Bob Champion MBE is an English former jump jockey who won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti.
His triumph was made into a film Champions, with John Hurt portraying Champion. The film is based on Champion’s book Champions Story, which he wrote with close friend and racing journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Powell. Champion was born in
Guisborough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. At the height of his career as a jockey, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in July 1979. He was treated with an orchidectomy and with the chemotherapeutic drugs bleomycin, vinblastine and cisplatin, and also had an exploratory operation to identify cancer in his lymph nodes. His victory on Aldaniti was viewed by many as a great triumph, following his previous adversity. Their victory earned them that year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award and was chosen as one of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments by Channel 4 viewers in 2002. Other major races that Champion won during his career include the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup and the Whitbread Trial Chase. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1982 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
In 1983 he formed the Bob Champion Cancer Trust, which has raised millions of pounds for cancer research. He retired from training horses in 1999. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1981 when he was surprised, on his wedding day, by Eamonn Andrews. On 22 December 2011, Bob Champion received the Helen Rollason award as part of the 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year competition.
Pollock Scotrans has introduced the latest cloud and mobile technology from BigChange to improve its transport and logistics operations.
The 160-strong fleet operation is being managed with the BigChange 5-in-1 cloud-based platform that live connects in-cab mobile tablets to back office management software and real-time vehicle tracking.
Drivers use BigChange tablets for recording their timesheets and expenses, as well as for vehicle check reports and capturing timed-stamped photographs. Clipped into dashboard mounts, the tablets provide messaging, navigation and traffic reports on the move. Vehicles are also live tracked for monitoring journeys to ensure efficient routes are used and vehicles are on time, backed up with reports on fuel consumption and driver performance.
Fraser Pollock, Managing Director of Pollock Scotrans commented:
“Pollock Scotrans has embraced BigChange in all areas of the business from Driver, Vehicle and Job Management, we have seen tangible benefits and can honestly say the system is helping us streamline our 80 year old business”.
Pollock continued:
“Our ultimate aim is to go completely paperless and BigChange will be playing a big part in that transformation. The move to electronic reporting with a one-system-does-all solution will allow us to deploy a seamless end-to-end digital process that will have far reaching benefits to the business. With real time operational visibility there are big management and customer service benefits and BigChange is already boosting efficiency and productivity.”
Driver performance is important for improving safety and reducing fuel consumption and BigChange has proved very useful according to Mark Jackson, Operations Director at Pollock Scotrans, who also sees the driver check app providing big benefits.
Mark comments:
“The driver check app has eliminated paperwork and ensured drivers complete inspections properly. Real-time reporting of defects including photographs means we can immediately alert the workshop about crucial defects allowing immediate scheduling for repairs”.
Pollock Scotrans’ customers are benefiting directly from BigChange and already live tracking information is being sent directly to clients to monitor transport of their goods.
Pollock commented:
“Integration with our customer systems will provide a significant saving in time both in creating jobs and in providing post job information, whilst also improving customer service with speed and quality of information if a query arises”.
I’ve spent my entire life starting companies and building brands. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that the moment you get complacent, you’re in trouble.
It’s easy – especially when you find a bit of success – to stop thinking like an entrepreneur, and to rest on your laurels. But you have to fight complacency at every turn if you want to build something of true value.
This week, I’d like to share with you one of the ways that I make sure I never stop innovating, and keep moving the company – and myself – forwards. It’s a little strategy that I call my ‘shop floor days’.
As often as I can, I take myself out of the office and spend the day with one of my customers or prospective clients. No, I don’t mean I have a fancy lunch with the chief executive. I get up at 5am and go to a customer depot to spend the first half of the day riding around with their engineers, contractors or delivery drivers. Then around 2pm, I go and work in their offices, sitting with the people answering calls and making bookings.
