Supporting local trade: How WorkPal is helping local business manage their workflows, reducing their costs and winning more business.
Barclay Communications and WorkPal MD, Britt Megahey explains how WorkPal is helping local businesses streamline their workflows and the business benefits its bringing them.
WHAT IS WORKPAL?
WorkPal is a mobile and desktop app that allows our customers to easily manage their entire workflows from job management, tracking, reporting and invoicing, all from the palm of their hand.
The app also allows for important checks to be completed such as vehicle checks for your field-based staff.
WHY WAS IT DEVELOPED?
WorkPal was developed in 2013 as a response to the growing need for a more efficient way of managing field-based staff. Many of our Barclay Communications customers in the renewables, electrical, plumbing, and heating and facilities management trade where approaching us and asking if the was a workflow system out there that could streamline their workflows and improve business process.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
It allows mobile workers to access customised job sheets from a mobile app where they are guided through their task and report back instantaneously on progress. Once completed, there is enough information to allow speedy invoicing, even from out in the field. That end-to-end process management is key and makes sure that the accounts department is totally integrated with the people in the field and everyone in between.
HOW DOES IT HELP LOCAL BUSINESSES?
There are many benefits of utilising the WorkPal technology. For starters, it means the whereabouts of field operatives can be tracked from starting to finishing work, meaning it’s easier for the boss to keep control, no matter where they or their workers are. And of course, it does away with the need for endless reams of paper records.
One advantage our product has over the competition is that it is a lot more user-friendly. Uniquely, it can be integrated with a company’s own internal systems making it much more effective. We now have a diverse range of clients from winter maintenance suppliers, plumbers, electrical engineering contractors, renewable energy contractors and ventilation contractors. There are a few other systems available out there, but they are non-customisable, off-the-shelf products. WorkPal is very flexible as the product was wholly developed in-house at Barclay Communications. We’re finding many customers are now winning more business and tenders thanks to the traceability of job tracking and reporting that WorkPal provides.
On average, we’re saving our customers £12,000 per year in administration costs which means the savings can be invested into other areas of their business. The app can cost as little as £15 per user/per month and we’ve now scrapped our standard set up charges, meaning customers are able to see a further return on their investment within the first 12 months. It has become a game changer for a lot of our customers. In this day and age when costs only seem to be increasing, a product like this which can drastically reduce your cost base is a no brainer.
