Total Construction Supplies Ltd

The Challenges

As part of a major overhaul of their IT infrastructure, Total Construction Supplies Ltd turned to their existing Telecoms and IT services supplier Sapphire Business Solutions to review their current business processes, assess their needs and provide a complete solution.

In doing so Sapphire’s consultants identified and implemented a new state of the art IT infrastructure which included new servers, desktop PCs, network connectivity for their data and telephony needs and a fully managed support service. While providing the initial consultation for this work, issues surrounding the current remote workforce management processes were raised.

Jay Fellows, Purchasing Manager at Total Construction Supplies, expressed a requirement for a solution that would streamline the existing tedious and time consuming process of calling the delivery drivers by phone to understand their locations and ETAs. He felt there must be a better way of gaining better visibility of staff when out in the field.

As a Crystal Ball certified partner, Sapphire Business Solutions Team’s immediately identified MobileTrack Pro as a potential solution to this problem. Julie Shaw, Director at SBS, believed MobileTrack Pro would address the concerns expressed by Jay Fellows and fit well within Total Construction Supplies’ business requirements.

The Solution

Following a demonstration of Crystal Ball’s MobileTrack Pro, Total Construction Supplies decided to implement the solution in April 2014. MobileTrack Pro displays live locations on a detailed mapping system. The mobile application sits on the drivers’ smartphones, allowing administrators to track their locations 24/7 on a communal display screen within the company head office.

As a result of this, the business now has complete visibility of its field workforce and can efficiently relay their locations to customers as and when necessary.

The Outcome

With MobileTrack Pro in place, Total Construction Supplies now has an effective and streamlined customer service tool which can be used when responding to customer queries. Jay Fellows, Purchasing Manager, comments:

“Having Crystal Ball has enhanced the level of customer service we can now offer. Previously, when a customer rang with a query we would have to ring the driver and then relay their whereabouts back to the customer. This would cause issues if we were unable to get hold of the drivers. With Crystal Ball we can now rule out this inefficient process and understand driver locations within a matter of seconds simply by viewing the screen.”

This has delivered real cost savings in terms of money saved on phone calls and freed administrators up from time-consuming phone calls to chase up drivers. Jay Fellows says: “We’ve saved a lot of time we used to spend ringing around trying to get hold of drivers. Crystal Ball has also enabled us to respond to customer enquiries in a much more informed way. For instance, on one occasion, a customer called up to complain about not receiving a delivery. We were able to look at the system and see that it had already been delivered, which was a good resolution for both parties.”

Having full visibility of delivery staff has further improved internal operations as management can now monitor staff progress throughout the day and have a clear understanding of which job each team member is working on.

Additional Comments

Overall, Jay has been very impressed with the system. He tells us that visitors to his office have been very curious about the new software on display at the TCS offices: “When people ask what it is and I tell them, they are all really interested. So I have already recommended the Crystal Ball system to other people!”