful to us that is starting to expand our company that majority of our employees are in the field and no time to get back to the office for schedule check. Another awesome feature of this software is that after the schedule or task is complete management is notified back for the job well done.

Cons:

In my experience I can't see any problem, probably the interface make it a little bit alive.

Smart Service Makes Service Dispatch Easy

Comments: Smart service has been a pleasure to deal with and they have great tech support.

Pros:

I love that we are almost paperless with this software. This has made everything at the click of your mouse.

Cons:

I can not think of anything bad tp say about this software

Great field mgmt software for Quickbooks users

Pros:

The design is amazing and the integration works seamlessly with Quickbooks. The direct customer support is great but is an additional cost that I feel is a must-have for general support or when you get in a jam.

Cons:

There are not too many cons with this software. The constant updating and making the software more versatile for the user would be the only negative point I could come across only because with any software update there is a chance for bugs. The fact the company is always doing it in response to making the software run better and adding feature requests from actual customers balances it out I feel.

I really like Smart Service

Comments: Our time tracking and billing processes were streamlined immensely over our previous methods. Also having the ability to provide job documentation to field workers through the app is very nice.

Pros:

We switched to Smart Service and the iFleet app a little over a year ago. It has revolutionized our time tracking, job costing, and billing processes.

Cons:

The software has a learning curve due to the massive functionality that is built in. It took a bit to figure it all out.

Great Product & Service

Pros:

The integration with quick books avoids the double entry which saves me a lot of time. Customer service is always willing to help, they will help you get the reports you need much quicker than you can do it your self.

Cons:

It can get a little bit slow when syncing but other than that I have no complains. Very useful software.

Beware before you buy.

Comments: None. We returned it for a smaller refund.

Pros:

Great Dashboard for dispatcher. It allows the dispatcher to customize how they operate and make great decisions. Wish there was a place to park unassigned calls. Nice interface with Quickbooks. Good overall features. Really wanted this product to work for us.

Cons:

Serious security flaws that let your techs email your hard earned customer information to their personal email or worse yet your competitor with no tracking. Was told during sales demo this could be turned off with a "radio button". It was our number one reason for buying and explained up front. After purchase and during training we demanded to see how this was to be done and our trainer was honest and said the salesman was wrong and halted the training. They refused to change the mobile app to disable this. Gave them a few days they asked to address this and they could not demonstrate after several tries how this was to be done. The only viable suggestion was to lock down all the smart phones with a 3rd party mobile management software which would prevent our techs from receiving and sending troubleshooting documentation. We demanded a refund which was prompt but not the full amount despite the deception. The upper management will not return calls but instead sent me an emailed legal threat if I dared to review the product online. They actually used the word "Disparage" which is supposed to have a dishonest component to it. Everything here is honest. They plan to sue for liquidated damages for each negative review. Good product, dishonest salespeople and an upper management that doesn't care to try and win a customer or apologize for their salespeople's misplaced exuberance.

Great dispatching program for smaller service company's.

Comments: We purchased the software over a year ago. The product only functions with Quick Books. As we grew the software presented some challenges for us. If you have multiple locations and Jobs under one customer the software slows way down when working/scheduling anything to do with that larger customer. We experienced a lot of errors when adding new jobs/or locations. The help desk worked hard to fix the issues, and for the most part they did. It still very slow when working in our largest customer. For dispatching is it great - the I fleet portion is user friendly for the guys in the field. The finished forms are not great I would like the option to create your own without an extra charge or edit the ones they have. Yes we are happy with the product, but there are some glitches that need to be addressed. 1. Notifying customers when updates are available - via email with needed password. 2. Forms - ability to edit them. 3. size restricting issues. 4. use without QuickBooks for scheduling.

Pros:

The integration with QuickBooks - Eliminates double entry.

Cons:

The inability to handle larger customers - ability to see previous work within those customers is not functional. Forms created in the program are not very good

Swim Clear says Smart Service is the Smart Choice

Comments: Smart Service with iFleet has completely streamlined the way we do business. In the pool and spa industry it has given us an edge on customer service with it's ability to easily track and report detailed transactions, such as model and manufacturing numbers, serial numbers, time stamping, and water analysis results. There are customizable fields built in that allow us to tailor the program to our needs. If we cannot find what we want, their amazing customer support staff is always available to find a solution. Then they go one step further by taking the time to walk us through it step by step. My Service Depot keeps pace with technology and continually works to enhance and improve their products while always being open to suggestions. Thank you MSD Staff, you have been wonderful!

Pros:

tracking (time stamps and history) and easy to view color coding, the reports feature

Cons:

Integrated mapping and routing

DISAPOINTED

Comments: be advised that you can't even just purchase the product and use it. You have to pay for customer service to continue to use the product, even when you aren't at fault, when the system is not right you still have to pay for them to fix their problems.

