Smart Service

Pros

The installation team is amazing they answered every question we had and even made a recorded video for our future team members that would be using this software.

Cons

At first it was tough to get our techs to use this digital software over the old log books and notes being entered to system by the boss, but within a week the techs were realizing the increase in productivity and by the end of the quarter saw the payout in commissions.

Pros

Ease of scheduling and looking up our Clients.

Cons

Sometimes it can be slower then usual to find a Customer.

Pros

horrible overall HORRIBLE HORRIBLE STAY AWAY

Cons

Expensive, they changed the contract on us after paying 5K+ for mobile user accounts wit the promise not to pay monthly, they decided to start charging monthly fee

Pros

The software is very customizable. It has the features we need to apply data to ensure consistent service to our customers.

Cons

Due to the customizable design it requires admins that are highly skilled in software use and development. Not easy to navigate, conflicting layers/windows for data.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Smart Service

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Smart Service

Pros

The ease of setup and learning curve were rather straightforward and intuitive. The tech support is excellent as well

Cons

I prefer to speak with a real person as opposed to a phone tree

Pros

QuickBooks integration, ability to export CSV files. MS Outlook user interfact.

Cons

Limit ability to make mass changes to the data.

Pros

Ability to communicate job information between the office and the field

Cons

making changes to customer names if clumsy.

Pros

Smart Service used with iFleet has allowed me to streamline customer management, scheduling, and estimating repairs.

Cons

As you may expect there's a bit of a learning curve and multi-day jobs don't work well.

Pros

- Mobile version: easy to use and very handy to have
- as a local manager it really helped working with the decentralized office planning staff that could plan and take care of interventions while I was in the loop

Cons

French focus but international is growing

Pros

I love that we are almost paperless with this software. This has made everything at the click of your mouse.

Cons

I can not think of anything bad tp say about this software

Pros

I appreciate the ability to create different locations under one customer name. We have Home
Warranty companies that we contract with and we can neatly arrange their locations and jobs for ease of access. The ability to upload and store images of customers equipment has been invaluable for insurance claims and warranty coverage and keeping track of model and serial numbers. Being able to send emails and texts from within the program saves time and the message!

Cons

Preparing reports that are specific to your needs. I have struggled with preparing a report that clearly shows what items we have sold and how many of them in a year. The screen flickers almost all the time when using Smart Service.

Pros

job entry is ok. The ability to drop & drag jobs between technicians is nice. Ifleet program worked ok

Cons

When we purchased this software I purchased the dispatching add on called Ifleet for my field technicians. I was told and I quote "Ifleet purchase option _ iphone/ipad smart service add-on with no set up fees or ongoing monthly charges for service or support. That is off of my sales contract. They have turned off my Ifleet because I haven't paid my support fees. My agreement states there are no fees for support but somehow I owe them money, supposedly. Don't believe anything they say as they are just trying to get your money.

I also have issues with the program itself as you need to be able to write computer code to get any kind of reports from the software, the reporting feature is difficult to use. Its interface with QuickBooks is not great which makes tracking receivables and sales difficult. Overall I am very disappointed with this software and I would not recommend purchasing it.

Pros

How easy it is to navigate through the work orders and customers. I like that you can post multiple invoices at one time if needed, or even skip multiple invoices at one time, simply by checking a box and then posting the first. I like that it connects so easily with our QuickBooks program.

Cons

I wish it would automatically reset a customer's price information for the following month. We have to change the amount of rooms serviced each month in various hotels. Our previous program would set the amount of rooms back to the base amount of rooms, but this program leaves it at the amount you post each month, so the following month it will show the amount of rooms and price from the previous month. Sometimes our customers get confused.

Pros

Smart Service has streamlined and simplified our scheduling processes, service and billing. It has cut my paperwork down by half, allowing me to get other business tasks done that were going by the wayside.

Cons

The first year, it was difficult flipping back and forth between Quickbooks and SmartService, until we built up a history on our customers.

Pros

The integration with QuickBooks - Eliminates double entry.

Cons

The inability to handle larger customers - ability to see previous work within those customers is not functional. Forms created in the program are not very good

Pros

The scheduling feature works well. Many positive features, photo capturing, signatures, notes. I enjoy the monthly webinars that provide/reap new and old features of the product.

Cons

The downside of this product is the notes stay with the recurring job from year to year unless you create a new recurring job. This is time consuming and causes errors if the new job is not scheduled as recurring. A great feature would be for notes to automatically be archived when the next schedule occurs.

