Service Autopilot Erfahrungen

Exceptional Software for any Business

Kommentare: It's saved us time in setting up our routes, estimates, jobs, remembering recurring jobs, basically any issues you are having with your business you will likely find a remedy with Service Autopilot.

Vorteile:

This software has an entire arsenal of capabilities of the software compared to the cost. Its a small investment for a product that saves time and money in a ton of ways. We started with a program exclusively for lawncare which we were using to do all kinds of service work and it wasn't cutting it for us.

Nachteile:

it takes an investment of your time in the beginning to figure out exactly what is going to work for you in terms of the features. If you don't use the support that SA offers it can be overwhelming. But take the time to invest in learning the software and it will work out in the end.

SA Autopilot client for years

Kommentare: It was great the first 1 1/2 years, then the customer service issues hit and made us less excited about the software. The pricing change was the last straw for me. We still use the software for a small portion of our business but honestly just waiting for a better option to come our way.

Vorteile:

The features of the system and integration with other software

Nachteile:

The customer service made me feel like our account wasn't a priority. They also removed with tiered pricing without notice. When I inquired why our pricing was higher, I was told about the tiered pricing and because it only affected a few clients, they intentionally didn't notify us about the change.

Too many issues

Kommentare: We were very excited to get started with a package that is seemed like it would be a powerful tool to reduce our office work. It has reduced our office work but I am not sure that it has done so more than another service would have. SA required us to modify the way we interact with our clients because of errors in the SA database. Every communication we send from SA has to be tested 2-3 times. For example we sent an email last year using merge fields. It was a supposed to look like a super personalized email from the owner to each client. We tested everything multiple times using test accounts. When we sent the email out in bulk it showed up as "Dear [fname]" There were about 15 merge fields in this email that failed. SA support created a ticket that we are still waiting to hear back about more than 18 months later. That is just one example of the daily frustration with SA. Now we feel like we are stuck because we have invested so much into the program and modified the way we bill our services to work around the SA problems. We do not want to expose our clients to more change but something has to be done differently.

Vorteile:

There are lots of intended features. The vision for the software includes the ability to do many powerful things. Automations is a great way to reduce the burden on office staff.

Nachteile:

There are too many problems. We have reported literally hundreds of issues that are still not resolved. The customer service staff make a ticket but nothing ever gets fixed. On a daily basis we have dozens of things we have to check because SA does not consistently record information correctly or consistently records it incorrectly. There does not seem to be a quality control team at SA. Recently they attempted to have very hyped up live broadcast about some new features being released and even that failed to work correctly. I just found it humorous that SA consistently fails at ensuring a quality experience for their users and this proved my point.

Too in depth

Kommentare: Terrible. Everything seemed like it would be great when talking to people before signing up. Once we signed up, we were basically on our own. Even when we called to cancel, no one offered to get help right away, they just let us go.

Vorteile:

I liked that it had a map to measure properties

Nachteile:

It’s way too extensive and we had to wait 4 weeks for our first training session, so we were on our own for the first month. There are plenty of training videos but no one to explain them or show us how to put them to use. It was confusing and difficult to even get our logo on an email. Templates are very confusing how to use them and we finally gave up and switched to LawnPro. Very easy to use and inexpensive. Not as many bells and whistles as Service AutoPilot, but definitely enough to get the job done well.

Working out soms kinks

Kommentare: This totally eliminates paper route sheets. Helps with end-of-month billing streamlining although not perfect.

Vorteile:

Auto billing, tracking of jobs dispatched, dispatching jobs, APp for foreman works well, work tracking, time tracking are good

Nachteile:

Has issues with QuickBooks sync, has some glitches when it comes to adding jobs in the field, very little mobile capability from an owner stand point

Quite a Learning Curve, but an All-in-one Solution?

Kommentare: Service Autopilot (SA) is the hub of the entire business as it contains all lead, client, and employee information.  All the business’ services are scheduled and dispatched through Service Autopilot.  The technicians use the SA app to receive their jobs notes and punch in and out of their jobs.  Cleaning estimates and invoices are distributed through SA.  We use the reporting feature to pay Sales Tax and keep our eye on Key Performance Indicators.  SA is our Customer Relationship Management tool used for email marketing and chat messaging.  We also use automations in Service Autopilot to send reminders before cleanings, after-job quality surveys, and client onboarding emails.