The shop floor idea isn’t all mine. It was inspired by the time I spent working with GE, the American conglomerate, back when it was run by the visionary leader Jack Welch. Back then, GE leaders spent a lot of time analysing the way things were done. They were always looking for a way to make small but consistent improvements. The strategy is known as “six sigma” – you can find more about six sigma here: https://www.ge.com/sixsigma/sixsigstrategy.html
These shop floor days have had a profound effect on the businesses I have built, and have informed so much of the new products and features that I have created. This is how I find customer pain points, and learn how to solve huge technical challenges.
I build a rapport with the people I meet, and they share their experience of their job, and I take notes. It’s that simple.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to get customers to agree to a shop floor day. I’m treated like an extension of the company. The people I meet are always open and genuine – they don’t think I’m there to catch them out. They know I want to help, and that anything they say will be treated with absolute sensitivity.
One heating and plumbing customer had no racking units in their vans, so thousands of pounds worth of stock was just piled up in the back. Another bakery chain was sending drivers to stores at 2am to deliver fresh bread, but when I came along for the ride, I saw that drivers were being mobbed by homeless people who wanted yesterday’s leftovers. These kinds of issues are often unknown – or, worse, ignored by middle management. It took me speaking up about it to bring them to the attention of the top brass.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve done over 100 of these shop floor days, and they are among the most interesting and inspirational ways that I can spend my time. I have even branched out, and now spend the odd shop floor day with my own employees too, sitting with the team or out on the road with a member of our sales team or installation engineer.
Of course, my shop days help me to sell BigChange. I can explain how our technology would allow the driver / engineer to do away with all the paperwork lumped in the passenger seat, or how stock could be tagged so everyone knows where every part is at any time. For the bakery driver, who battles the homeless every morning, he is able to check into the system and reassure the company there have been no issues.
But my feedback also saves these companies money: we’ve helped remove unnecessary driving time, making workers much more efficient. Our booking service also helps them offer a much better customer service. People know exactly when someone is coming to deliver their washing machine, which means they’re not waiting in all day. These things add up, and have contributed to BigChange’s success.
Every business owner should take the time to get out of their office bubble and spend time with the people who use their product or service. No business is ever fully optimised; there is always room for improvement. See you next week, and good luck fighting complacency. It’s a battle we all must wage.
Garic, the specialist welfare and site set up products provider to construction and other sites, has revolutionised its service operations with a mobile solution from BigChange Apps.
Garic has improved and streamlined their hire and service operations replacing 400 paper worksheets with an all-in-one tablet app that also provides job scheduling, asset management, live tracking and reporting.
A large part of Garic’s work involves servicing plant and welfare facilities – for example emptying waste, replenishing water and fuel. Garic recently launched a new remote equipment monitoring system called i-SITE that monitors fluids to alert service operations. Service drivers, who respond to automated service requests and scheduled jobs, are equipped with rugged Samsung tablets and are amongst the primary users of the 90 BigChange-connected devices currently in use.
With service operations previously managed at three regional depots, the company has been able to centralise the management of service operations with the BigChange mobile solution integrated with the inspHire hire management system. With their headquarters near Bury, Garic has depots in Bedford, Dudley and Bathgate, with plans for a fifth site in Thurrock this year.
Lee Williams, Programme Manager at Garic commented:
“BigChange has been central to a drive to paper-free working through an initiative called the Digital Hire Cycle”
Lee Continued:
“It’s remarkable to think that we are replacing 400 paper worksheets with a simple tablet to manage over 100 job types. And not only is BigChange saving many hours a day by eliminating form filling and data entry, but with the improved accuracy of data we are significantly reducing invoice-related disputes.”
“However, it doesn’t stop there. With real-time electronic information now available we get valuable management information from customer sites. For a hire business, quick turnaround is crucial and with BigChange we have much better visibility of our assets. For example, we now know the condition of plant before it arrives back at the depot so we can immediately schedule for re-hire or the workshop.”
BigChange offers a cloud-based solution that requires no onsite software and is fully supported, eliminating the need for specialist IT support. Easy to use and configure, BigChange is unique as it is a truly multi-functional solution that handles tasks that are traditionally spread across a number of different systems. At Garic, BigChange is used for everything from worksheets, routing and job scheduling, to vehicle safety checks and driver performance assessment.