Pros

I like the ease of scheduling and tracking where my driver is. I also like the fact that my driver can take a picture for future reference when needed. Especially if we are waiting to do a repair at a later date and need to know which part is needed when we return.

Cons

I wish in the instruction section you could use bold and highlights when you want to make sure something stands out. I would like to be able to schedule a repeating phone call, for example, We have customers that we have repeating jobs every month but need to call the day before to remind them to put up animals or leave a gate unlocked. I would like for the reverse route the schedule when needed.

Pros

This software had the functions that I wanted.

Cons

If you need technical assistance after the second or third year, you have to pay for each year previous to be able to even ask a question! I needed a question answered after the third year and they are trying to charge me over $1600 before even knowing what my question is! I have spoken to several other scheduling software companies and they are appalled by this tactic!

Pros

What I like most about this software are the easy to understand interface screens and help available to make entry and maintenance a breeze.

Cons

I'm still learning the software, but so far I have not been able to see a way to change mass records with an import feature.

Pros

It integrates with the google calendar and Quickbooks. It holds pictures of jobs and really makes recurring jobs a breeze to setup and keep up with along with storing equipment mn and sn as well as warranty info.

Cons

nothing to really complain about. Sometimes the google calendar can be a hindrance because technicians can see 3 days out out and may be concerned about projects they are not on yet. Some may even develop a sickness they did not know they had in advance of a project they want to avoid.

Pros

Customizable reports, works with QuickBooks, Marketing Tracking, Scheduling

Cons

Speed, although it is a bit faster than the old version was.

Pros

We were looking for software to add scheduling to our Quickbooks. We tried ServiceCEO a year ago but could never get it going. The folks at Smart Service did several one on one training classes with us and really held out hand. Ross was the trainer that we worked with and you would have thought that he owned a pest control business. He knowledge about our industry blew my whole office staff away. We had the software installed on our 4 computers in a matter of hours. Once we were trained, we went live on March 1, 2011 and it was such a simple process. We have needed help this year and when we call the help desk, someone ALWAYS ANSWERS LIVE! That's just way too cool. When was the last time you got anyone to answer the phone live? These guys know what their doing. And the support is always first class. We've had Smart Service almost a year now and I wouldn't run my business without it. We've grown by 22% this year and I can say it has a lot to do with Smart Service.

Cons

Honestly the only con is I wish I would have made the switch sooner. Its a great product and a huge asset to my company.

Pros

The ease of moving jobs and seeing jobs, the interaction with Quickbooks is superb. Customer Support is great, the guys are quick to fix any issues plus very helpful in explaining features

Cons

not much of anything that I can come up with

Pros

It's many features and ease-of-use.

Cons

Tech-support is only available during regular business hours on Eastern standard time.

Pros

1) Seamless integration with Quick books.
2) I fleet to works great with ipad.

Cons

A little too many steps for data entry

Pros

Improves the accuracy of billing by accurately tracking the time spent on each job.Increases efficiency by reducing manual time tracking processes.Optimizes service schedules and reduces travel time, increasing efficiency and cost savings.Improves customer experience by reducing response times.

Cons

May require staff training to ensure accurate time tracking.Potential for time tracking errors and discrepancies.May require a significant investment in technology and training.Potential for routing errors and inefficiencies if the system is not properly optimized.

Pros

I've been using Smart Service and iFleet for nearly 4 years and I really couldn't imaging operating our service company without it. I've seen quite a few changes and feature upgrades throughout over the years which shows that the product has great support. When ever I have questions, they are answered right away. The only "complaint" I have if I had to make one would be that I would like to see the front facing camera be fixed within the iFleet app. I have been requesting this to be fix for the entire time that we have been using this product but it seems to go unnoticed. It must be a simple fix as every other camera app on iOS seems to work as intended. The pictures come in reversed which make reading numbers and words impossible. We use the front camera to take picture of product tags that are hard to reach. It would also be nice if the pictures were tagged with the job name and number so that we can easily locate and identify it. Thanks for a great product and all the support that goes into it. Looking forward to using this product for many years to come.

Cons

I've been using Smart Service and iFleet for nearly 4 years and I really couldn't imaging operating our service company without it. I've seen quite a few changes and feature upgrades throughout over the years which shows that the product has great support. When ever I have questions, they are answered right away. The only "complaint" I have if I had to make one would be that I would like to see the front facing camera be fixed within the iFleet app. I have been requesting this to be fix for the entire time that we have been using this product but it seems to go unnoticed. It must be a simple fix as every other camera app on iOS seems to work as intended. The pictures come in reversed which make reading numbers and words impossible. We use the front camera to take picture of product tags that are hard to reach. It would also be nice if the pictures were tagged with the job name and number so that we can easily locate and identify it. Thanks for a great product and all the support that goes into it. Looking forward to using this product for many years to come.