Vorteile:

Service Autopilot is the hub of the entire business as it contains all lead, client, and employee information.  The automations are a huge step up for productivity and ease of systems.

Nachteile:

Service Autopilot is not easy to use or set up. It is less intimidating if you are the kind of person that likes to jump into a new software and just poke around. There are so many aspects that even once you know the basics, there is always something to tweak in the workflow. Unfortunately, after SA was purchased by Clearent (a credit card merchant) a couple of years ago, the customer service and general functioning has gone downhill. There are often slow days (everything slow to load) while working in the software that make it unusable for a period of time. They also have a closed API and so don't integrate with other programs. There is a version 3 in the works for a couple of years now (always beta, not complete), but it seems less intuitive and worse laid out than version 2.

A game changer for the service industry

Kommentare: Great company to work with, amazing customer service, and they are always working on devoloping new fetures with new techonlogy. Highly recomdended.

Vorteile:

The system is very customizable. You can export all your data at any time and run excel reports if you choose to, however the internal reports are very detailed. This program will save any service business huge headaces by automating your service business. Service autopilot handles routing, invoicing, marketing, CRM and accouting seamlessly. It also handles large sales volumes efortlessly. As it runs on the cloud, it can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Very happy with this program.

Nachteile:

Be prepared to spend extra time setting up your account the way you like it. This is a huge plus, because you only have to do it once, and after that, you will get huge time savings.

SA Review

Kommentare: Overall it’s been a great experience . Been with SA for many years

Vorteile:

We like the Automations . 21 days to close

Nachteile:

Speed of the dev team recently. And customer service

SA user for many many years

Vorteile:

This is a wonderful product that keeps the business running smooth.

Nachteile:

It is very complex and you need to study the software to get really good at it.

Overall, we like the price / feature / values and have been using several years.

Vorteile:

It does the most of the basics and has an awesome upside. Like the cloud based, the vision of it, and potential to make a huge difference. The customer service is pretty good and responsive.

Nachteile:

It is somewhat buggy but had gotten a lot better. They work on it a lot to improve. The reports have a lot to be desired. It would be nice to have ToDo and Job notifications / texts based on time / date. Tracking and feedback on suggestions for improvements and requests would be nice.

This program breaks down over time

Kommentare: BEWARE!!!!!! I own a lawn and tree fertilizing company. I have used this software for the past 3 years. We were extremely pleased with Service Auto Pilot for the first 2 years. It worked great and helped us tremendously with getting the business organized and up & running. Unfortunately over the past year I feel the software has done the complete opposite. With the constant updates there is some serious issues with the code the system is running. My balances on the invoices are off (which I have contacted them about several times over the past 5 months and they agree and confirm there is an issue) and even worse the jobs that are supposed to pop up for service are not. I have customers calling asking where we have been. There were always some small problems before with routing and just general things you need would be compromised. I once thought overall the site was a solid 4-4.5 stars out of 5 and a fair price. At this time however I DO NOT recommend this software! Check back once they get all the bugs worked out. The good thing is they made it easy to export your clients and leave.
UPDATE September 21 2016. None of the issues I have been experiencing have been resolved and even more issues are popping up. Soon as season is over I will be leaving this company
UPDATE 10/24/2016 I was told my issues were looked at by the development team and that they were some deep routed issues that would take a long time to fix. However the company has stopped updating me of the progress and it seems they have left my account for dead. There are even more issues popping up and it has become almost impossible to work with this software. I think what happens is after using the program for multiple years there is too much code interacting with itself and jumbles things all up. You may be wondering why I am still using it. That's because my business is seasonal and I was just hoping to get through the year before I went through all the work of inputting my customers into another service software program.

Vorteile:

I loved its ease of use and how easy it was to teach my workers how to use it. It also has tons of extras that really come in handy when it comes to managing all aspects of business

Nachteile:

I hate that it imploded on itself after using it for multiple years.

After a season, I'm not sold, but still willing to give it another chance.

