News

Budget Blinds picks ServiceTycoon to improve customer service

April 15, 2010

More than 160 owners of Budget Blinds, the fast-growing blinds franchise, have selected ClickSoftware’s ServiceTycoon at the recent Budget Blinds National Convention to help deliver higher customer service at much lower costs.

According to a press release, more than 900 Budget Blinds franchises are using ServiceTycoon to gain critical advantage in the highly competitive small-business world: an all-in-one, user-friendly Web portal for everything from scheduling sales and service calls, billing and customer relationship management.

ServiceTycoon gives small and medium-sized businesses full visibility and control over the service process – from the minute a sales lead becomes a customer to final payment processing. Up and running in just minutes, the on-demand solution lets companies manage business quickly and efficiently — from the office and the field, via mobile devices — without the cost and time needed to design and build custom applications.

Budget Blinds, the No. 1 ranked window coverings franchise by Entrepreneur for 10 years, has carved out a successful niche by delivering custom, quality window treatments at affordable prices. Its parent company, Orange, Calf.-based Home Franchise Concepts (HFC), consistently evaluates and presents solutions that can help franchise owners better manage their businesses, and recently showcased ServiceTycoon at an owners’ meeting.

“Our franchisees often head up sales, technology, finance, and marketing — all at the same time,” said Dave Lewis, co-founder and chief information technology officer for Budget Blinds and HFC. “When we showed them how ServiceTycoon relieves some of that pressure so they can focus on customer service, the response was overwhelmingly positive.”

With ServiceTycoon, Budget Blinds owners can:

• Painlessly schedule sales consultations and installations: With installers’ availability and whereabouts at their fingertips, franchisees can make sure they become more efficient, delivering on-time service to customers and increasing their profitability
• Cultivate customer loyalty: CRM and marketing tools built into ServiceTycoon give franchisees and small business owners an easy way to capture leads, distribute newsletters and manage a detail-rich base of contacts.
• Track sales and billing: ServiceTycoon takes the pain out of managing finances. Oriented for small service organizations, but built with big-business analytics, ServiceTycoon helps Budget Blinds franchise owners capture charges and track invoices and payments electronically.
• Map sales and marketing trends: The Franchisor application contains a dashboard with Google Maps, pinpointing leads and sales within specific geographic regions, bringing the bigger picture to franchise operations managers and corporate teams.

“Local entrepreneurs like Budget Blinds franchise owners set the standard for service excellence in their communities,” said Dr. Moshe BenBassat, CEO of ClickSoftware. “We are extremely pleased to help them achieve their customer service goals while simultaneously improving their revenues and profitability.”