Kickserv Reviews

Pros

Kickserv enabled us to scale up the business and offers us excellent tracking for billing, communication, and customer service.

Cons

There are no issues or downside for my company.

Pros

This software is VERY EASY TO USE AND LEARN. My company has been using this system (and the SUPPORTING iPHONE APP) for over 8 years. Since our start, we have ALWAYS seen improvements being made behind the scenes like REPORTING FUNCTIONS, ADDITIONAL DATA FIELDS, MAPS, DISPATCHING AND QB SYNCS.

Cons

There aren't any prominent cons to kickserv. If I could improve one thing it would be MAKING THE ABILITY TO PULL CUSTOM REPORTS EASIER. Other than that, the reports that are pre-populated give me the information I need when I need it.

Pros

All inclusive connectivity of all the data needed to run my (Piano Service) business. I consider myself a fairly expert user of kickserv, using it from its early inception, then called ' Service Sidekick'. I am totally on board to help bring it to its fullest potential, so dont take the cons section too hard...I use the system every day, all through the day, and my entire operation depends on this most awesome application.

Cons

Software is gradually degrading. Latest update published makes KS sluggish, screen freezes constantly during scrolling. Reports have been altered to the point of useless.
Quadruple redundant data entry, creating and closing an event, then a job.
No auto fill on repeated fields.
Phone numbers require dashes be entered. Format the field for straight 10 digit entry.
Area code, city, and state are almost always the same in my service area. Why dont these fields hold and auto fill the last data entered? Internet standard these days is that the state is a 'state' field, only accepting 2 CAP characters in verified state identifiers.
No notification if email is successful, and no notice when messages fail. This has caught me with my pants down with customers...( yes customers, not contacts) emailing time sensitive invoices and opportunitys.... guys, they are ESTIMATES, Not opportunitys!!
Stripe send a payment received email notification...Awesome.
The text is the problem. First words of auto generated notification says Congratulations!.
Congratulations? We are small businesses....we take money, every day, all day. It is inapropriate, and smacks of a Condesending viewpoint.

Miss labled fields: My customers are my 'customers' , not my 'contacts'. New address verify is great on service address, Why does it not verify billing address? Getting paid is a very important aspect of small business. Makes no sense.

Pros

The ability to store everything together.

Cons

It did not integrate with QuickBooks Online as we had hoped. It integrates with it, but not everything transfers.

Pros

-Organization of data and customer list
-Convenient way to calculate weekly, monthly jobs sold.
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Cons

-Sometimes it does not load properly
-Would be great what time notes are added to NOTES section for each tab

Pros

Easy to learn. I'm an older user and not tech proficient. It was very easy. It syncs with QuickBooks which makes my work more efficient. I create invoices in Kickserv and the information is seamlessly transferred. We have color coded our techs so I can easily tell where they are. The map and directions feature makes it easy for our techs on the road to see where the jobs are.

Cons

The only thing I haven't liked is that I can't edit contacts in Kickserv any longer. I have to edit addresses and phone numbers in QuickBooks and I find that the information doesn't sync back, so I end up having incorrect information on clients in Kickserv.

Pros

Synchronization with Quickbooks Online.
Basic functions are easy to use.
Adaptable to your companies needs with custom fields and reports.
Directions/maps are integrated into each customer location for quickly planning your days journey.

Cons

You are unable to print report/search results from Kickserv, you are required to export to CSV format.
It does not contain an inventory feature within the software.

Pros

They updated lots of there products which I like there character got updated from 1000 to infinite.

Cons

I can only download 1 picture at a time from my iPhone it would be great if they can allow a select and drag all

Pros

Very easy to use, many reports available based on data we enter into system. The custom reports are awesome, you can build any that are needed. For a small company, 3 years old that I just started working for 1 year ago, they needed the push to use it to its capacity and we are now getting information out of it that is very valuable for growth.

Pros

Its easy on an iphone, and can be used as well on an ipad. The reaction of the app is great and does not crash all the time.

Cons

The bugs, and if we try to tell them what to change this takes really long. and somethimes they don't change anything.

