Customer story: DoodyCalls

The problem

While most cringe at the idea of cleaning up after their beloved pet, Jacob D’Aniello saw a unique business opportunity in the dreaded backyard chore. And jumping on the idea of providing “pooper scooper” services has served him well. Jacob now runs DoodyCalls — a growing, nationwide franchise that takes care of the dirty work of pet ownership for individuals and communities.

Of course, with growth comes new challenges. Jacob, like many small business owners, eventually bumped up against the limitations of using his accounting software to run his business. He realized he needed an alternative software solution to manage customers and operations, but it needed to integrate with QuickBooks and provide increased functionality.

Adding to the puzzle was the fact that this wasn’t just about his needs as a business owner — Jacob needed to provide an easy-to-use system to the DoodyCalls franchise owners, so they too could effectively run their own businesses.

The solution

After way too many late nights of planning routes and schedules, Jacob signed up for QXpress, a field service scheduling platform for QuickBooks. A few years later, QXpress founder and CEO Paul Jackson sold the software and went on to launch Method:CRM — a QuickBooks-integrated CRM that can be customized to accommodate every small business’s unique way of getting their work done.

“I followed Paul from QXpress to Method. I respect him and believe in him and was happy to move with him on his next adventure,” explained Jacob.

In order to provide his franchisees with a unified system, Jacob took advantage of Method’s multi-tenancy capability. In a nutshell, multi-tenancy allows one Method account (the “franchisor” or “head office” account) to be divided into multiple “franchisee” or “tenant” accounts, each of which syncs with a separate QuickBooks file. With this setup, each of Jacob’s franchisees can view their own customer and financial data in Method, while Jacob himself can view the customer and financial data from all franchises in one place.

Consolidation of business functions

To better serve thousands of customers across the U.S and to keep his franchise owners off their phones, Jacob established a central call center for the company, which handles customer service and billing inquiries for all DoodyCalls franchises.

“Before adopting Method:CRM, a customer would call with a billing or scheduling question where we needed to look at their invoices or the franchise service schedules. But, everyone’s individual systems were hosted on their own computers, so we had no access. With multi-tenancy through Method, it’s possible to look at all schedules. It’s possible to look at everyone’s bills. It’s possible to look at customer payments. That is very helpful from a customer service standpoint.”

Consolidating the company’s customer management activities is a win-win for Jacob — his franchise owners are happy spending less time managing customer calls and more time on revenue-generating work, and pet owners remain loyal to DoodyCalls thanks to their timely customer service.

Staying organized with automated discounting

DoodyCalls offers their customers a discounted rate when they pre-pay for services. But before they adopted a QuickBooks CRM, the company struggled to keep track of which customers had prepaid, what rates should be applied, and when customers were slated for service renewal.

“Before Method we would have to manually track how many services someone prepaid and would have to remember to call them to renew their prepayments. Sometimes we would forget to call and they would continue to get the prepaid discount.”

To stay competitive, Jacob needed an automated solution that allowed him to continue offering his customers a discount without losing out on revenue.

“We customized Method:CRM so that each time we complete a prepaid service, the CRM counts the number of times the discount has been applied to the service. And then, when the customer runs out of prepaid services, the system puts them back on regular pricing.”

In addition to freeing his team from manually managing prepaid services, this automation prevents the company’s bottom line from taking a hit due to over-discounting. As a result, DoodyCalls can continue to offer prepayment incentives while still receiving the maximum value for their services. And with the increase in cash flow that comes from prepaid services, Jacob can continue to invest in the company’s growth.

“My daily job is running a multi-location organization. Method:CRM brought us the ability to see the bigger picture.”

— Jacob D’Aniello, Founder & President

Business benefits

When asked about the benefits of multi-tenancy in Method:CRM, Jacob noted that he saves plenty of time by not having to chase down information. But as a company owner who genuinely cares about the success of his franchisees, he quickly explained how he employs Method’s multi-tenancy for the benefit of everyone working at DoodyCalls.

“In Method, I can create customized screens that impact the organization as a whole. With single tenancy, if I create a new customization, I’d have to rebuild that screen for each individual tenant across the country, which would be horrible. But with multi-tenancy, I can roll these changes out across the organization and positively impact efficiency for everybody at once. It’s one thing for me to customize Method to help make the running of my business better — but more importantly, I’m creating customizations that are helping my franchise owners run their businesses better.”