3 Men Movers started the way a lot of moving companies do - with one truck and a few able-bodied men. But times have changed. 3 Men Movers now focuses on innovation, growing the business into the largest local moving company in the southwestern United States. Quickbase enables 3 Men Movers to quickly develop and deploy applications that drive customer relationship management (CRM), dispatch and logistics, and realtime customer satisfaction tracking.
Challenge
- Paper systems too inefficient for planning and tracking high volume of jobs
- Lack of digital records means duplicating efforts for repeat customers
- Altering or updating paper contracts too manual
- Lack of visibility into crew performance
Solution
- Quickbase app for planning, managing, and tracking 30,000 jobs per year
- Customer records and contracts stored centrally for fast reference and lack of redundancy
- Tablet-based contracts reduce customer stress and speed up processes on site
- Marketing and sales activities can be tracked and measured from a central application
- Customer satisfaction tracked on every job and available in real time via web-based dashboards
Benefits
- Greater customer satisfaction through streamlined processes
- Better planning for 60 trucks on nearly 100 jobs per day in three markets
- Real time visibility into crew performance and customer satisfaction
3 Men Movers was born of innovation. In the 1980s, founder John Fischer parlayed his limited resources - one sturdy box truck - into the top local moving and storage company in the southwestern United States with a relentless focus on customer service and innovation.
That spirit of innovation continues to drive the company forward. Not only is 3 Men Movers owned and run by women (Fischers daughter Jacky Noons is now CEO, and Lorie Clements is President), but it is also a leader in green initiatives, using electric vehicles when possible and running recycling programs to discourage waste associated with a move.
Technology is another key differentiator for 3 Men Movers, which leverages Quickbase to drive several innovative ideas into action. Quickbase has given 3 Men Movers the flexibility to improve its ability to serve customers by modernizing outdated paper processes, organizing and delivering the right services at the right time, and tracking employee performance in realtime.
"We went from using several different software systems to calculate our trip charge, another to dispatch and schedule, another to track service scores, another to calculate drivers checks, to one centralized system which drastically reduces our labor hours and has increased efficiency," says Noons.
The mission is to create a stress-free move experience for each and every customer. We live out that mission by creating loyal customers one move at a time.
From Paper Records to Tablet-Ready CRM
Moving companies aren't exactly famous for being ahead of the technology curve. Typically a customer makes a reservation by phone, hopes the movers show up on time and in the right place, then scratches a signature on a thick trifold contract. At most companies, that contract gets filed away in a drawer and forgotten.
3 Men Movers takes a different approach. By tracking all customer records in a customer relationship management (CRM) application built on Quickbase, the company can cultivate new customers and better serve existing ones.
The CRM application allows 3 Men Movers to respond quickly to quote requests, track emails and communications, and measure the impact of sales activities with real data. Because the app is mobile-enabled, moving crews can streamline key activities, such as collecting contract signatures, on a tablet in the field.
Planning and Tracking Crew Performance
Every moving job is different and requires careful planning. As 3 Men Movers has grown, the need for a technology-enabled planning system became apparent.
Coordinating where 60 trucks are going in three cities on any given day is quite complicated. We use Quickbase to dispatch our moves, which means organizing and assigning as many as 120 jobs, for multiple different move, pack, and storage services, serving 30,000 customers per year.
3 Men Movers uses Quickbase to plan and track all jobs and job-related assignments and activities. Clements and other company leaders can quickly assess resource availability, assign the right trucks and crews for each job, and track job progress from a central location.
One key metric the company tracks is customer satisfaction. Each customer is emailed a survey and asked to review the performance of their 3 Men Movers crew and rate it on a scale of 1-10. Because the information is captured via a secure web form in Quickbase, ratings and reviews for all crews and all jobs are available in real time. Any score less than 7 immediately triggers a notification to all company leaders.
Clements and other company leaders rely on an executive dashboard built into the Quickbase app that can instantly retrieve key average satisfaction data for each crew for the past month, three months, or six months.
We use that information to determine promotions or highlight a need for training in a particular area. We watch it like a hawk.
Moving the Customer Experience Forward
In the future, 3 Men Movers will continue to leverage technology to push the total customer experience beyond expectations.
