How Restoration Management Software Can Help You Improve Profitability

A restoration contractor’s day is full of challenges, which include dealing with customer demands, insurance paperwork, potential legal issues, and regulatory compliance. This cycle often seems to be never-ending, leaving many contractors exhausted by the end of the day. But what if much of this trouble could be mitigated? Software for restoration companies can do just that.

Though many businesses look to augment their profitability by introducing technology, this often isn’t hardware but software. For restoration companies, such platforms help organize the important activities they need to perform to turn a profit. Whether a contractor must oversee just one job or dozens at a time, software for restoration companies offers a means to accomplish what needs to be done daily to make their business profitable. 

Building Profits with Software for Restoration Companies 

To improve efficiency, businesses often adopt different types of technology. Yet technology must be implemented to streamline a company’s operations to increase profit. Software for restoration companies do this as well, providing tools project managers, and other stakeholders can use for scheduling appointments, tracking expenses, and communicating with teams.

Restoration Management Software can help:

• Streamline job processes
• Manage inventory
• Enhance communication
• Improve budgeting
• Analyze important data
• Automate tasks

If the software doesn’t assist within areas, it won’t increase a contractor’s revenue. In today’s business world, information is the key to growing a business, and in this way, the restoration sector is no different from any other industry. 

Streamlining Job Processes

The software helps reduce operational costs. Unlike many other businesses, a restoration contractor’s workload varies throughout the year, so it’s important to be able to deal with such aspects as hiring, incentives, and turnover, along with other operational expenses that tend to cycle up and down. It can also measure a specific employee’s economic contribution to the business by providing data-driven insights that can show a contractor who their most productive office staff or best salesperson is, enabling them to be rewarded accordingly.

The software can also streamline operations by:

• Enabling creating and storing important information for individual projects, including contracts, detailed plans, and estimates.
• Ensuring equipment, material, teams, and other aspects necessary to complete a job are available when needed.
• Helping with time management by tracking deadlines, scheduling, and other time-sensitive aspects of a project.
• Keeping track of documentation like claim forms, insurance policies, work orders, and other information relevant to those involved in a job.
• Providing a platform by which all stakeholders can easily communicate while recording these communications.

It can also help streamline operations by automating repetitive tasks. For example, it can help office staff organize and schedule complex projects to ensure equipment and materials will be ready, along with the team necessary to do the job.

Managing Inventory

Every business needs to ensure its supplies are well-managed to prevent waste, a task often done with the help of inventory management software. For restoration companies, who are especially dependent on their inventory, the proper materials and equipment are needed to generate revenue and produce profits.

The software can assist by: 

• Applying tracking solutions for equipment like radio-frequency identification (RFID) or barcodes.
• Ensuring all equipment is available when needed, along with instruction manuals, vital spare parts, or other necessary implements.
• Forewarning project managers when consumable supplies like nuts, nails, or bolts start to run low.
• Put preventive maintenance plans in place (with inspections scheduled during down periods) to ensure equipment is well-maintained.

Any restoration management software should be implemented to augment a project manager’s work. This means ensuring all team members who need to use it are properly trained and understand how it fits into the company’s overall inventory management system.

Improving Budgeting & Job Costing

Knowing what a job will cost in time, materials, and labor helps a restoration contractor make a profit. It’s on this basis that they write estimates for projects. Any error will most likely come out of the contractor’s pocket, eating into the company’s profits, so it’s important to get budgeting right. It can help track how long a project will take, the amount of materials needed to complete the job, and labor costs, including any subcontracting work involved.

Contractors also must build a buffer into their quotes so that any unforeseen events can be managed without resulting in a loss for the business. While writing estimates can certainly be done manually, it’s easier to do with the appropriate software. For restoration companies, combining budgeting tools that look at similar jobs helps save time in making project estimates.

As with any other business, accounting and other fiscal management tools help with budgeting, employee pay, invoicing, and tax filing. Additionally, some of the better software for restoration companies allows contractors to optimize their marketing spending, identifying areas where contractors make the best profits. Much of this is done through automated tracking of project details, so jobs can be charged similarly.

