Clik Service v4 – What’s New?
January 27th, 2012
Clik Service 4 is a major development in software for the field service industry, combining the well-known usability of version 3 with a modern facelift and powerful, cutting edge features. Some of it is presently only available in very high-end software. If we were in America, it would be described as a ‘game changer’ in some kind of lavish keynote speech. But we’re from Bristol so we’re more likely to say we think its proper good. Here’s a breakdown of some new features:
Multi-Screens: Fundamentally Clik 4 still has a familiar look about it, so if you already use v3 you’ll be able to use v4. But because of the new modules available and with a multi-screen interface, you may find yourself using Clik in a slightly different and more productive way. For example with multiple screens, you could be checking the engineer’s schedule whilst looking at a list of jobs to be assigned. Or having a quote and the corresponding job open to compare costs. If you are lucky/important enough to have dual monitors at work, brilliant, this is ideal.
Schedule: The diary, callbacks and job planner are now combined, meaning less switching in-between screens and a greater view of what’s going on. The key is flexibility, so you can view only the things you want to (jobs and contract visits if you’re admin, appointments and callbacks for sales, or everything if you’re the boss). The engineer’s schedule has also been completely re-designed. It will allow you to move work around and even match it to an engineer’s skill-set or area. This simplifies the scheduling of jobs and engineers, saving you time and money.
Comms: The first changes you might notice on the front screen are the Comms and Sales buttons at the top, which are completely new modules. ‘Comms’, short for communications, is a wide-ranging feature where you’d raise a service incident or sales enquiry; it’s designed to be the first point of call in many situations. If a new customer phones in, you can create a sales enquiry and then follow it through to the quoting or job phase. If a client phones in with a problem (i.e. boiler fault) you can raise a service incident to put in details of the call, and then raise a jobsheet if it needs a call-out.
Action Lists: When you create an action list, you can apply it to an enquiry or job. You’ll then start to tick off a list of things to do or questions that relate to it. This is another powerful and broad-ranging feature, it could be a technical list of specific work to be carried out for a job (e.g. is the wire earthed? > yes > do this, no > earth wire) or one of those tricky risk assessments. It could be used for a sales process to adhere to for new prospects (send customer quote > raise call back for next week > close deal > get money > hit the pub).
Sales Module: Another completely new feature is the sales module, which is something Clik barely touched on before. This is where anyone in sales can now get fully involved. Before they may flit in an out to check client details or raise a call back, or even use alternative software such as ACT or Salesforce, causing the issues involved having a separate database. What a nightmare. The sales module contains features that are contained in such software for all enquiries and prospects, so you can track them all efficiently. This crucially will tie the service and sales side of your business together as one finely honed unit, making you more streamlined, like a particularly lycra-clad cyclist (we do not endorse the actual wearing of lycra).
Google Maps: You’ll be able to effectively route-plan jobs and bring up the location of sites on a map or even street view. This will bring your office closer to the engineers with greater awareness of where they need to go. Apparently Google are quite a big company, so you may already be aware of how fast and powerful it is. A handy tool.
Projects: This combines quoting and larger/on-going jobs. When raising a project for a customer, you can encompass as many quotes, jobs and purchase orders for it in one place. Although it worked fine to a basic level, we feel that the original job costing module in v3 was something of a weak area in the software. The projects module has been re-written totally and is far more comprehensive for a range of scenarios.
Quickbooks: This accounts software is becoming increasingly popular since the company that owned them realized the UK actually existed. If you have Quickbooks or are thinking of getting it, Clik will tie in with the customer database and invoicing much like Sage does now. This will obviously be a great duplication saver and keep your accountants happy.
In conclusion, Clik 4 is incredibly powerful and will streamline the way you work. It will allow your business to grow. There are many other features like purchase invoicing, a new products database and fully customizable reporting, we’re really only touching the surface here. We’re also sorry it’s taken a long time to come out, but we didn’t want it to be average. Because if your relying on it as a cornerstone of your business, it needs to be solid (like a err, stone).
This is a guest blog post from Ed Gunner.
Now it’s being used and polished, is a real date for us to get our hand on it???
What’s it going to skin us?
Paul, don’t forget the discount promised all those years ago!
Hi Alasdair,
We’re going to start rolling it out to existing customers in March. You’ll need to contact your account manager to see when you’re scheduled in for this. It’s going to take a while to move everyone over as we have to be careful converting your data.
If you have Clik Cover, it’ll be free to move to Clik v4 – if you don’t currently use it, it is £750 for the first licence and £350 for additional licences.
April