Pros

Their web site when used on a desktop computer is great for scheduling and dispatching. We use it throughout the day to line up jobs for our technicians. Previously existing customers are easy to find using their search feature. I can add a new job, and then click a button and it sends the technician a text message with the job description and address. The technician can click on the address link and get the GPS coordinates on their smart phone. The workflow is logical and consistent. When things go wrong, they are good about communicating what is happening.

Cons

We are really only able to use part of the service. While it is excellent for scheduling, it is not useful for invoicing unless your invoicing needs are very basic. The product is not compatible with Quick Books groups. I don't use their mobile app. I prefer their mobile web site, but recent changes have made their mobile site less useful. Their server sometimes gets overloaded and the software becomes unresponsive. Tech support is inconsistent. Sometimes very helpful. Sometimes condescending. If a customer has an email address, it will automatically send this customer a reminder notice. There is no way to turn this feature on or off. For recurring jobs where we go back to the customer again and again, this is a problem because we don't always schedule the customer on the same day every month. It also gives the customer a link to the customer account center, which we also do not use, since we are unable to use Kickserv's invoicing feature.

While Kickserv continues to make improvements to the service, I frequently find myself frustrated because improvements are often not fully tested, resulting in unpleasant side effects. Example - recent formatting changes have made the scrollable area of their mobile web site very small and difficult to work with. Another change awhile back formatted all of my old customer data in such a way that their addresses would fail to appear in the text messages sent to my technicians. I am having to manually change all of these.

Pros

The product is simple to use and meets my customer service and scheduling needs for the price of the cloud software but also allows me to customize things without major programming or fees to get somebody else to do it. I paid for the Boot Camp training and was very worth it just to get things setup and understand the software. It sync's reliably with QuickBooks which has been a problem in the past for our company with other cloud based Customer Service Programs. The vendor has been GREAT! They feel like my team as they always respond within minutes to hours of my questions or problems I do run in to. I just send them a quick email and they help. Also they are always interested in my recommendations and are also getting feed back frequently from me and making improvements to the software. One thing that is great is that they provide a portal to the customer so any changes I make to an estimate or schedule or notes can be seen by the customer (they only see notes you want them to see). They can be abreast with what is going on with their work order. They also can pay for their invoice right online as well which I love so my customers have more control over their payment needs. Also our Kickserv is linked to our website so anytime a customer wants to contact us it creates an OPPORTUNITY in Kickserv for us to follow up on and notifies us via email that we have an interest. I would and have recommended Kickserv to other businesses.

Cons

This product does not handle the purchasing side of things which I would love to see. It sounds like they are looking into expanding this software to handle tracking purchases. Right now I just use QuickBooks for this. I also don't like the HTML language which is required for the setup of the invoice, estimates and work orders templates. It is hard to work with being I am not a programmer. I have managed to figure things out on my own with their help site and calling them. Its not a major issue but something I think they can improve on more. Again the Kickserv Team has been very helpful in anything I try to do or questions I have.

Pros

It's so easy to use and functions well for most of our needs. I LOVE the Special Instructions section and the clarity it provides in the Overview tab. Tags are also very helpful for our needs. The Resource calendar is fantastic too. Sometimes updates made in QB don't seem to come over to Kickserv in a timely manner but I think they usually do eventually. Overall, Kickserv has been a game-changer for us and I'm grateful every day for it's availability.

Cons

On my wish list is a feature that will allow me to duplicate contact information of one customer and paste it into that of another. We deal with many management companies who manage several of our customers and I have to re-type their contact info into each shared customer that we have. Reports are a little cumbersome to create but I did work in Salesforce.com many years ago and found that to be the case with them too.

Pros

This software is easy to use and some really great features... I like that I can drag appointments from one day to the next if needed. And contact customer service if needed easily.