Pros:

Functions to schedule jobs is probably the only thing that I use this product for so I don't have many questions or problems, but when you do, its a problem

Cons:

lack of customer service help on issues that are with the function of the product. I am able to function in the system as much as i need to, but when the system isn't doing what its supposed to then there is nothing I can do about it other than pay for them to fix a problem that should not exist

This software along with I fleet helped us streamline our scheduling and billing without paper

Comments: less paperwork and holds on to all open jobs scheduled until they are completely billed out

Pros:

It integrates with the google calendar and Quickbooks. It holds pictures of jobs and really makes recurring jobs a breeze to setup and keep up with along with storing equipment mn and sn as well as warranty info.

Cons:

nothing to really complain about. Sometimes the google calendar can be a hindrance because technicians can see 3 days out out and may be concerned about projects they are not on yet. Some may even develop a sickness they did not know they had in advance of a project they want to avoid.

The process to move one of our data base to another QB company went well.

Pros:

The service scheduling with ifleet for our technicians. It gives the tech an overview of his work for the day. The completion of their work the next morning is also a great and straightforward process into QB.

Cons:

The only con was when going through the migration to another data base with several calls I talked to more than one tech. As all are versed in their knowledge of the product they do have different approaches. I would recommend when something like a migration takes place the same tech is available through the entire thing.

Best scheduling program

Comments: Just makes scheduling so much easier.

Pros:

Having used a few other programs, Smart Service syncs seamlessly with Quick Books. We also run alot of services, we can have 40 stops with 5 trucks, I fleet takes the place of all the paper work orders and makes managing information a breeze.

Cons:

syncing the pictures with drop box, there should be a link to keep them in the smart service or I fleet enviorment.

Exceeded my expectations!

Comments: Great sales reps that listen to what you want the software to do. Great trainers that understand your industry and a great help desk that answers the phone when you need them. I talked to the owner Skip several times this year just to say thanks for the great product. He is really customer focused and it shows in his work.

Pros:

We were looking for software to add scheduling to our Quickbooks. We tried ServiceCEO a year ago but could never get it going. The folks at Smart Service did several one on one training classes with us and really held out hand. Ross was the trainer that we worked with and you would have thought that he owned a pest control business. He knowledge about our industry blew my whole office staff away. We had the software installed on our 4 computers in a matter of hours. Once we were trained, we went live on March 1, 2011 and it was such a simple process. We have needed help this year and when we call the help desk, someone ALWAYS ANSWERS LIVE! That's just way too cool. When was the last time you got anyone to answer the phone live? These guys know what their doing. And the support is always first class. We've had Smart Service almost a year now and I wouldn't run my business without it. We've grown by 22% this year and I can say it has a lot to do with Smart Service.

Cons:

Honestly the only con is I wish I would have made the switch sooner. Its a great product and a huge asset to my company.

Do not purchase this software!

Comments: Money grabbers!

Pros:

This software had the functions that I wanted.

Cons:

If you need technical assistance after the second or third year, you have to pay for each year previous to be able to even ask a question! I needed a question answered after the third year and they are trying to charge me over $1600 before even knowing what my question is! I have spoken to several other scheduling software companies and they are appalled by this tactic!

Easy to use.

Comments: GSI has been using Smart Service since 2011. Within the last four years we have started to maximize the different options within the program. Smart Service is so easy to use and the customer service team is very knowledgeable.

Pros:

GSI loves how easy the program is to use and the customer service department. Whenever we have a problem the customer service representative fixes it as quickly as possible.

Cons:

Overall Smart Service is a great program my biggest complaint would have to be charging for add-on programs.

Excellent phone support and easy to learn and use program with a lot of functionality

Comments: Saves time, and increases office and tech efficiency

Pros:

The software allows me to schedule and track all of my jobs. IFleet not only updates in real time it also tracks where the technicians are, so if someone is "goofing off" you can spot it easier.

Cons:

There are a few additional features that I would like. I.e. bar code scanning to ensure that the actual job was completed (most of my business is at recurring sites)

Amazingly easy to use

Comments: Learning the type of company MyServiceDepot is - a real customer centric company that takes your concerns to heart and let's you know how much they care about you and the use of their product

Pros:

Everything! So easy to integrate with QB, Google Calendar, Outlook and every other program we use! It is like a breath of fresh air to FINALLY find something so EASY and Flawless to use! Cuts hours off my week, every week!

Works Great

Comments: This is a great program, they could fix a few things, but other than that I have been satisfied.

Pros:

Scheduling is easy and organized.

Cons:

They don't tell you when it has been updated and their mapping system does not allow you to "optimize" more than 100 jobs at a time. My techs tell when their system is acting up and then I have to contact them to find out why and usually it is due to an update.

always great customer service

Pros:

the ability to sync with quickbooks for billing. customer service is quick to respond and very polite.

Cons:

i am not made aware of updates when they are released, i usually have an error, which will lead to a call and i will update. the ability to use smart service on ipad would be nice. mass data upload option, ie device inventory from excel sheet.

Smart Service is AWESOME!

Comments: We have been using Smart Service for the last few years in our HVAC business and it is a game changer. We are able to capture ALL of the information that comes out of the field, track everything that happens and run everything paperless. I would highly recommend Smart Service to anyone with a service business.

Pros:

Easy to use, Tech support is amazing, and the sync between Quickbooks and Smart Service is great!

Cons:

None