Enhancing Communication

In any business, it’s important to build relationships. For restoration contractors, this means communicating with insurance adjusters and agents, office staff, subcontractors, suppliers, team members, and others involved in a job. But perhaps most importantly, it’s a means to win over current and potential customers. While communication is vital in any restoration project, good communication can win repeat business and gain referrals. There’s also a simple way to establish these relationships: good record-keeping.

The software can help:

• Encourage customers to give good reviews of service, which will result in more leads.
• Ensure all evaluations and other appointments are kept.
• Gather helpful data for marketing purposes, such as the best areas or projects that offer the highest profit margins.
• Keep track of leads, referrals, and the person or entity referring.
• Make certain that teams have the correct customer contact details.
• Make follow-ups on completed work to ensure customer satisfaction.
• Record when tasks have been successfully completed.
• Thank customers for their business.

Good customer service is imperative for any business, which is why so many utilize customer relationship software. For restoration companies, business relies on communication with customers and developing this relationship. In fact, providing outstanding customer service can help a contractor overcome any errors in a project. According to a 2020 Salesforce survey, 78 percent of respondents said they’d forgive mistakes by a company if given excellent customer service, while 91 percent stated this would encourage them to become repeat customers.

Data Analysis

Most industries are moving towards a data-centric approach to doing business, and the restoration sector is no different in this regard. Throughout a contractor’s dealings with customers and potential customers, they gather data that, when analyzed, provide useful insights. This might be simple demographic information that tells a story about the types of customers a company serves for marketing purposes, or it could be a detailed analysis of expenses that help improve the accuracy of estimates.

While it’s possible to analyze such data manually, it’s a painstakingly slow process, so it’s better to use data analysis software. For restoration companies, using data to make decisions will lead to better outcomes. Most modern business software includes data analysis tools that allow owners and other stakeholders to process information to create workable business strategies. However, the ability to plug figures into an app that spits out accurate market intelligence in seconds can help a contractor optimize their operations.   

Not only does data analysis provide a picture of where a restoration company can improve, but it also enables contractors to be prepared against any potential risks and enhances decision-making to improve a company’s profitability. Yet it’s also important to understand that what comes into an app that evaluates data also goes out. Biased, duplicated, inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, or otherwise poor data when input can give a contractor a flawed outlook. For this reason alone, it’s important that any software platform is sufficiently supported by a knowledgeable partner who knows the restoration business well.

Automating Tasks 

Automation of manual tasks saves a very important resource: time. Software for restoration companies helps automate everyday yet essential tasks that save this precious resource. Automation helps handle communications, scheduling appointments, dispatching teams, sending emails, invoicing customers, and many other mundane duties.

Automation in this type of software can be applied to: 

• Text a welcome to new customers.
• Send out gift cards when a project finishes.
• Provide automated emails and texts to stakeholders as a project progresses.
• Keep an open line of communication available to customers.
• Eliminate the need for more workers to conduct automated administrative tasks.
• Direct thank you notes to parties who refer customers when a referral signs a contract.
• Ask customers about their experience through an automated survey after a job.

With restoration software, contractors can often pick and choose the manual tasks to automate. Contractors should identify the areas where they most need assistance and look at ways to; save time.

Introducing Albi: Not Just Software for Restoration Companies

While we’ve been going on about software specific to restoration companies, we know that those in the industry need something more than just any old software. Restoration companies need a partner that understands technology and the restoration sector, and Albi provides just that. Albi is a platform for restoration contractors made by people who know the industry intimately.

We understand the operational difficulties inherent in project management, the importance of tracking vital equipment, the need to manage budgets to ensure steady revenue streams, the necessity of good customer service, the benefit of tracking data to identify new opportunities, and the value in automating mundane tasks. Software for restoration companies should come from someone who’s faced and overcome similar the same challenges as you have. To learn more about Albi and how it can benefit your restoration business, book a demo today.