Cons

I wish there were more alerts that would come up - such as an alert that will come up when scheduling someone that has an open balance so that we can let the customer know when scheduling, also what would be really helpful is if there was an alert that pops up stating that there is already a scheduled appointment open for that customer to avoid potentially double booking a customer (sometimes a wife will call to schedule and the husband may have already scheduled and it gets confusing). When scheduling multiple days on jobs I wish it didn't go on top of the calendar but blocked out the time. Also wish that there was an alert that would come up if a customer address is already in the database to avoid duplicates. Also, wish that email reminders were able to customize so that we could change time frames as we schedule in 2 hour increments - so we are really not able to use the feature which is one of the reasons we picked this scheduling software over others.

Pros

It is overall easy to customize to fit our needs. There are many features we use and I'm sure many more we don't. Allowing other employees to view, create notes and have user access is very helpful for our business. Also, the search option is great. When forgetting what address is associated with what customer, the search option is a helpful go-to when looking for a random piece of information.

Cons

I wish it was easier to navigate online "help topics". While the customer service on the phone is great, it would be nice to access online articles. I haven't found them especially helpful. Also, when clicking on a customer and then accessing the jobs in their profile, it has been very frustrating seeing old jobs come up first. I don't want to see 2014 jobs, I'd rather see the ones I'm currently on, being 2018. Making the option to choose a date view and then having KickServ remember my last selection would be very helpful.
In-Progress (for jobs) tab is really confusing. We only use Scheduled or Completed. We have one job in In-Progress (not sure how it got there) and don't know how to move it to Scheduled. This is very confusing and frustrating as we don't use this feature and don't know how to get rid of it. Please get rid of In-Progress or make the option to not use, more accessible.

Pros

The calendar and resource views and functionalities are the best features of Kickserv. We have 7 vehicles on the road and we need to know where they are and how each job went. Kickserv allows us to communicate in a cloud based system that all of our techs can access in real-time. When a change is made to the calendar, all office staff can see it. Technicians can leave job notes before they leave the job site, and customers can pay online after they are invoiced by email.
The newer look of KickServ was a real step up from the original Service Sidekick. It has grown with us and continues to get better everyday. It has really begun to feel like we have a real business and we are happy with the way KickServ has grown into theirs as well.

Cons

The technicians cannot see the description of charges in the itemized list of charges while using the mobile app on their phones.
Some issues with recurring jobs - I have found that most of the issues get resolved as soon as we mention them to the KickServ customer service team. If there is an answer, the team is willing to try and find it.
When KickServ lags or goes down it slows our company down to a crawl. It was worse before, and only keeps getting better.

Pros

The software is very organized, easy to navigate through, I like that there's more than one way to search for something. I think the Dispatch View is an amazing concept! I am in the service industry and have technicians that I send all over S. OC, having a map right there and not having to switch back and forth with google maps would be wonderful! I really hope they will be able to fully incorporate it into the software. The texting concept is another wonderful idea I recently saw added. A lot of my customers ask for texts because their at work and in meetings etc, so to have this feature fully functional would be another efficient bonus!

Cons

There really isn't anything I dislike about this software. Recently, the Kickserv Team had to do a massive switch over, customers from their old software switched over to the new one and it caused problems across the board. However, our business didn't suffer too much and Kickserv's tech team was on a solution right away! I also really appreciated their update blog while they were fixing everything. We also had a problem with syncing to Quickbooks and Quickbooks locking our ability to change contact info from Kickserv. But that's been fixed as well!

Pros

Able to track all incoming calls with a glance at calendar screen. See every tech (color coded) daily, weekly and monthly. Track days off, vacations, in a glance, with customer on the phone!

Cons

Still no way to automatically change color coding as each phase of a project is completed and we need to add different tradesmen to the job. We have to "open" each job BEFORE we schedule a tech to see if he/she is already assigned to an ongoing job.

Pros

This software offers great functionality and customization, so far has been the one that adapted the most to our requirements. New functionalities are added on weekly basis which is really nice. Price is very accessible for small business. Is easy to use once that you get the grip on it which takes time because some stuff is somehow counter intuitive, I seriously recommend getting the paid support/training sessions otherwise you will get very frustrated.
integration with QB and use of credit card payment is solid.

Cons

Customer support time is frustrating, they take at least several hours to get back to you then sometimes they will reply and stop answering for another several hours, this made us almost regret our decision when setting up our account. They offer documentation for the software but a lot of topics are mere drafts and do not contain a lot of information. Despite the fact that they answer really slow they are very helpful with the answers provided and you can be sure your problem will get solve 90% of the time or a feature request will be placed.

