Thryv for Home Services (www.thryv.com, 888/733-9482) is an end-to-end service management solution for growing small businesses, designed for use from a smart phone or other mobile device. The platform, which includes a mobile app, handles booking jobs, scheduling, job management (tracking jobs, projects, and tasks), client communication, unlimited estimates and invoices, a client portal, marketing, and reputation management. The inbox allows you to enable your business landline or request a number that will allow your customers to have two-way SMS/text messaging conversations in the Thryv dashboard.
You can send estimates and invoices to customers and the platform can verify if they were received or read. Customers can approve them electronically and Thryv can accept client payments directly through ThryvPay, a payment provider developed especially for service-based businesses, that allows you to store cards on file, scheduled payments, installments (for larger service jobs), and contactless/online payments. Thryv also accepts client payment through third-party providers Stripe, Square, and PayPal. After paying, customers receive email/SMS confirmations with payment details.
The client portal, which customers can add as a direct link on the home screen of their cell phones, lets them book, reschedule, and cancel appointments 24/7 via an online customer scheduling calendar that syncs with your team’s color-coded scheduling calendar.
The CRM allows you to easily add or import customer data, including customizable fields. You can quickly see activity highlights, notes, conversations, filters on open and overdue payments, and past/future booking information.
How it works: Three levels of the Thryv platform are available to accommodate businesses as they grow: Plus, Professional, and Unlimited, differentiated in part by the number of users (2, 5, 10 respectively with the option to add more); document storage available (20 GB, 50 GB, unlimited); scope and limitations of marketing announcements and automated campaigns (5,000 month, 10,000 month, unlimited) you can set up customized with various triggers, such as time, recipients, etc., all or filtered, and method of delivery (email or text); and the ability to customize automated campaigns, utilize automatic review generation and management, and automatically notifying you when a review is posted and letting you respond from any device, within the software.
Additional features, available in the Professional and Unlimited packages, include set-up of a professionally designed website, 12 industry-specific social media posts created for you each month, and an auto-generated video based on your website and content on the web. The Unlimited subscription also includes a custom video package videos enabled a pre-determined number of videos that can be used wherever you want for your business.
The Unlimited package also includes optimization of Google My Business, a free tool to help a company manage how a local business appears cross Google products such as Maps and Search (also available as an add-on in Professional and Plus).
Thryv integrates with QuickBooks, Gmail, Outlook, Google calendar, and other solutions.
Pricing: custom proposal basis, based on business needs, partially driven by the number of users and features desired. Billed monthly or semi-annually.
Azuga Fleet/Azuga Fleet Mobile (www.azuga.com, 888/777-9718) is a GPS-fleet management platform, for administrators of commercial fleets of any size and for their drivers, designed to give visibility and insights into fleet operations, including where workforce vehicles are at any time and how they are operated on a daily basis, in order to improve productivity and safety.
How it works: The Azuga Fleet utilizes a GPS tracker plugged into each vehicle’s OBDII port, capturing all vehicle diagnostic data and driver behavior instantly. The Azuga Fleet Mobile app, developed for use by the drivers, enables drivers to receive alerts and automatic notifications, keep an accurate trip log, and view their own monitored driving details and driving scoring stats for driver gamification.
The Azuga Fleet software features a live map view that shows where all vehicles in the fleet are at all times. Using a variety of integrated safety and management tools, it allows management to monitor various administrator-selected driving events and driver habits, giving access to pertinent details on fleet operations (e.g. real-time vehicle location/status, fleet dashboard performance, fuel usage, and vehicle history trails) and on individual driver behaviors management elects to monitor, such as harsh braking and hard cornering, seatbelt usage, and excessive idling, as well as real-time vehicle location/status, fuel usage, and vehicle history trails. The solution can also instantly find the closest driver on a real-time map view.
The advanced diagnostics software can issue real-time alerts on unauthorized vehicle usage, low fuel and low battery, sudden acceleration, check engine light, and breaching of established geofences for each vehicle, with alerts shown on the portal and shared via email.
Several types of pre-built reports are available to administrators, detailing such data as speeding and fuel usage, activity summary and trip log, breadcrumb (point by point movement) and who-was-where (by specific date or specific address) documentation. Plus, you can generate custom reports.
Azuga subscribers can, optionally, install dual-facing Azuga Safety Cams in each vehicle to generate videos that can help administrators monitor driving behavior, prevent nuclear (large verdict) lawsuits, and contribute to safer driving, with event videos viewable within Azuga Fleet or Azuga Fleet Mobile.
Pricing: plans scaled, priced per month.
Patti Feldman writes articles and web content for trade magazines and manufacturers of building products. She can be reached at [email protected].