Landscapers can drill down with advanced reporting to find ways to optimize their business.Photo: Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro, a software platform designed for home service professionals, has expanded its plan size offerings to include the XL Plan, which is designed for midsize businesses to equip themselves with the tools necessary for growth.
The XL Plan is designed for the 10 to 50 employee operations that are looking for some more advanced features.
“As we’ve been growing, our companies have been also growing in size,” says Roland Ligtenberg, co-founder of Housecall Pro and SVP of growth & innovation. “We want to make sure to continue to grow with them.”
Oftentimes, these companies are on what Ligtenberg calls legacy software, which has been around since the 90s or 2000s, but now there is a movement for modern technology to be more mobile-friendly and mobile-centric.
“As companies grow, it’s really important to start using tools like flat-rate pricing, so that they can protect their margins, but also offer a better consumer experience,” Ligtenberg says.
Ligtenberg says with flat-rate pricing landscaping and lawn care companies can price a little more on a bell curve, instead of having to charge an hourly rate.
“It’s really important for them to consider what their end consumer experiences because they’re in an industry where the homeowner’s expectations are still so low where a tool like this can really help them shine comparatively to anyone else in their local area,” Ligtenberg says. “Housecall Pro XL really is a secret weapon to help them not only look bigger, but also make more money and optimize their business the way that they haven’t been able to do before.”
Some of the tools included in the XL Plan are the sales proposal tool, consumer financing tool, modern expense management and advanced reporting.
All of the tools on the XL Plan were added in response to customer feedback. Housecall Pro collects feedback from its chat bubble features on the app and website, its exclusive Facebook group and its industry pro meetups.
“Those three mechanisms really keep us on our toes with our pros on the feedback that’s coming,” Ligtenberg says. “They all come inside here, and we digest it and that’s how we work and build and improve on the features that we have.”
Ligtenberg says the sales proposal tool will be most impactful for landscape contractors as it allows customers to choose between good/better/best pricing.
“Every customer loves to pick between options and really be sold on a consultative basis,” he says. “And so, with a sales proposal tool, landscapers will have the ability to put together a couple of different packages.”
Ligtenberg says instead of presenting a single project with a yes or no answer, having three options to choose from increases landscapers’ ability to close deals with potential clients at a much higher rate.
The consumer financing tool allows landscapers to push a button and send the homeowner a text where they can apply for consumer financing. The homeowner would select the terms they want such as the length and rates they feel comfortable with.
“It gives the homeowner that control to pay for the things that they need to get done right then and there,” Ligtenberg says. “Whereas traditionally, if they didn’t have the money, oftentimes what’s happening is a landscaper would get just shut down, or the smallest package is selected that would fit on the credit card limit.”
The Housecall Pro app will then let the landscaper know once a client has been approved for the loan.
“It opens up the amount and the types of jobs that landscapers can offer to potential clients,” he says. “For clients, it allows them to get the thing that they really want/need when the pro is there, and not just skimp and pare down on their package because they can’t afford it or because they don’t want to put it on a high-interest credit card.”
The modern expense management uses the tools from the My Money suite that allows landscapers and lawn care operators to use Instapay, create credit cards for their employees and more.
With advanced reporting, users will have more fine-grained controls available on their dashboard to match with key performance indicators (KPIs).
“As you grow your company, you can’t just rely on surface level data,” Ligtenberg says. “You need to make sure that you can drill in on your costs. You can drill in on where specific money is coming from and drill in on a per employee basis.”
One example of how a user can see finer details is by analyzing the time it takes for each employee to press the ‘On My Way’ button and the ‘Start Job’ button. Landscapers can also measure the close rates of their sales staff through Housecall Pro.
“With advanced importing, we allow lawn care and landscaping businesses to operate in a way that’s just more efficient than they traditionally have been doing,” he says.
Ligtenberg says the advanced reporting is especially helpful for larger lawn care companies, as it reveals where small tweaks can be made to optimize routing or better manage fleet expenses.
The pricing for the XL Plan is custom depending on the professional and what features they want access to. Those interested will call and talk to one of Housecall Pro’s onboarding specialists and they will help users determine what features to include in the package.
“Typically, it’s starting at $299, but like I said, it depends,” Ligtenberg says. “If you have 100 employees, it’s going to be different than if you’ve got 12 employees and you only need one feature.”
Another element that sets the XL Plan apart from the other plan options is the inclusion of a strategic account manager.
“This is someone that stays with you for the life of your account,” Ligtenberg says. “You always have that single point of contact, so you don’t have to interact with our blue chat bubble.”
