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Kingdom Clear, a contract window cleaning company which services high street retail, leisure and hospitality brands, is reaping tangible rewards using Podfather logistics software.
Implemented to boost customer reporting and reduce the administrative resource required to manage the field operation, Podfather has saved the Fife-based company in the region of a quarter of a million sheets of paper to date. The configurable system has also enabled Kingdom Clear to customise its reporting to suit the individual needs of customers, and introduce new working practices to support workplace health and safety.
“When we first implemented Podfather, we were going through a significant business transition and the system we were using just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, adapt to suit our changing needs,” commented Alison Reed, Office Manager at Kingdom Clear. “As a local company we were aware of Podfather and its already well-established reputation within the window cleaning sector, so decided to make the switch.
“Since we started using Podfather we have eliminated paper from our planning and reporting processes; an annual saving of between 25,000 and 30,000 sheets of paper,” she continued. “Jobs are automatically scheduled, and routes between them optimised. Daily schedules and job sheets are then sent directly to field staff, via the Podfather app, without the need for them to come into the office. As we operate across the whole of Scotland, and into England, this is a significant saving in work-hours and mileage each week.”
The Podfather system, which also includes vehicle checks, tracking and notifications, electronic Proof of Delivery (ePOD), and reporting functions, has supported other aspects of Kingdom Clear’s ESG (environmental, social and governance) aspirations. Workplace health and safety is integral to Kingdom Clear’s ethos, and it adheres to the strictest safety protocols and regulations to ensure the wellbeing of clients, technicians, and the protection of property. Working with Podfather, Kingdom Clear has developed a suite of equipment checks that are undertaken on a monthly basis. It also plans to utilise Podfather’s vehicle checks in the near future.
“Because Podfather is easy-to-use and easy to configure we were able to adapt some of the existing functionality to support our requirements,” Reed continued. “Specifically, this meant taking the routine vehicle checks and tweaking them so they were suitable for equipment such as ladders and harnesses.”
Kingdom Clear has also embraced the flexibility offered by Podfather when it comes to customer reporting. Using the ePOD functionality, time, date, and location stamped photographs, and signatures, are easily captured and communicated, in real-time. This information is instantly available for back-office staff and can be shared with the customer in a format and schedule defined by individual contracts or agreements. Some clients even self-serve POD evidence directly from the Podfather system with a secure log-in.
“While the use of ePODs is pretty much standard across the window cleaning sector, each client actually wants different information at different times. This requirement, and the surprisingly complex nature of what we do, makes the flexibility of Podfather’s reporting integral to our offering. For example, some customers want completion notices sent to a single point of contact as the work is finished, whilst others want jobs grouped by location and only sent once a week. Other clients want ePODs attached to invoices at the end of the month and others want to access the information themselves as and when it’s needed,” Reed concluded. “Using Podfather we can easily configure our reporting to adapt to all scenarios, giving each customer the experience they want.”
Kingdom Clear is a national window cleaning company that provides services throughout Scotland and England. In addition to window cleaning, Kingdom Clear also offers pressure washing or graffiti removal services on buildings of any size, rope access, reach and wash poles up to 70 feet, and hydraulic platforms. Kingdom Clear is regularly hired by hotels, shopping centres, gyms, nursing homes, schools, and high-rise office and residential clients.
www.thepodfather.com
https://kingdomclear.co.uk/