Lee added:
“BigChange has been very accommodating to our needs and they have delivered a very simple solution to what is a very complex environment.”
There’s a lot of advice out there for entrepreneurs. Every day there’s a new ‘21 ways to supercharge growth’ or ‘Four ways to be a better leader’.
I enjoy reading all the weird and wonderful tips but, in my experience, being successful just requires one thing: great customer service.
If your customers love you and value your business, every door opens. They buy more of your products or services. They reward you with long-term loyalty. You get more referrals – and word of mouth is the best customer acquisition tool because it’s meaningful (and free). Your reputation soars, which helps you recruit better employees, and attract investment. I could go on.
I’ve run all kinds of businesses over the years, and there have been three lessons that have ultimately helped me to be successful each and every time. It didn’t matter if I was creating a bakery, selling white goods, or building a bold new technology venture – I’ve always stuck to these three simple rules. I’d like to share those with you today.
Be the landlord
With any business, the founder should feel personally responsible for its success. Like a pub landlord who puts their name up above the door, you must take pride in your venture and never hide behind the organisation, even as it grows.
I see myself as personally responsible for everything that goes on at BigChange. My phone number is on the internet, and I take calls direct from customers at all times of the day or night all week, except the sabbath. If my customers experience any pain using our service, then I feel that pain too. I get copied in on all emails and I make sure that I’m involved until the issue is resolved.
Customer service goes beyond the customer; it’s about how you treat your own people. If I get an email in the night, and I don’t see that someone else has handled it, I’ll phone the driver or engineer back. Doesn’t matter if it’s 2am or 3am, I’ll phone and ask what I can do to help.
Some of the business leaders that I admire most have a similar strategy. It was a great shame when Dido Harding stepped down from TalkTalk, the telecoms business, following its cyber security issues. I remember when my mother had a problem with her TalkTalk internet service and I emailed Dido. She was genuinely interested in my mum, a woman in her seventies, and personally fixed the problem – even though TalkTalk had millions of customers at the time. Whatever she decides to do with her career, I’ll remember that interaction – that’s the power of great customer service.
Spend more than you think you should on customer service
From day one, in all of my businesses, I have invested in customer service. People have always called me mad: spending money on a department that wasn’t directly related to sales. But it’s always paid off for me.
At BigChange, we have at least one customer service representative for every 50 customers. We are creating a brand-new piece of technology, so we have always offered free webinar training and free support. We don’t even charge people to call us – we take on that cost.
Great entrepreneurs make it easy for their customers to get in touch. That means offering online, phone, and offline options. If one of our customers is really struggling with something, we will send a person over to their offices to help them resolve it face-to-face. I think it’s safe to say that’s a pretty unusual strategy for a software company.
When you spend on customer service, the return on investment is massive. We have really low customer churn – only 3% ever leave us. And some of those were due to company liquidations rather than cancellations.
Love your difficult customers
When you are building a business, you will come across difficult customers from time to time. They are never satisfied, and are always demanding more from you and your team. I’ve learned that a customer who is difficult at the outset of the relationship will often be difficult for the duration of the contract – that’s just the way it is. I should know: I’m a difficult customer myself and it takes one to know one. But the great thing about these people is that they help you to learn, and they drive your team to perform at a much higher standard.
If every customer was passive and no one gave you a hard time, how would your business improve? It’s better to be challenged: a customer service team learns a lot as a result of dealing with difficult customers – they often speak a lot of sense. Many of our customers have been with us for years, whereas some employees might be brand new, and could learn a lot from the customer’s insights.
It’s important to train your team to love tough customers. I take the time to explain that our customers come in all shapes and sizes. I like to use the analogy of the NHS. When a nurse is on the ward, some patients will complain that they haven’t been seen fast enough, others will apologise for taking up a bed. The ward is full of all sorts of people but the nurse has to make them all better, and make sure each patient leaves feeling they have received a good service.