Pros

Being able to schedule the field guys is fantastic. I can look at the screen and immediately know if I have a worker available or not. If a person takes the time to learn it the scheduler can be your new best friend. Some of the men really LOVE that they can take photos of the job site, the work, parts that need to be replaced and it stays with that job forever. I love that too. It is very handy.

Cons

Since Smart Service makes a new, unique job in Quick Books every single time you make a job, it makes more sense to have QB in single user mode all the time so a job can be deleted if necessary but my employer uses QB in his office to do his bids and the invoicing so it can be a pain in the neck. There is no way to tell Smart Service to print ONE work order if the jobs are assigned to the department and to the person (indicates who is doing the job) it automatically spits out one for the office that I don't need, one for the job, and one for the human. Once a person's name is entered as a customer there is no way to change it. It is wrong forever. Once it is used in QB it can only be made inactive not deleted. It might be a Quick Books interface problem which is not really Smart Service's problem but if Quick Books runs into a problem and has to close (but they always apologize for the inconvenience ;) ) then I have to close Smart Service, re open QB, start Smart Service, wait for it to go through it's acrobatics (gathering data) before I can use it.

Pros

For the regular dispatching features, I was able to learn completely on my own with no instruction, becoming our in-house "expert." It is intuitive enough that I found solutions for problems that tech support thought had no work-around.

Cons

The program as a whole is outdated and clunky, built around Microsoft Access, limiting its modern application. For example, if you have a customer with 10 locations and 15 total jobs, and they change their billing address, you have to manually go change it 26 times, in a clunky system that is not fast at all.

Adding a new customer takes forever, especially if you have a location and job to enter as well. There is also no feature to have an AP email for their default QuickBooks email, while still have primary contact's email prevalent.

Scheduling is nice that a job can recur indefinitely, but if a job cancels, you have to change its recurrence pattern PRIOR to inactivating the job, or it still comes up on the schedule. It also has no features for a job to occur for a certain period of time, or to recur on a seasonal basis.

If your customers have multiple services per invoice, it is a huge pain. The "Batch invoices to Quickbooks" feature requires the user to post each individual batch one. at. a. time. Again, on a slow, clunky system.

Many of the advanced features have not worked for us at all, or were not as advertised in the demo. Granted, the most annoying part (the scheduler does not work for us) is largely due to our painfully slow cloud system, making it inoperable.

If you want to print a schedule for each employee, be prepared to pay for an upgrade (ours was $600) so they can program a custom report for you, that is iffy on how often it works on the first attempt. (Ours works on the second attempt every time.)

The "Prospect" feature is useless... it doesn't transition over to "Customer" well at all.

It is also impractical to use many features integrated with Quickbooks-- it requires syncing for anything useful, and with a large customer database, that is completely impractical for the frequency required.

Bill your customer a flat rate each month? Forget about it, unless you cheat the system and create two jobs-- one that is the real job for your employee and charges nothing, and one that only your accountant uses.

Bottom line: It's intuitive to figure out basic functions, but there is SO much room for error, and something simple like an updated address once took me 2 hours to complete for our largest customer. They need to do a complete overhaul of their programming and add some basic features before I could recommend Smart Service to anyone. We've found that to make it work, it requires constant ingenuity to come up with a work-around for design flaws.

Pros

Basic scheduling is very easy to learn, it only took me a couple of days to start scheduling basic calls. The rest involved mainly learning the service business that I work for in order to discover other needs within Smart Service. There is additional support via Smart Service's monthly webinars on various topics to assist with learning. I've attended 'Service Agreements' which I didn't know was possible until the webinar. I really like the reporting feature, it can generate useful data by request. For instance, pulling reports by customer location; if I want to view which customers live in South San Francisco I can easily create filters to do so. You really don't know how valuable a program is until your without it. We experienced our internet being down for half a day and had to go back to paper scheduling; that made us all realize how important Smart Service is to our business for sure!

Cons

If you misspell a customer name after selecting 'new customer/prospect' and make it to the main customer screen, you have to go into QuickBooks to make the corrections although it is a new customer. It would be better for new customers only to keep it unlocked until save is selected. That would save some time; I don't make constant errors but it happens occasionally. Also, tracking technicians does not seem to work 100%. I've made sure that their tablets are syncing but only have three technicians showing up on the map. Sometimes it can take a long time to load a customer and that delays a call and time. Other than those three minor problems, I can't really think of anything else.

