At this point, you’ve likely got a plan and goals in place for your roofing business in 2021. Whether you’re looking to expand into new areas, increase your profits, or branch out into a new trade, you’ll need the right tools to help you make those plans a reality.
While each roofing business has its own unique needs, there are certain tools that can help every roofing business grow and succeed in 2021. Here are ten of the most helpful roofing contractor tools to give your business a strong start in the new year.
10 Roofing Contractor Tools to Help You Work Smarter in 2021
Roofing contractor tool #1: business texting platforms
Many customers’ preferred method of communication is text messaging. 83% of customers would like to receive appointment reminders via text, and 69% of customers want to contact businesses by texting. If your roofing business hasn’t incorporated text messages into your communication strategy, 2021 is the time to start. Providing a texting option to your customers will help you serve them more effectively, demonstrate your commitment to meeting their needs, and keep them updated on important information.
However, it’s not enough to simply send text messages to customers from a personal or company phone—security issues, miscommunications and problems with lost information can result. Using a business texting platform, such as the texting add-on in AccuLynx, will let you take advantage of the benefits of texting while avoiding the pitfalls of using a personal or company device. When you text from a platform rather than an individual device, it helps standardize your texting, keeps sensitive company information safe, and preserves a record of all your conversations.
Read: 6 Text Messaging Stats Roofing Contractors Should Know
Roofing contractor tool #2: automations
Communicating with leads, customers, and team members can take up significant time in your day. Contractors who are looking to work more efficiently in the new year need tools that will help streamline the communication process and free up time to focus on other aspects of the business.
Using automations to send routine communications is one way to speed up the process. Automations allow you to send a pre-set message every time a certain condition is met, rather than having to create a new message every time. For instance, in AccuLynx, you can use the Automation Manager to set up a text message reminder that is automatically sent whenever a new appointment is scheduled, or create a customer follow-up email that triggers when a job is marked as completed. Not only does this reduce the time spent on routine tasks, it also helps you stay on top of communications and keeps important messages from falling through the cracks.
Watch: See AccuLynx Automations in Action
Roofing contractor tool #3: electronic payment processing
One of the most essential roofing contractor tools for 2021 is electronic payment processing. Customers have come to expect the flexibility and convenience that electronic payment provides from all their service providers, and contractors are no exception. In addition, the ability to process payments electronically will help you get paid on time and improve your cash flow—crucial benefits for meeting your yearly goals. At AccuLynx, we added the ability to process credit, debit, and ACH transactions to our software this year because we saw how important it was for helping roofing businesses succeed.
Roofing contractor tool #4: consumer financing capabilities
Most sales teams encounter plenty of objections from homeowners as they try to close a deal—and many of those objections are related to pricing. Finding new ways to overcome pricing objections can help your roofing business close more deals this coming year.
Offering options for financing repairs is one way to get more customers on board. Instead of having to pay up front in full, homeowners can borrow the funds, ensuring that you get paid and they get much-needed repairs. AccuLynx has teamed up with GreenSky®, one of the leading consumer financing companies, so your roofing business can offer loans and payment plans directly from our software. With these new options for payment, it’s easier than ever to convince homeowners that your roofing business is the right choice.
Roofing contractor tool #5: crew-focused mobile apps
Growing a productive and profitable roofing business means equipping everyone on your teams to do their best work—including your crews. Making it easier for crews to access important project information, check in as they work, and stay on task will help you complete projects faster and provide better customer service.
Mobile apps for crews, such as the AccuLynx mobile Crew App, are packed with tools to support their work on the job site. Crews can access job details and documents in the app, view directions to the job site, upload photos of their work, and check off tasks from a list. It also helps managers and office staff, since they can check in on crews from the office without having to call in or visit the job site.
Roofing contractor tool #6: reporting dashboards
In order to succeed in 2021, your roofing business needs ways to assess your performance in real time. Keeping track of key performance indicators (KPIs) will allow you to make adjustments to your strategy when needed and stay on track to meet your 2021 goals.
Reporting dashboards are the roofing contractor tool that will help your business keep up with KPIs and understand your performance throughout the year. These dashboards give you a straightforward view of business trends in a single place. In AccuLynx, you can select from a range of pre-made dashboards that cover important KPIs or tweak them to reflect what your business needs. You can even have these reports delivered automatically to your email inbox on a weekly or monthly basis, so you can stay on top of your business performance without adding extra work to your plate.
Roofing contractor tool #7: online material ordering with real-time pricing
Faster, more accurate material ordering will help your business keep overhead costs low and save time. Ordering online from your supplier can speed up the process, but in order for it to be truly efficient and accurate, the online orders also need to reflect your real-time pricing. AccuLynx roofing software integrates with top material suppliers so you can access real-time pricing and order materials directly from the software platform. Using this method to order your materials will help you buy only as much as you need and reduce the time you spend on this routine task.
Roofing contractor tool #8: electronic signing
After a year where many tasks were completed electronically out of necessity, many customers have gotten used to the convenience of this method and have come to expect it from businesses.
One way you can cater to this customer preference—and speed up the document approval process—is by adopting roofing contractor tools that allow you to capture electronic signatures. These tools, such as the SmartDocs feature in AccuLynx, make it easy to email documents to customers and receive a legally binding electronic signature. You’ll get notified as soon as a document is signed, and the customer will receive a copy of the signed document. Both you and your customers will be happy with the ease and speed of e-signing.
Roofing contractor tool #9: photo management tools
How many photos does your roofing business take during a given project? For many businesses, it’s in the hundreds or thousands. Keeping all these photos organized and sharing them with customers and team members can be a daunting task. Photo management tools take the headache out of this process and help you efficiently store, find, and send photos.
At AccuLynx, we’ve recently revamped our photo management tools to help roofing businesses work more efficiently. With these updated tools, it’s easy to:
- Sort photos by time frame
- Create a PDF to share photos with customers
- Move images from one job file to another
- Add detailed tags and descriptions
- Managing thousands of photos for each job is much simpler when your roofing business can take advantage of these tools.
Roofing contractor tool #10: a system that brings together all these tools
It’s important to find the best roofing contractor tools to help you grow your business. But managing a bunch of different tools and making sure they all interact with each other can take up significant time as well. In order to streamline your processes, work efficiently, and avoid errors, your roofing business needs a way to bring all your tools together in a single system.
AccuLynx is an all-in-one roofing software that helps manage every aspect of your business. Every one of the tools mentioned above is part of the AccuLynx platform, in addition to many more features that can help you work smarter in 2021. Using AccuLynx makes it simple to improve many different business processes at the same time. With a system that brings together lots of tools in a single platform, your roofing business will have everything it needs to succeed in 2021.
See the #1 roofing software designed to help you grow. Get a demo today.
Take Advantage of the Best Roofing Contractor Tools
Meeting your business goals in 2021 starts with the right tools. With better ways to communicate, stay organized, work efficiently, and manage your team members, your roofing business will be able to see greater growth.
