In order for your service to work you have to have arbor gold? It seams to be real expensive and it looks like you pay by the month. It's not just a one time buy? A friend of mine uses a service similar to yours. He loves it. He works in Massachusetts and his service is located in Georgia. They schedule all his sales appointment and schedule all his approved jobs for the crew to accomplish. It's pretty impressive.
Drumming things up
- Thread starter KevinS
- Start date
- Location
- Washington DC-Metro
Sure, we have one in Texas-Lubbock actually, send me an email here: michelle@myvirtualpaige.com and I'll shoot you his details.
- Location
- Washington DC-Metro
Royce,
That is correct, in order for us to work together with businesses, we must be connected thru ArborGold-Cloud. This is a vast improvement over the "one time buy" system that was once in place. Constant updates, improvements, and user requests are being placed in the program-and the cloud version means you always have the latest and greatest that the program offers. We have had an overwhelming positive response from the tree industry-and are so grateful to be in a position to support you guys/girls out there!
Know I'm a little late here but 2 years ago I joined the local chamber of commerce for I believe is $150 per year they put out a monthly email/news letter to all of the members and place an add in the local paper I've had good luck doing this when you first join all of the members are there for a member meeting and you are able to give a little talk to the members and explain your purpose and what your company offers I was able to pick up 3 smaller jobs that night alone
- Location
- Colorado
We also do a winter file and reach out to customers in December to schedule in January/February.
I used to think that Arborgold was the only one that catered to our industry specifically until I found jobber. I heard subpar things about Arborgold from companies we work closely with, but I liked some of the features they had. I called 2 months ago and no one answered their phone. Called the next day and was told a sales rep wasn't available..they took my information and said someone would call me by the end of the day. Here we are 2 months later and I still haven't received a call. The lady that took my information couldn't even answer some basic questions.
Jobber is also cloud based and $40 a month versus $400. For a truly small business like us (5 of us) it makes more sense to hire someone and use jobber versus paying a virtual company and arborgold. $350 a week for the minimum plan, plus $400 a month for arborgold..? Seems excessive. I would also feel better having a local person handling the scheduling and estimates. They know the area, traffic patterns, sounds more efficient.
I see the value in Virtual Paige but if you are worrying about not having work in the winter, how can you afford $1500 a month?
I used to think that Arborgold was the only one that catered to our industry specifically until I found jobber. I heard subpar things about Arborgold from companies we work closely with, but I liked some of the features they had. I called 2 months ago and no one answered their phone. Called the next day and was told a sales rep wasn't available..they took my information and said someone would call me by the end of the day. Here we are 2 months later and I still haven't received a call. The lady that took my information couldn't even answer some basic questions.
Jobber is also cloud based and $40 a month versus $400. For a truly small business like us (5 of us) it makes more sense to hire someone and use jobber versus paying a virtual company and arborgold. $350 a week for the minimum plan, plus $400 a month for arborgold..? Seems excessive. I would also feel better having a local person handling the scheduling and estimates. They know the area, traffic patterns, sounds more efficient.
I see the value in Virtual Paige but if you are worrying about not having work in the winter, how can you afford $1500 a month?
treehumper
Carpal tunnel level member
- Location
- Ridgefield, NJ
I looked at jobber but didn't see that it had any real CRM features. It's great for scheduling, estimates and invoicing but weak on the sales management side. We also looked at Method:CRM which also has a field service module that completes the total interface. They are recommended by Intuit for their Quickbooks interface. While a bit more than jobber justifiably they were generic and would've required some fundamental customization for use in our business. Nothing too outstanding but enough that it didn't make sense at this time of year.
As for Arborgold, we've had the exact opposite experience thus far. While they're not the only one specific to us they have a very intuitive UI lots of sales management function, all the basics for easy estimating and crew management. The cloud version is billed on a monthly basis not weekly. A local tech savvy competitor has been using it for about 20 yrs and has good things to say about it. As for the poor handling of your call treehead32 that's bad. I'd give Donna a call. It's our one concern with them. They are growing and dealing with keeping pace. That can be a curse if you can't get the people to handle the volume.
As for Arborgold, we've had the exact opposite experience thus far. While they're not the only one specific to us they have a very intuitive UI lots of sales management function, all the basics for easy estimating and crew management. The cloud version is billed on a monthly basis not weekly. A local tech savvy competitor has been using it for about 20 yrs and has good things to say about it. As for the poor handling of your call treehead32 that's bad. I'd give Donna a call. It's our one concern with them. They are growing and dealing with keeping pace. That can be a curse if you can't get the people to handle the volume.
- Location
- Washington DC-Metro
Hey there!