Pros

The ease of entering customers, service tickets, time keeping and the GPS tracking are great benefits of this system. For the most part our technicians have been easily trained on the process and it has cut down on a lot of their processing time in the field.

Cons

We have used the "Get Customer" or "Sync Customer" functions many times and since some of our office employees enter data directly into QuickBooks, we've lost a lot of email address and contact information on our customers. This information is critical to our database and it's very frustrating to try to rebuild.
We have several labor descriptions for our business and the work tickets can be set up correctly for the type of labor on a service call, the information transfers to the invoice in QB correctly, but defaults to ONE labor description on the time cards. So I end up having to revise nearly ever time card entry to correct the labor code. Also have to change the service or installation name from the sales rep's name to the actual technician that did the work. This has made the payroll processing a lot more time consuming than it used to be when it was entered directly through the time card entry in QB.

Pros

Great Dashboard for dispatcher. It allows the dispatcher to customize how they operate and make great decisions. Wish there was a place to park unassigned calls. Nice interface with Quickbooks. Good overall features. Really wanted this product to work for us.

Cons

Serious security flaws that let your techs email your hard earned customer information to their personal email or worse yet your competitor with no tracking. Was told during sales demo this could be turned off with a "radio button". It was our number one reason for buying and explained up front. After purchase and during training we demanded to see how this was to be done and our trainer was honest and said the salesman was wrong and halted the training. They refused to change the mobile app to disable this. Gave them a few days they asked to address this and they could not demonstrate after several tries how this was to be done. The only viable suggestion was to lock down all the smart phones with a 3rd party mobile management software which would prevent our techs from receiving and sending troubleshooting documentation. We demanded a refund which was prompt but not the full amount despite the deception. The upper management will not return calls but instead sent me an emailed legal threat if I dared to review the product online. They actually used the word "Disparage" which is supposed to have a dishonest component to it. Everything here is honest. They plan to sue for liquidated damages for each negative review. Good product, dishonest salespeople and an upper management that doesn't care to try and win a customer or apologize for their salespeople's misplaced exuberance.

Pros

I love that it integrates with QuickBooks in real time. There are pros and cons to seeing every work order in QB but that also allows us to easily see how many times we have been to a customers house. As I said, the devil is in the details and if you just reach out to the customer service rather than struggle with the reports - they will teach you a lot and get you the report you need much quicker than you can do it yourself - until you learn how to do it yourself! The program is very customizable so that it can become what you need.

Cons

I would like the schedule board to act as a calendar too - the default search info isn't what i need but Smart Service can change the defaults - we just haven't it yet - I need to be able to schedule meetings/days off/ appts that are not service calls - in a manner that will allow them to be seen on the schedule without requiring that they be "Completed" 'cause then they disappear.....

Pros

It is fairly user friendly. I do like the posting and dispatch screens. Easy to read, easy to post. The ease of changing information is good and bad. From an accounting perspective, it is a bit soft on that aspect.

Cons

It took me longer to get the hang of this software than most softwares I have used. The reporting is not the best. Reporting is difficult to get what we want. It either has too much information or too little. I would like to see the ease of changing accouting information alot harder. It is too easy for the field techs to change.

Pros

It accomplishes all that we want out of a software without being complicated to use. It understands what we need to function and flow as a business. Using the software helps us be professional and profitable.

Cons

I can't really say anything negative about the software. I have heard others say they found a cheaper way to operate with software. It is usually people using several different software types or one program that is less quality. To me bad or clunky software/office operations cost money. Smart service is inexpensive when you realize the potential profits from a smooth running operation that is hassle free.

Pros

Tech support was good only because we paid for the service and they always had an answer or workaround

There are no other redeeming qualities about this software and we gave it a very fair shot

Cons

The software uses Microsoft Access and requires constant massaging to make it work properly. It is absolute non-stop crashes, server reboots etc. The technicians tables never synced properly and there was constantly missing data. Imports and exports to and from QB was a constant headache with missing pricing and information.

It was a significant amount of energy to deploy and we worked with it from September 2020 to May 2021 when we moved to another platform that has worked extremely well-utilizing the cloud.

Pros

The layout and client fields and custom features

Cons

syncing can be an issue not being able.
That when re activating job it does not have a easy close option that does not re send invoice to QB and or it fills ifleet with all the past jobs

Pros

That it integrates with quick books; is a good reoccurring database of our client with reoccurring work on semi and annual basis. no need for a separate data base anymore. When use with iFleet all work orders come back to the office electronically along with any photos taken, and can be processed immediately if desired; although some customers complained the guy was still in the parking lot when they got the invoice; LOL
the tech also has the ability to make estimates and email to the client right on the spot with our custom made form.
Has reduced our paper consumption by 80% in the first year.

