"In the middle of a global pandemic, I had to go overseas. With ServiceM8, I was still able to run the day-to-day of my business from the other side of the world."
Alan Collins from Westcork Electrical shares his story from the pandemic and the experience of running his business remotely with ServiceM8.
Before using ServiceM8, I was one of those classic tradies thinking “I don't need that! I've got bookkeeping software that invoices and quotes, what on earth would I need ServiceM8 for?”
Fast forward a year later, I wish I’d jumped on ServiceM8 from day dot. It’s a lesson I share with other trade business owners I see struggling to organise client & job details, and stay on top of their admin — clogging up their smartphones with job notes they text to themselves, overflowing note apps, and randomly saving job photos between funny GIFs they send to their mates!
It wasn’t until August 2020 I saw how important ServiceM8 really was in my electrical business, Westcork Electrical. I received a phone call which truly rocked my world — my father had been placed on life support back in Ireland. Naturally, I dropped everything and jumped on a plane, relocating my office from “inner west Sydney, Australia” to “West Cork, Ireland” for 8 weeks.
After just starting a new tradesman in my business, he was truly thrown in the deep end as I left the country. Fortunately, I had processes in place for him to follow, and using ServiceM8 to communicate and manage all our jobs in the cloud, we could get the work done!
Some particular features that made it possible:
It was endless! I truly was able to run the business from the other side of the world, thanks to ServiceM8 and its various add-ons and integrations.
After open heart surgery and a metal valve, my father made an unbelievable recovery — here’s me and the family two weeks post-surgery :)
"The app saves me 30-40k a year in wages. As a small business, those kinds of wages are all considered overhead expenses."
"From where we were this time last year, to where we are this year, it’s like night and day."
"What attracted us to ServiceM8 the most was probably how easy it was to set up. To be honest, it took us no more than 2 hours to set up."