Sometimes the system gets really slow , specially on Monday mornings and end of the month, contacting support and letting them know seems to fix the issue most of the time...

The Android app could use some improvement although it has improve a lot in the last 6 months.

Pros

We love the simplicity of it, the work flow is really easy with the unschedule, scheduled, in progress, etc tabs. It keeps the jobs organized. We love that it is capable with our QuickBooks keeping our books stright is very important to us.

Cons

The mobile app has had a number of bugs and issues. But we contact customer service and it seems to fix. However we still run into minor issues here and there.

Pros

Able to change as needed, and easy to integrate with Quick Books. Easy to contact a real person in tech support.

Cons

Don't feel that the phone/tablet app is user friendly

Pros

We have used the software since about 2012. It is very user friendly and allows our company to schedule and keep track of our customers on a daily basis. We love the ability to create reports and sort data but services used, how often customers use us, amount spent, ect. The staff at Kickserv is responsive and easy to work with if a question or problem arises. Kickserv syncs seamlessly with quick books and allows us to easily keep our books up to date. We have just recently started using the credit card processing add on. It was again, seamless and easy to use. Very happy and attribute the program to our continued success!

Cons

There are a few upgrades I would love to see...such as taking a discounted about off certain items. For our business a check box form would be helpful in the tuneup each of the technician s perform, however for the dollars spent it is a great program at a great value.

Pros

The ability to view my schedule on my Android phone was the primary reason that I chose Service Sidekick almost two years ago. I'm so glad that I did! Our previous scheduling information could only be accessed while out in the field if the secretary was still at the office or by remote log-in once I got to a computer. With Service Sidekick I am able to pull up my schedule while eating lunch, enter a new job that might have just been called in, then hit the notify tech option. This will send either an email or text to my electrician who can then punch it into his GPS and head that way with a descriptive read out of what he has been tasked to do and all of the customer's pertinent information. The integration with Quickbooks Online works quite well with transferring customer info through a simple sync button. This saves a ton of time when entering a service call.

Cons

The only real negative that i have to offer is that when scheduling work for a contractor that will be at an address that is not their home office. Their office address always appears on the printed work order and it can and has caused confusion. Meaning that my guys have shown up at the contractors personal home, embarrassing. There might be a way to simplify it for recurring business partners that work in other places like a remodeling General contractor. Also, with so many features, i feel like i am only skimming the surface of what Service Sidekick is capable of. My New Years resolution is to learn to use it even more effectively.

Pros

The calendar has been easy to use. We do not use it for our installers at this time but use it daily for our sales appointments. For the most part kickserv has been user friendly.

Cons

There are times when we have issues syncing with QuickBooks. It seems this happens when we have one customer with multiple locations. We created our own invoice and estimate template. It would be helpful if this was easier to do and we did not need an HTML guru or it would be helpful if kickserv was more helpful with this. Reports can be confusing to create to pull the information needed. The reports probably took us the longest to figure out how to use. When uploading pictures it is very slow for the sales people when using their ipad in the field.

Pros

It was really easy to use. I was able to take my business from 3 employees up to 15 before I started feeling any pain.
The estimates were customization with HTML. We were able to add some very cool code that would add offer banners depending on what was in the estimate.
It tracks every time your customer opens your estimates. Great for know who to call.
The software works well with quickbooks online. The work flow is logical.

Cons

It was week on CRM functions like phone and email integration. The mobile app never worked for us but to be fair our account may have outgrown the design.

There was no ability to group several jobs in to a project. This hurts when trying to find sale conversion rates because we often wrote several optional estimate to win 1 project.

Not having enough features to take my business for 20 to 50 employees. I would still be using it if they had developed a few more features or integrated tightly with a office CRM.

Kickservs has a really nice integration with QBO at the invoices level but none at the prospect or estimate level. If KS's contacts and estimates would of synced and mirrored QBO I Would of found a CRM to layer over KS to get the features I needed.