Kickserv

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.