Building restoration specialist Ferris has put a BigChange job management system at the heart of its future growth plans.
The building company has seen a 15 percent growth in turnover and profits since implementing the 6-in-1 cloud-based solution that provides a mobile app linked to the back-office for a real-time insight into job status. Operating across central England, Ferris has also saved thousands of pounds in false complaint charges with easy to capture, easy to share job reporting and has reduced its administration resource by 20 percent using the system.
“We have always been forward thinking with a digital approach to job management,” commented Elliott Ferris, Director and co-founder of Ferris Ltd. “However, we used more than one system to achieve our goals, and this required a full wage to reconcile the different solutions. It was also confusing and time consuming to teach new staff, extending the onboarding process for trades and back-office admin.
“So, we undertook extensive research to identify a single solution and initially went with an alternative supplier,” he continued. “However, this did not deliver as promised and ended up costing us hundreds of thousands of pounds. On the recommendation of other companies that we trust within our sector, we made the change to BigChange and have been reaping the rewards ever since.”
Having made the switch to a BigChange job management system, which incorporates a mobile workforce app, customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, financial management, and business intelligence tools in one system, Ferris has put the system at the centre of its future growth plans. Using the CRM functions, Ferris can track all its jobs, recording details such as site set-up, materials used, and customer contact details, for example, as well as logging customer feedback and queries.
Ferris also uses BigChange to produce daily reports, either by job or by trade, and can access this information for any day in the project history or person’s employment. Supported with date, time and location stamped photographs, these reports have saved Ferris thousands of pounds in false complaint charges.
“The biggest impact BigChange has had on our business is the ability to create daily reports at the touch of button,” Ferris added. “It is easy to find any day on a job and bring up the report, no matter how far back it is. Live monitoring, using vehicle tracking, driver behaviour alerts and real-time updates from site, is also critical as we have total visibility for customer and performance reporting, and appraisals.
“BigChange is also useful to us in terms of growth as it is a simple system to roll out to new trades and adding new accounts and new projects is easy. I truly believe that with the support of BigChange we can build on our recent success and transform the business into a £8-million-pound operation.”
Ferris is a third generation, family-owned building company based in Redditch in Worcestershire to the south of Birmingham. Founded by brothers Elliott and Mitchell Ferris, the company initially focussed on the home insurance sector but has since expanded to offer a range of building and construction services for schools and listed buildings. Employing around 70 full time members of staff, Ferris has a team of 40 trades working on projects across the heart of England.
About BigChange
Launched in 2013 and based in Leeds, UK, BigChange is a leading Field Service Management Software Provider trusted by more than 2,150 field-based organisations around the world. BigChange employs over 220 people and is recognised as an outstanding employer with a 2 Star Accreditation from Best Companies.
In 2020 BigChange was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation, one of the highest business honours in the UK awarded for the company’s contribution to international trade, innovation, sustainable development and promoting opportunity. The company has also featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and was named in the 2018 Deloitte Technology Fast 50.
BigChange is the complete Job Management system that’s helping field service businesses across the UK to win more work, take control of their operations and deliver winning customer experiences. Bringing customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, field resource management, job finance, business intelligence into one simple to use and easy to integrate system, BigChange liberates customers from inefficient paper-based processes and the complexity of multiple different technology systems that hold their businesses back.