I hope these customer service lessons will be as valuable to you as they have been to me. If you’ve got any great tips to add to the mix, please leave a comment. If you enjoy these posts, don’t forget to follow me to receive updates. See you soon for the next instalment…
All the best
Martin Port
Founder & CEO
Mobile : +44 7973 671779
Landline: +44 113 4571000 Ext 333
I think that a real turning point in my life was when I decided to stop working for my father and start a new life in America.
I was 24 at the time, and yearning for my independence. I wanted a clean break, so moving to the United States, where no one knew me, seemed like a good idea.
Providence helped me get there. I had a contact over in Germany who had a speciality bakery business. He asked me to go with him to sell his bread in New York.
So there I was, living in a small apartment next to the bakery in New Jersey. This was the making of me. I learned to keep a clean apartment, iron my own shirts, and be completely independent. I came out from my dad’s shadow. He was such a character and a well-known businessman… it was a relief to be able to just be Martin, rather than Jeffrey’s son.
I used all my sales skills to build up that business, and I ended up selling speciality German bread to some of the world’s most famous hotels, including the Waldorf Astoria, Plaza Hotel and even the United Nations Dining Room.
Hard work really does pay off. This was the lesson I learned back then. This was also the time when I learned to survive on just four hours’ sleep a night. It’s incredible what you can achieve during those extra hours.
Three years later, in 1989, I decided to come home and start my own bread business. I launched Kroustie in Leeds, and started making gourmet bread. We grew and grew, until we were supplying bread, patisserie and cakes to restaurants, hotels and delicatessens all over Yorkshire.
These were the days when most people were eating those mass-produced, plastic-wrapped loaves of Mighty White. Imagine what people thought when they tasted our gourmet rye and pumpernickel loaf? It went down a storm.
That business never went bust but it didn’t make much money either. I used to get up at midnight and work 18-hour days. It was relentless. But I just couldn’t get the right kind of scale into the business. I decided to sell Kroustie in 1998.
My BigChange came in 2002, I bought some hardware from a French firm and launched Masternaut, which helped customers with fleets to track vehicles. Masternaut became one of the fastest-growing businesses in the UK and a market leader. Then, five years ago, I started over again when I launched BigChange, which is an all-singing, all-dancing mobile workforce app and job management tool.
I’ve told the story of my early experiences as an entrepreneur to show others what can be achieved with a bit of determination.
Imagine you want to get a table at your favourite restaurant. You head there and see a queue going around the block. The manager says there are no tables. What do you do? I would always get the table. If someone says it’s impossible, I make it possible. Once this happens a few times it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m a strange mixture of optimist and realist. I always think my ideas will fail, which forces me to work three times harder. That attitude keeps my feet on the ground. But I’m also really good at celebrating successes and appreciating the little wins.
Next week, I’ll share three most valuable lessons I’ve learned in business.
As part of the same group as the local water company, SES Water, SES Home Services currently provides services to around 20,000 properties, covering Surrey and the surrounding counties.
The high-tech system from BigChange combines CRM, job scheduling and management reporting, with live tracking and mobile apps running on Samsung rugged tablets replacing paper job sheets and a raft of reports. Called JobWatch, SES Home Services believe the cloud-based system will provide the ideal platform for expansion of their business, potentially nationwide.
Peter Holmwood, Head of Operations at SES Home Services commented:
“BigChange has been a real revelation. We had previously tried to implement a system to replace our paper job sheets but it was too inflexible and costly. JobWatch is a completely different proposition and does everything we originally wanted plus a lot more. It’s not only more extensive, more adaptable and easier to use, but it is also much more affordable.”
Peter continued:
“The evidence is in the numbers. Previously we had one support person for three engineers. Now we have one support person for ten engineers. And the ratio of office personnel to engineers used to be one to one but it’s half that now. In fact we are probably doing 50 percent more work for the same amount of resource.”