Kommentare: We started using this program this season. Previously we tried another system that was atrocious to implement. SA has been much better, but also has some serious issues. First major problem: We offer 2% 10 day discount, have for over a decade. There is no accounting setting for this in SA. I can accept payments into SA and add it as a line item with another 4-5 steps per payment. It's not a savings of time, or effort. If I enter the payment through QB Pro with the discount, SA does not recognize the discount and the customer has a past due balance. This can later be "adjusted" with more steps.
Second major problem: If you use QB Pro for accounting (purchasing material for jobs or using it out of inventory, and assigning the expense as billable to the customer) you can not easily add the billable charges from the QB Pro side and have it sync to the the SA side. YOU MUST MANUALLY SYNC EVERY TIME before switching from QB Pro to SA and vise versa if you are adjusting invoices to avoid losing data. This program is mostly good for tracking time. It has good features and is pretty easy to navigate. Customer service has been very good and helpful. We have not been able to reach our goal of eliminating paper records from the trucks, but still intend to do so, perhaps with SA involved. It's still too easy to lose data with SA in the trucks. I plan to continue working with the software to see if we can indeed get it where we need it to be during the slow season. An observation about the company: The culture of SA is to push more products (acadamy, sync, training convention, etc...) and the constant statement that you need to "follow their program" in order to be successful. This is the only way you can do so. And the new products/ services keep coming, but I still see the same glitches in the core program. Maybe they should follow through with the original and make it a little stronger before chasing the next rainbow. .... I just keep getting the feeling like when I used to deal with a big bank. They want you to be so entangled with multiple accounts, programs, etc.. that even when you want to, it becomes difficult to extract your business from them.

Vorteile:

time tracking converts to invoicing

Nachteile:

Very weak on the accounting side. Minor glitches in the drop down boxes are annoying.

Overall good software but hard to implement and going downhill

Vorteile:

This software has more features than any platform like it. It can do everything from basic scheduled to automation that others have to buy as a separate project.

Nachteile:

The company was bought by a credit card processing company and has started to go downhill pretty fast as it becomes clear they bought the company to have captive clients for their credit card system not to run a good software company which is a shame as it used to be a great company.

Failed promises

Kommentare: False promises sums up SA. They a company break almost once a day week and always seems to be when you need to call them. And every time you do call them they are condescending like nothing could ever be wrong or incorrect about SA.

Vorteile:

Hard to find what I like about it now. Every feature I liked in 2014 is either not completed or half way working

Nachteile:

Without writing a book. SA is full of broken features that never get finished and they move on to the next shiny buzzword like 'Automation'. Reports have to be the 2nd worst of the software, my excel is better. #1 is invoicing. If a customer pays a partial amount to an invoice I can't apply that amount only a full amount. So when the customer applies the remainder. I create another invoice for that amount, and applied the previous amount to the original invoice that I lowered to show it was paid. etc etc

SAP saved our company!

Kommentare: Our business is Lawnpro Grounds Maintenance, We have been with Service Auto Pilot since 2014. When we first came on with SAP I was a little worried about how this one program would fit our company needs. But after about 100 phone calls, 50 emails and many webinars, I can say first hand that without SAP, our company would not be where it is today. The team at SAP was very supportive and patient with any and all our questions. SAP have given us the system and tools to be able to run our company at its fullest. We have grown in numbers and grown ourselves in being more efficient. We depend on SAP so much you could quite possibly call them a business partner. We are truly grateful and recommend SAP to anyone.

Vorteile:

All functions of SAP are exactly what you need to run your company efficiently. We absolutely love the Maps Pro for estimating our clients property. That alone saves us hours of work weekly.

Nachteile:

There really is nothing that we don't like about SAP.

A game changer for our business

Kommentare: Our overall experience with Service Autopilot has been nothing less than stellar. The people are amazing and truly care about our success. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

Vorteile:

This software routes our crews, manages our clients, makes our estimating process faster, and overall has allowed us to grow as a company. We would not have been able to be where we are now without it.

Nachteile:

The hardest thing about the software is the learning curve. There are so many features that it takes awhile to have it fully implemented but Service Autopilot has training sessions that we utilized to make that process easier.

