Smart Service Reviews

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The program as a whole is outdated and clunky, built around Microsoft Access, limiting its modern application.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.

That it integrates with quick books; is a good reoccurring database of our client with reoccurring work on semi and annual basis. no need for a separate data base anymore. When use with iFleet all work orders come back to the office electronically along with any photos taken, and can be processed immediately if desired; although some customers complained the guy was still in the parking lot when they got the invoice; LOL
the tech also has the ability to make estimates and email to the client right on the spot with our custom made form.
Has reduced our paper consumption by 80% in the first year.

Sometimes there is a long lapse between windows; generally it is several seconds but at time it can be 15 to 20 seconds.
Having to update the customer list almost everyday; it tedious and with over 10K clients can take a long time.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

This software has made the day to day struggles a breeze and customer handling easy, cannot remember a time not using this system

The day to day use of this service is great however if there was one thing I could change it would be the location of the calendar very bulky.

I've been using Smart Service and iFleet for nearly 4 years and I really couldn't imaging operating our service company without it. I've seen quite a few changes and feature upgrades throughout over the years which shows that the product has great support. When ever I have questions, they are answered right away. The only "complaint" I have if I had to make one would be that I would like to see the front facing camera be fixed within the iFleet app. I have been requesting this to be fix for the entire time that we have been using this product but it seems to go unnoticed. It must be a simple fix as every other camera app on iOS seems to work as intended. The pictures come in reversed which make reading numbers and words impossible. We use the front camera to take picture of product tags that are hard to reach. It would also be nice if the pictures were tagged with the job name and number so that we can easily locate and identify it. Thanks for a great product and all the support that goes into it. Looking forward to using this product for many years to come.

I've been using Smart Service and iFleet for nearly 4 years and I really couldn't imaging operating our service company without it. I've seen quite a few changes and feature upgrades throughout over the years which shows that the product has great support. When ever I have questions, they are answered right away. The only "complaint" I have if I had to make one would be that I would like to see the front facing camera be fixed within the iFleet app. I have been requesting this to be fix for the entire time that we have been using this product but it seems to go unnoticed. It must be a simple fix as every other camera app on iOS seems to work as intended. The pictures come in reversed which make reading numbers and words impossible. We use the front camera to take picture of product tags that are hard to reach. It would also be nice if the pictures were tagged with the job name and number so that we can easily locate and identify it. Thanks for a great product and all the support that goes into it. Looking forward to using this product for many years to come.

The ease of entering customers, service tickets, time keeping and the GPS tracking are great benefits of this system. For the most part our technicians have been easily trained on the process and it has cut down on a lot of their processing time in the field.

We have used the "Get Customer" or "Sync Customer" functions many times and since some of our office employees enter data directly into QuickBooks, we've lost a lot of email address and contact information on our customers. This information is critical to our database and it's very frustrating to try to rebuild.
We have several labor descriptions for our business and the work tickets can be set up correctly for the type of labor on a service call, the information transfers to the invoice in QB correctly, but defaults to ONE labor description on the time cards. So I end up having to revise nearly ever time card entry to correct the labor code. Also have to change the service or installation name from the sales rep's name to the actual technician that did the work. This has made the payroll processing a lot more time consuming than it used to be when it was entered directly through the time card entry in QB.

I love that it integrates with QuickBooks in real time. There are pros and cons to seeing every work order in QB but that also allows us to easily see how many times we have been to a customers house. As I said, the devil is in the details and if you just reach out to the customer service rather than struggle with the reports - they will teach you a lot and get you the report you need much quicker than you can do it yourself - until you learn how to do it yourself! The program is very customizable so that it can become what you need.

I would like the schedule board to act as a calendar too - the default search info isn't what i need but Smart Service can change the defaults - we just haven't it yet - I need to be able to schedule meetings/days off/ appts that are not service calls - in a manner that will allow them to be seen on the schedule without requiring that they be "Completed" 'cause then they disappear.....

Basic scheduling is very easy to learn, it only took me a couple of days to start scheduling basic calls. The rest involved mainly learning the service business that I work for in order to discover other needs within Smart Service. There is additional support via Smart Service's monthly webinars on various topics to assist with learning. I've attended 'Service Agreements' which I didn't know was possible until the webinar. I really like the reporting feature, it can generate useful data by request. For instance, pulling reports by customer location; if I want to view which customers live in South San Francisco I can easily create filters to do so. You really don't know how valuable a program is until your without it. We experienced our internet being down for half a day and had to go back to paper scheduling; that made us all realize how important Smart Service is to our business for sure!