SES Home Services provides home owners with insurance based annual maintenance contracts, as well as commercial landlords and social housing providers. With 35 mainly Gas Safe accredited engineers, SES provide routine servicing and emergency call out with a 2 to 4 hour response, 24/7 and 365 days a year.
Agents log incoming calls into the BigChange CRM with automated scheduling and resource allocation based on variables such as nearest location and engineer skill set. Jobs are then despatched to the engineers’ tablets that provide navigation, worksheets and apps for a variety of tasks such as daily vehicle inspections, landlord safety certificates and boiler commissioning checklists. With real-time vehicle tracking and work status reporting, customer services and management have around the clock visibility of the complete mobile operations.
Peter added:
“BigChange has not only eliminated paperwork and improved the accuracy of our records, we are now doing a lot of valuable data harvesting and analysis.”
He continued:
“This means we can look in detail at our performance and make continuous improvements, being able to accurately measure outputs before adapting. For example, the average time taken to complete jobs by type and by engineer and the failure rate of a particular part.
The engineers are really engaged with the system and provide valuable insight into how it can be applied to their working environment, better serving them and our customers. JobWatch has helped everyone across the business raise their standards and created a culture where people take responsibility for more than what it says on a job sheet”.
Peter explained:
“With JobWatch we have seen significant improvement in efficiency and productivity. It proved invaluable during the Arctic conditions that recently hit the country. We had six times the normal number of call outs and we could only cope because of JobWatch and its tracking system reducing the impact of travel time between sites.”
With the introduction of JobWatch as an always on, always available anywhere solution, the company realised that the business could be expanded freely, without the limitations of traditional IT systems.
“We are very excited about the prospects for the business now we have JobWatch. It’s like a blank canvas that provides absolutely no restrictions when we look at how we can develop the business. It offers the scope to freely expand geographically or by service,”
says Peter.
“And we are already looking at the web booking portal for landlords and the customer smartphone booking apps to offer all sorts of potential for the future.”
Both my mother and father worked day and night when I was a kid. People sometimes ask where my work ethic comes from, and it’s from them, 100%.
From the age of 10, I would be with them, travelling all over the UK. My dad ran an auction business, and we’d be in Glasgow one day, London the next. My mum worked as the cashier. It was a true family business.
Dad would put an advert in the Evening Standard, offering TVs for £5, fan heaters for 50p, and so on. Up to 1,000 people would come to these auctions, and bid for the goods. That was my introduction to the world of business: seeing my dad up on the rostrum, commanding the audience. He was a great showman.
My dad let me have a go selling a few lots. It was late in the day, so there were fewer people left in the room. I remember getting up on the rostrum, and learning the patter: “If you miss this, you will miss your way home…”
This is how I learned the basics about business: buy, sell, make a profit. It was also how I learned to be a salesman. At 14, I started my first business. My best friend and I bought a printing machine for £500 from Exchange and Mart, the old classifieds magazine. We bought some card and some pens and offered to print promotional flyers and goods for small businesses. We used to hop on the train and go to Leeds, Sheffield, Blackpool – all over, trying to convince restaurants and shops to buy from us.
We got some orders, came home, and tried to print the things. For people who don’t remember these old machines, you put the type into the jig, and the machine would warm up, the type would hit the foil, and the words would be stamped onto the card. But our machine was faulty from the start. The type would just melt onto the jig. It was a complete con. This was my first experience of what entrepreneurs now call “a barrier to growth”. It was also the moment I knew for sure that I was a salesman and not a manufacturer.
Instead, we took the orders to a printing company and had them made. The customers never knew about the faulty machine, which we eventually managed to sell back to the manufacturer. We ran that business for almost a year. We even had our own little office in Leeds. But the money wasn’t great and it wasn’t a business we could scale.
I left school when I was 15 and started working Saturdays at an upmarket menswear shop called Cecil Gee. Next, I moved to a high-end jewellery shop. Then I was a blue coat on the shop floor at Comet, the old electricals chain. All of these early experiences helped me to understand the customer, anticipate what they needed, and work out the best way to solve their problems.
