How Tech Helps Local Service Businesses

Local service business is the backbone of service industries.  All across the globe, we have the ability to call upon people with special skills or a desire to perform your labor.  From house cleaning to construction, from pest control to computer repair – usually a worker is just a phone call away.  Increasingly, small companies that serve these niches rely on technology to deliver smoother streamlines that make the customer experience better, faster, and more reliable.

For starters, online booking forms have become a new norm.  From ordering pizza to calling on a skilled laborer, with a few clicks of a mouse, someone will show up with the exact remedy to your problem.  Let’s take a deeper look with the help of Adam Klein, the founder of a cleaning company Lexi Maids House Cleaning Service.

“It’s not just about having a website anymore, even with a booking form.  Those things are essential, but it’s the total package of connectivity that really helps give your business a pace and flow.  Customers want things like appointment reminders, even when they have never experienced them before.  Once the reminder shows up, they think, “wow, what a great idea.”  Big corporations are not even doing these things at scale today, some are starting to, but local service business is competitive (often in a friendly way) but it just leads toward reaching to become leaner, better, and more effective. 

Routing messages is important and using tools like Zapier can really help.  Having alternative phone lines that can be connect through an app, such as using Ring Central or Grasshopper, for multi-worker logins is a really huge step.  Due to tech leaps such as this, we can run a company with just a portion of resources that were required a decade ago.  Even still, with all these tools available, some service businesses are still limiting themselves to a phone and writing paper tickets, or a pencil on a calendar.”

Multiple Computer Skills

Now we are getting to an era with people with multiple computer skills are becoming very good candidates for running a business.  Every skill you master is one less thing you have to hire out for when starting up a business.  If you can repair your own computer, do graphics, web design, AND run a service business, then you have a very clear advantage.  Those skills take hard work to learn, and are not for everyone, but the tech entrepreneur is yielding a distinct advantage.

Running a call room not for you?

If running a call room isn’t for you, what about running a business with a laptop and a cell phone?  It’s possible these days.  Learning to connect tech to your business is a frontier that has much rewards, and many unknown pathways.  You can always find a friendly piece of advice in terms of how to set things up, or gain efficiency, but there’s always a secret sauce at work.  Many people who find a new edge, end up turning around and trying to sell that “skill” to others.  It’s an interesting field, and one that always has an opening or two, because local service business is not glitzy or glamorous. 

In fact, many people have no desire whatsoever to start up such a business as lock-smithing, plumbing, or carpet cleaning.  These are often perceived as services we just take for granted in our lives.  Most of us are looking for something that satisfies our soul.  Sometimes, paying the bills becomes that satisfaction, and it leads innovative people in many directions, even pathways that seem more normal, simply because there is a market for these things.”

Adam continues, “I noticed that I like having brief pleasant interactions with people, which running a service business is all about.  I have tech on my side, and a lot of skills in that department, so then it just comes down to outreach and sales.  Outreach and sales both have extensive technical tool sets, and Google search engine ads and email campaigns with tools like Mailer Lite or Mail Chimp are just scratching the surface. 

SAAS Software

There is an army of software we now refer to as SAAS, with not just hundreds, but thousands of small platforms that seek to offer an array of time-saving shortcuts to doing things like payroll, team management, ad design, social media posting, and just about anything related to running a business.  You can even find lifetime deals at places like Appsumo, instead of paying monthly subscriptions – which can deliver some amazing deals to business owners.  But, you have to be careful because some of those deals stop development after what’s known as a “cash grab”. 

Just stay up to date and watch closely and you’ll find a few pieces of software that will utterly change your business pipeline!” Everywhere it’s directed, tech leaves its mark, and local service businesses are no exception.  “Running a service business can be a challenge worth undertaking, especially when you discover how to use tech to remove yourself from some of the daily operations