If you misspell a customer name after selecting 'new customer/prospect' and make it to the main customer screen, you have to go into QuickBooks to make the corrections although it is a new customer. It would be better for new customers only to keep it unlocked until save is selected. That would save some time; I don't make constant errors but it happens occasionally. Also, tracking technicians does not seem to work 100%. I've made sure that their tablets are syncing but only have three technicians showing up on the map. Sometimes it can take a long time to load a customer and that delays a call and time. Other than those three minor problems, I can't really think of anything else.

We really don't use the Software to its fullest. It We love the part we use

We would love to use the Service agreement billing but we bull a month in advance and the way it is designed we can not use it.

It accomplishes all that we want out of a software without being complicated to use. It understands what we need to function and flow as a business. Using the software helps us be professional and profitable.

I can't really say anything negative about the software. I have heard others say they found a cheaper way to operate with software. It is usually people using several different software types or one program that is less quality. To me bad or clunky software/office operations cost money. Smart service is inexpensive when you realize the potential profits from a smooth running operation that is hassle free.

I appreciate the ability to create different locations under one customer name. We have Home
Warranty companies that we contract with and we can neatly arrange their locations and jobs for ease of access. The ability to upload and store images of customers equipment has been invaluable for insurance claims and warranty coverage and keeping track of model and serial numbers. Being able to send emails and texts from within the program saves time and the message!

Preparing reports that are specific to your needs. I have struggled with preparing a report that clearly shows what items we have sold and how many of them in a year. The screen flickers almost all the time when using Smart Service.

The layout and client fields and custom features

syncing can be an issue not being able.
That when re activating job it does not have a easy close option that does not re send invoice to QB and or it fills ifleet with all the past jobs

How easy it is to navigate through the work orders and customers. I like that you can post multiple invoices at one time if needed, or even skip multiple invoices at one time, simply by checking a box and then posting the first. I like that it connects so easily with our QuickBooks program.

I wish it would automatically reset a customer's price information for the following month. We have to change the amount of rooms serviced each month in various hotels. Our previous program would set the amount of rooms back to the base amount of rooms, but this program leaves it at the amount you post each month, so the following month it will show the amount of rooms and price from the previous month. Sometimes our customers get confused.

the scheduler, the ability to post multiple invoices at a time, the ease of adding a new customer

if I have to change the price on a regular customer service for one service that is the price that remains for the next months service. A previous program we used would automatically reset the price back to it's basic price for the following month when it was a recurring customer.

It's a great value and does so much of what other more expensive and complicated softwares do plus even more in some cases. Service System is so user friendly and very easy to learn as well as teach to new employees as the company grows. We highly recommend it to anyone who asks.

The support at My Service Depot for SmartService is great. The biggest complication and downfall, which is a big one, is that you can never get support except during standard working business hours Monday through Friday during the day. Being a small company, you can't afford to spend the time down and on the phone with tech support and failing to answer your phones for paying customers looking for service when you are in the trades like plumbing.

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.

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

The integration with QuickBooks - Eliminates double entry.

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

Love how easily Smart Service and Quick Books integrate. It has cut our billing time by hours.Thrilled to be able to include our service notes from SS on our QB invoices.
SS is quick to resolve any issues and are constantly improving on the software to make things more detailed and efficient.
iFleet is amazing! I love that I can see where our technicians are to track their routes.
Customer support is excellent and if your concerns always addressed.
Tracking inventory is a breeze.
Vehicle maintenance can be tracked by the office so that we don't have to rely on technicians for oil changes and other maintenance issues.
Software is fully customizable so we can enter our services and descriptions exactly as we want them to appear. .
Being able to email the customer his service order at time of service with his signature on it.
Recording history of past services so that the technicians can review what notes and materials were recorded at each prior service.

A lot of data entry is required to get the software like you want it. It takes dedicated man power but is well worth it once it is entered in.
Some software glitches can disrupt things for a bit but what software doesn't have these?
Making sure that Smart Service, Quickbooks and iFleet are reflecting the same information for the technicians using the devices so you need to familiarize yourself with where the information is pulling from.

User Friendly; broad functionality in scheduling for tri-State area

Cannot to job times in timeframe needed-- our technicians work at night -- we can't show job times past 11:55pm