That’s when I began working with my father full-time. This was during the Thatcher era, when imports were starting to flood into the UK and factories were stuck with loads of stock they couldn’t sell. Interest rates were as high as 15% in those days so companies would sell £500,000 worth of stock for £100,000 just to get some cash back in the business. This is where I learned the power of market forces, and how the economy can work with you or against you.
I learned a lot of entrepreneurial lessons in my early teens that stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. But it’s remarkable how often we have to remind ourselves to follow the basics. ‘Buy at one price and sell for a profit’ seems obvious, but when you have a new business, you often undervalue your services just to get the deal. I’m grateful to my parents for giving me an education in business from such an early age. I feel like it’s always been in my blood.
In my next post, I’ll talk about how I ended up going to America, and starting up my bread business – the first company I successfully sold. But for now, I would be grateful if anyone would share stories about being a teenage entrepreneur. What were the first lessons you learned in business? Did you have entrepreneurial parents, like mine, or did you learn everything for yourself?
Record quarter for BigChange. We are delighted to announce a record quarter for the company.
In the first three months of 2018, BigChange secured £4m in new contract wins, beating our previous record of £3m. We have won 50 new customers during the period and also generated significant repeat and renewal orders from our base of 700 customers.
Accelerated Growth
We are forecasting £11m turnover for the current financial year, based on our current growth trajectory. We will increase our customer base to 900 companies by the end of 2018. This will take our total number of subscribers to 23,000.
A diverse Customer base
BigChange has become a major player in the Transport, Service and Construction industries, as well as the Public Sector. Our customer base currently spans as many as 40 different sectors. On average, we deliver a return on investment of £15 for every pound spent.
The Technology
Our proprietary technology, JobWatch, is used for sales and marketing, customer relationship management, operations (including stock and asset management), contract management and smart scheduling of jobs and appointments. Our powerful back-office app allows customers to streamline their operations and go paperless.
Our Vision
We will give our customers the tools to grow and collaborate with other ambitious companies. Through our network, customers will use JobWatch to find partners, work together on projects, extend their geographic reach and outsource jobs. With JobWatch, you can track the appointments, jobs, deliveries and collections in real time, providing true control and transparency. We believe we have created the Uber of job scheduling and service collaboration.
Shop Floor Days
Big thanks to all our existing customers, who have supported us over the last five years. At BigChange, we make a point of spending time on the road with our clients’ engineers and drivers, finding their pain points, offering pro-tips, and taking product-insight back to the office. In the last three months, I have held Shop Floor days with a number of customers, which I have delivered invaluable insights. I’m grateful to all involved.
BigChange People
Our team have worked tirelessly to support our incredible growth. We now employ over 70 people between the UK and France. We strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of Andrew Scully as Managing Director, Mike Buck as Operations Director, Charlie Bartfield as Sales Director, Alex Epstein as Chief Marketing Officer and Matt Ashworth as Deputy Chief Technology Officer. We also promoted many team members and introduced lots of new talent to the company. All our employees are BS7858-certified.
Expansion Overseas
We are excited about opening our offices in Ireland and the United States. We’ll share more on these exciting developments as they happen.
Latest BigChange platform Developments
Our Lab Development Team has been hard at work developing new features, such as Collaboration, where two separate companies can work together to fulfil jobs. The tool enables companies to divide the task of booking and scheduling jobs, health and safety, and workflow management, all under their own bespoke templates. We also launched our new on-demand booking app and built new solutions for sales automation and consignment tracking.
Quality & Data Management
Our team has been working hard on achieving ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) developing all the features in readiness for this important new legislation.
Industry Workshop
Our first workshop for the Plumbing and Heating Industry was a great success, and we will announce further dates for the other industry sectors that we work with.
Awards
We won the Northern Star Award 2018 sponsored by GP Bullhound and Tech North. We were chosen by Tech City UK to feature in the Future Fast 50 technology companies to watch. We were also racked the 11th fastest growing Tech Company in the North and Scotland.