I agree with @treehumper about the rapid growth that Arborgold has experienced this past 2 seasons. I would certainly give Donna a call again, and see what a great platform Arborgold is for any size tree, lawn or landscape business. Also, I would consider your pricing a bit high. If you have only one "salesperson" or estimator, you can run your entire business for the entry level price of $99 per month for that one person. Arborgold has a free add-on called "phone center only access" that allows your staff member on the phones, or our business, My Virtual Paige to access your Arborgold Phone Center to take messages and schedule estimate appointments seamlessly. As for our pricing, we work a 40 hour week depending on your location. We have staff members covering every time zone in the US and Canada currently, so accommodating your specific business hours is no worry!
To answer your pricing question:
If you take the entry level coverage from our company, and divide it by the typical 40 hour work week, our price is $8.75 per hour.
Understanding that the current federal minimum wage is $7.50 per hour, you then need to add your tax exposure to obtain an employee.
You add social security, FICA, Medicare and FUTA and unemployment insurance on top of that and your cost is about 18% over and above the original wage, totaling $8.85 per hour out of pocket. You then include training, computer, phone line, internet access, vacation, sick time and your average hourly rate per MINIMUM WAGE employee is over $10.00 per hour easily.
In our research, the position of answering phones, scheduling estimates, taking payments, responding to email inquiries, fielding lead generation outlets, and assisting in marketing efforts is not typically a minimum wage candidate.
We at My Virtual Paige have successfully used online tools, and input from owners nationwide to fine tune their efficiencies in their particular service areas, and there are so many great tools out there, including Arborgold which allows you to set up "Districts" or groups of zip codes making efficiencies a breeze! There isn't really a need to live in a particular region to understand it's nuances, especially since our staff members work directly with the tree business owner as any employee would - virtually or in person and fine tune their process as business evolves throughout the season. We also have solid evidence that just having a "live and competent person" answer your phones, solving your customers problem/issue puts you one step ahead of your competitor who will likely sit in his truck for hours every afternoon calling all of his missed calls back. Or even worse, have a generic answering service take messages only, resulting in the same amount of calls back every day and unsolved issues for existing and new customers alike.
As for work over the winter, we've just worked out a "pre-payment" plan with a new client in the Northeast who has this same concern. We will bill him a bit more for the next 10 months so that January and February will be all paid for once the season ends. This is a new offering we will roll out this season and a great solution to your concern!
I am grateful to work along side Arborgold every day and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone looking to grow their business! I'll be happy to chat here or offline on my cell anytime-if anyone has any additional questions: 703-945-9565.
- Location
- Colorado
Thanks Michelle for your thorough response, I sincerely appreciate it. I reached out to Arborgold this morning and scheduled a live demo.
They have options in between the basic and premium that are not advertised. That was what I was looking for
Sorry to hijack this thread original poster...
Treehumper - I do give credit to jobber in the sense that they have listened to their clients. They have done MANY updates and added more CRM features. You can track your expenses, phc use (we don't do phc yet), do time sheets and labor per job. The main downfall with them (for me) is the inability to select and schedule individual items on a qoute and schedule those items. We will bid a customers trees that can be pruned now, along with their fruit trees. I can't select and schedule the work to be done now with the option to not schedule the fruit trees. I have to either delete the fruit trees/winter work and they disappear from the customer file completely or go backwards and create a completely separate qoute. By the time all is said and done I have triple entries and it's time consuming. It sounds like I can choose specific items with Arborgold and keep the winter work on their file...all with one entry. That's golden
They have options in between the basic and premium that are not advertised. That was what I was looking for
Sorry to hijack this thread original poster...
Treehumper - I do give credit to jobber in the sense that they have listened to their clients. They have done MANY updates and added more CRM features. You can track your expenses, phc use (we don't do phc yet), do time sheets and labor per job. The main downfall with them (for me) is the inability to select and schedule individual items on a qoute and schedule those items. We will bid a customers trees that can be pruned now, along with their fruit trees. I can't select and schedule the work to be done now with the option to not schedule the fruit trees. I have to either delete the fruit trees/winter work and they disappear from the customer file completely or go backwards and create a completely separate qoute. By the time all is said and done I have triple entries and it's time consuming. It sounds like I can choose specific items with Arborgold and keep the winter work on their file...all with one entry. That's golden
- Location
- Washington DC-Metro
You are super welcome @treehead32 let me know if we can help you out any further!
treehumper
Carpal tunnel level member
- Location
- Ridgefield, NJ
Yes, you can select and separately schedule each service as well as bill separately.
When I spoke at length with the folks at Jobber they said that it's not a CRM (Client Relationship Management) tool. It gives you basic info but not the degree of tracking activity for marketing and sales that is needed if you want to be able to build out a better understanding of your clients and your effectiveness. Jobber is a good basic tool but still has a ways to go before it is a true "end-to-end" solution.
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