Service Autopilot is a Godsend

Vorteile:

Saves me 60 hours per month. No longer have to rely on spread sheets that take forever to update daily and weekly. Made it possible for us to expand; have hired two new employees serving 40 yards per day on average (60+ on Friday). Service Autopilot also provides extensive advice and coaching on how to expand our business. It is not cheap, but you get solid value for the money. We use credit cards to bill everyone and with SA we can bill everyone with one click, and since we have cash coming in daily, there are no issues with cash flow. We do the work, we get paid the same day or week.

Nachteile:

Their computerized routing software is poor at best. For us, we do more than 20 stops per day in two crews, the SA routing software is a fail. Luckily, I had already learned how to route by using Road Warrior.

Lacking in features

Kommentare: Any time I have a question and need assistance, I have always been able to easily access customer support. The majority of their staff seem very knowledgeable regarding what the software is capable of doing.

Vorteile:

Service Autopilot is relatively easy to use & does have the app feature that makes it even more easily accessed.

Nachteile:

There are many features that have been changed with "upgrades" that have taken away from the product. There are also features that should be no-brainers as far as employee schedules that are just not available. The lack of features creates more work on the HR end of our business.

Buggy Program, Frustrated my clients on a regular, very detailed... gives for a hard learning curve.

Kommentare: I have been able to warn other lawn care providers to avoid it.

Vorteile:

With enough time and learning you can do most things you would like on this program. Customer service is polite.

Nachteile:

Buggy, client portal doesn't work with clients about 10% the time, overly complicated set up. I have used other programs like this and you are up and running in a few days. This is a great system for 2008 when it we released, but old and very clunky now. Not easy to use at all, but has most features you could want if you spend a few weeks learning it and go to the class on it. Customer Support is always kind but can't help you with linked programs; so, you may call 3 different companies to fix one problem. Value for the money... not worth it. Only use this program is they fix the glitches and you want to hire someone full time to do just this program. Just don't waste your money and time otherwise.

Service Autopilot has increased our profitability and made our business and more scaleable

Kommentare: We love Service Autopilot. We used Qxpress in the past and became frustrated with empty promises. I feel like because Service Autopilot is co-owned by a person that also owns and uses this software on his service business everyday it will constantly improve

Vorteile:

I like the ability to track job times, the app, the invoicing, bulk email notification to clients, the dispatch board, job costing reports, the integrated estimating - scheduling - invoicing platform. There support is awesome.

Nachteile:

No software is perfect and there are things that Service Autopilot could improve on just like every software that is available. There are a couple small items they could improve on, but I think they are in development. Things I would like to see in the future - bulk text notification to clients, report of client revenue and being able to sort from high to low for an entire year.

Switched to SA

Kommentare: Before SA I used a custom built database to run my company. It was very expensive to upgrade and get any edits done and it wasn't cloud based. I found and switched to SA and couldn't be happier. The customer service is great and the functionality is awesome! I love how they take input from the users to influence the improvements they make on their product. I don't think there's any other software out there that comes close!

Vorteile:

cloud based, customer input is valued

Nachteile:

I think the scheduling could be better. The tablet functions could be cleaner

Misleading product

Kommentare: It's been terrible lately.

Vorteile:

I did like it at the beginning until you guys change the software flow of recording hours. I hated, and instead it help us, now its a burden that i cant get out quick enough.

Nachteile:

You're not listening to what the problem is and not taking care of it, and only giving excuses.

The best solution on the market. period.

Vorteile:

This program is the best thing to ever happen to my company. It is extremely user-friendly and incredibly efficient to use. The team at Service Autopilot have put major thought into creating a superior product, that actually automates many aspects of my business.

Service Autopilot results in a love/hate relationship

Vorteile:

Scheduling for recurring services is easy to use and maintain.

Nachteile:

Reports are useless, nothing is really autopilot. You have to find a work around for everything you need to do. They are always offering upgrades and additional features, but there is basic functionality missing.

Amazing! It has completely streamlined our company's processes.

Vorteile:

The ability to communicate seamlessly between the job site and the office through job notes. It makes customer communication so easy and efficient!

Nachteile:

Nothing! The staff is extremely responsive and always quick to troubleshoot and help with any issues.