Exhibitions
We look forward to seeing you at the following expos during the next three months: Commercial Vehicle Show 2018 24th to 26th April, NEC Birmingham. Field Service Management Expo 2018 19th to 21st June, London Excel & Housing 2018 26th to 28th June, Manchester Central.
Watch Nic Hamilton race in the Renault Clio Cup this weekend 7th and 8th April
We have two pairs of tickets available to watch Nic Hamilton (brother of Lewis) race this weekend at Brands Hatch in rounds 1 and 2 of the Renault Clio Cup. If you would like to attend, please email your details to [email protected] now! We have tickets for the whole race season, and we’ll be in touch soon with information on how you can apply for tickets for the other rounds.
Motivational Monday
So far this year, we have welcomed Toyah Wilcox, Holocaust Survivor Arek Hersh, Children’s Charity The Kirsty Club and our Brand Ambassador Nicolas Hamilton. This month we have lined up Fabrice Muamba former Bolton and England player to speak about his past and how he dealt with his BigChange after his heart stopped beating for 78 minutes during a football match at Tottenham Hotspurs.
Corporate Social Responsibility CSR
We are proud to have expanded the network of charities supported by BigChange. We now donate to more than 10 organisations. We also are Corporate Members of Business In The Community, Brake and Transaid. I have personally visited Zambia with Transaid and saw for myself the incredible work done on the ground fighting malaria in Serenje with Mothers and Children and the Driver Training School in Lusaka.
The app-based system has eliminated traditional paper timesheets and Bobst Technicians and product specialists now manage all work activities and travelling time on their smartphones. The workforce app links in real-time to the BigChange cloud-based back-office management software that handles everything from work scheduling and routing, to fleet tracking and machinery safety alerts.
Thirty Bobst personnel operating across UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, are using BigChange-equipped smartphones. The introduction of electronic timesheets has boosted customer service for Bobst, as well as saving considerable time and ensuring quicker, more accurate invoicing. Previously they completed paper carbon-copy-type timesheets that were posted to the office by the field service personnel and manually transcribed by a team of three people, prior to invoicing.
Alan Letford, Head of Customer Services at Bobst UK and Ireland Ltd commented:
“The introduction of the BigChange system to replace paper-based processes has had a significant and far-reaching impact across the business and especially in customer service,”
Alan continued:
“We now have up to the minute, accurate data reporting, with Time sheets signed-off by customers on the app. That means we can send an immediate confirmation to the customer and raise an invoice straight away.”
“Timesheets and job-cards are automated saving a huge amount of time. Previously it could take up to three weeks to get an invoice processed; now it is pretty much instantaneous. There is less ambiguity now and invoice disputes have been reduced as everything is much clearer from a customer perspective.”
Bobst Technicians all drive company cars and BigChange incorporates vehicle tracking giving customer service teams a real time view of the whereabouts of all the company fleet. Soon customers will receive automated notifications on the expected arrival time of their Technician. The tracking also allows business versus personal mileage to be recorded at the touch of a button and monitors driving behaviour from a duty of care perspective when on the road.
With Technicians maintaining equipment at customer sites, health and safety is an important aspect of the customer care provided by Bobst UK and Ireland Ltd. Alan Letford is also Head of Health and Safety at Bobst and has taken a lead in introducing safety procedures. Recently accredited as an Alcumus ‘Safe Contractor ‘member, Bobst has developed health and safety functionality within BigChange. This allows Field Service Technicians to send confirmation using the correct PPE, Risk assessments and any identified safety issues – such as a serious Health and Safety machine defect – direct from their smartphones. The system requests sign-off with a customer signature on-screen and then triggers an automated advisory letter.
Alan Added:
“It would be fair to say BigChange has revolutionised our customer service and given us a really useful tool to support our health and safety accreditation. It’s fantastic that BigChange is so easy to use and simply available on a standard smartphone or tablet.”
“We are currently the only Bobst Customer Care centre to introduce electronic timesheets and the team at BigChange have been very responsive in enhancing their software to meet our needs”.
