Changes to Referral Notifications & Acceptances via SMS
We have made some changes ... if we have upset you, we are very sorry. But we sincerely believe that once you have experienced the changes, you will be as excited as we are.
Service Central for many years has relied on 2-way SMS to notify you of customer referrals and to send back to you the customers details. This technology and practice has served us well ... but there is a better way.
The updated Job Notification Process
You still get an SMS notifying you of the referral. However, in the new SMS is a link to your new Toolbox. If you want the job, click the link, and Hey-Presto, there is the total package. All the detail that we have about the job is readily available, including pictures, plans, long descriptions, where the job has come from ... lots and lots of info. From there, two clicks to accept and one click to call the customer.
Example SMS message:
New@SC R397503: New Electrical Installations in East Ipswich. Details: https://lead.sc/abcdef
Clicking that link logs you into your Service Central account and takes you to the Job Opportunities section filtered to the specific Job. You can use the breadcrumbs (links at the top of the page) to see all jobs matching your profiles (i.e. ones you have been notified about) and to remove filters and view All Job Opportunities.
Clicking Accept brings up the full details of the referral. Click the Accept button on this page to accept the job.
After accepting the job, you get a success message (or message telling you why you couldn't accept the job- compliance issues, too many outstanding quotes, etc.) and a link to view the job and customer details in Toolbox.
Initial feedback is that people don't like clicking two accept buttons so we will eventually get to changing that to one click. However, we don't have an ETA on when that will change.
Why have we done this?Service Central needs to serve 3 masters. You the service providers, of-course the consumers and often the forgotten ones - the other businesses that use us to distribute their jobs. A great example of this is Australian House & Garden Magazine. H&G have put through hundreds of jobs since our partnership began there have been very few of our providers saying to these customers that they are responding to an "Australian House and Garden Magazine job". We need to make it more obvious to you where these jobs are from to ensure that the customers are not confused and to help you win more work. The new notification method does that.
This is a breach of the deal with House & Garden Magazine, and as we have highlighted a number of times in previous newsletters, when you take a House & Garden Job you need to tell the consumer that you are calling from House & Garden Quick Quote. See:
- The rules of joining the House & Garden Network
- Very Important: What to say when responding to House & Garden Jobs
This has caused problems for the customers, for H&G and for us. Believe it or not, it has also been some of the reason you may not have won the work. These changes fix all of that and clearly lets you know who is referring you to the work.
How to Identify Jobs from House & Garden, and other Partners such as Build.com.au
House & Garden jobs are currently marked like this. We're open to suggestions if that needs to stand out more.
and ...
But wait, there's more.
Apart from the process being quicker (only three clicks) and smarter (new technology) and giving you more information it also gives you many more tools to manage the jobs and the customers. For example, you can easily create a quote and send it to the customer from your phone. You can search any customer from your phone and with one click, be talking to them straight away. Before long you will also be able to take payment from your customer and link to your accounting package - all through your new Toolbox.
There are many, many more features ... have a look at the article below and call your account manager. We are hear to help you through this change.
/article/have-you-upgraded-to-the-new-provider-portal/
Furthermore, for those wishing to run their business on a powerful business management system that enables you to allocate jobs to your team and track the status of everyone's jobs, you have now been upgraded to the Eaco Business Management System too.
Learn more about Eaco here: /article/love-at-first-sight-early-testers-loving-eaco-the-new-business-m/
