Real-time vehicle tracking and fleet management tools are also helping Blade better respond to emergency call outs, monitor fleet security and improve workforce health and safety. 

Rob Bland, Managing Director at Blade Roofing, comments: “We are a time led business that is heavily reliant on and impacted by the weather so it is critical for us to know where are engineers are and how quickly they can get to a client site.

“Our previous system didn’t provide any tracking and didn’t allow for effective reporting so we relied heavily on email and manual processes, including paper-based forms, which significantly impacted the time required and office resource for all operational processes.” 

Sam Ward, Blade’s Operations Manager, adds: “We reviewed a number of systems before selecting BigChange with functionality and breadth of ability being the deciding factors.

“BigChange delivered the best fit for our requirements and those of our customers. The system also offered the most efficiencies for our business in terms of managing our engineering teams and providing real-time reporting.”

Based in Bradford, West Yorkshire and with regional offices in Birmingham and Essex, Blade Roofing is entrusted by numerous FTSE 100 companies to maintain their property portfolios as well as delivering prestigious projects in the new-build and refurbishment sectors. From blocked gutters on a small property to full re-roofing on industrial premises, Blade has the expertise and experience to deliver projects on-time and on budget.    

Using the BigChange job management system, which incorporates a mobile workforce app, customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, financial management and business intelligence tools, has virtually eliminated paper from Blade’s operational processes including initial data entry, work allocation, site reporting and invoicing.

Real-time tracking helps the back-office pinpoint engineers and re-deploy them for emergency call-outs as well as providing added comfort for fleet security and peace of mind alerts for driver behaviour monitoring.  

Real-time reporting, complete with time-date stamped photographs and customer signatures, is boosting customer service. Blade also values the flexibility of BigChange, in particular the ability to customise its job cards and completion reports, to give customers a better understanding of the current state of their roofs and effectively plan budgets for capital expenditure and maintenance.    

BigChange’s CRM functionality is also helping Blade grow its business. By focusing on specific sales opportunities and monitoring performance Blade can target the right accounts at the right time.

Advanced analytics and newly introduced ‘dashboards’ are also helping Blade to better understand a variety of performance indicators for example quote conversion metrics and ‘turnaround’ time statistics in addition to comparing job data details with other data such as rainfall or wind conditions.  

Sally-Ann Twydell, Commercial Manager at Blade Roofing, comments: “In my personal experience capturing data and using it to report are fundamental to success and improvement and BigChange has given us a new dimension of analysis and evaluation.

“The system is powerful enough to enhance the customer experience and being able to produce month-to-month reporting for our clients and internal teams is providing valuable insight.”