Cons

Sometimes there is a long lapse between windows; generally it is several seconds but at time it can be 15 to 20 seconds.
Having to update the customer list almost everyday; it tedious and with over 10K clients can take a long time.

Pros

Being able to use iPads or tablets in the field. By being able to use tablets we take away the technicians penmanship errors and can have the customer sign work orders so there is no confusion of who said what later.

Cons

Not being able to track individual extinguishers by date and have them update to when service is needed.

Pros

What I like about the software is that aside from the fact that this is a scheduler, employees are being notified of the schedule/task update real time. Useful to us that is starting to expand our company that majority of our employees are in the field and no time to get back to the office for schedule check. Another awesome feature of this software is that after the schedule or task is complete management is notified back for the job well done.

Cons

In my experience I can't see any problem, probably the interface make it a little bit alive.

Pros

The scheduling page that shows the number of trucks and color activated during time stamps

Cons

Not flexible for our industry, we keep hoping it will be more appealing to other options, but no luck after many years with the company.

Pros

The design is amazing and the integration works seamlessly with Quickbooks. The direct customer support is great but is an additional cost that I feel is a must-have for general support or when you get in a jam.

Cons

There are not too many cons with this software. The constant updating and making the software more versatile for the user would be the only negative point I could come across only because with any software update there is a chance for bugs. The fact the company is always doing it in response to making the software run better and adding feature requests from actual customers balances it out I feel.

Pros

Love how easily Smart Service and Quick Books integrate. It has cut our billing time by hours.Thrilled to be able to include our service notes from SS on our QB invoices.
SS is quick to resolve any issues and are constantly improving on the software to make things more detailed and efficient.
iFleet is amazing! I love that I can see where our technicians are to track their routes.
Customer support is excellent and if your concerns always addressed.
Tracking inventory is a breeze.
Vehicle maintenance can be tracked by the office so that we don't have to rely on technicians for oil changes and other maintenance issues.
Software is fully customizable so we can enter our services and descriptions exactly as we want them to appear. .
Being able to email the customer his service order at time of service with his signature on it.
Recording history of past services so that the technicians can review what notes and materials were recorded at each prior service.

Cons

A lot of data entry is required to get the software like you want it. It takes dedicated man power but is well worth it once it is entered in.
Some software glitches can disrupt things for a bit but what software doesn't have these?
Making sure that Smart Service, Quickbooks and iFleet are reflecting the same information for the technicians using the devices so you need to familiarize yourself with where the information is pulling from.

Pros

It's a great value and does so much of what other more expensive and complicated softwares do plus even more in some cases. Service System is so user friendly and very easy to learn as well as teach to new employees as the company grows. We highly recommend it to anyone who asks.

Cons

The support at My Service Depot for SmartService is great. The biggest complication and downfall, which is a big one, is that you can never get support except during standard working business hours Monday through Friday during the day. Being a small company, you can't afford to spend the time down and on the phone with tech support and failing to answer your phones for paying customers looking for service when you are in the trades like plumbing.

Pros

We switched to Smart Service and the iFleet app a little over a year ago. It has revolutionized our time tracking, job costing, and billing processes.

Cons

The software has a learning curve due to the massive functionality that is built in. It took a bit to figure it all out.

Pros

This program reads out QuickBooks, which made it easy to transition
Customer service is amazing, they have always been able to walk me thru whatever problem I have

Cons

Not all of our forms can be prefilled. Technicians cannot change the dates of service. There is not much bad to say about this program it works like it supposed to.

Pros

We really don't use the Software to its fullest. It We love the part we use

Cons

We would love to use the Service agreement billing but we bull a month in advance and the way it is designed we can not use it.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Smart Service

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Smart Service

Pros

the scheduler, the ability to post multiple invoices at a time, the ease of adding a new customer

Cons

if I have to change the price on a regular customer service for one service that is the price that remains for the next months service. A previous program we used would automatically reset the price back to it's basic price for the following month when it was a recurring customer.

Pros

The integration with quick books avoids the double entry which saves me a lot of time. Customer service is always willing to help, they will help you get the reports you need much quicker than you can do it your self.

Cons

It can get a little bit slow when syncing but other than that I have no complains. Very useful software.

Pros

tracking (time stamps and history) and easy to view color coding, the reports feature

Cons

Integrated mapping and routing