Speaker: Angie Sarah G., J.A. Cleaning LLC
Tell us about your company and why you chose OptimoRoute.
Angie Sarah G.: Definitely really excited about running into OptimoRoute. So my family, we have our own window cleaning service in the Wisconsin area and we are expanding in the future to other cleaning services. But as we would do our general scheduling, we would have to write it out, text message it, send it in an email. We tried Excel spreadsheets and it was like, how do we keep up with what's already done, what needs to be done - you name it. It would take 3 hours a night just to add scheduling. So we came across OptimoRoute - amazing, right. So we started inputting the information and what we like is that it's so user friendly. For me, I have an accounting background, I'm a numbers gal. So just trying to figure out addresses and maps: northeast, south - couldn't figure it out. Right. And so I just appreciate this and coming across it because as soon as we put the information in, it's so efficient, it's in a way automated, I can put the dates of when I want things to be done. If I need to send it to a driver, it was very simple to do so, if I needed to change information, it was very easy to do so. I love when I could just type in words or letters, numbers, to an address and it would just prepopulate what I needed. It just became something super effective. Something that was taking 2 to 3 hours a night now came down to like 20 minutes and just piece it together at the beginning of the week and boom, everything's done for the entire month. I just really appreciate that and it was very cost effective. For me, it's just something I know it, we'll continue to use as we move forward just because it's been a valuable resource for us and very, very cost effective and user friendly.
How did you manage route planning before OptimoRoute?
Angie Sarah G.: So prior to using OptimoRoute, I would have to do things by hand, write things out, check on a another notebook. Did I do this location before? When do we need this again? Ok, you know what, let's just try an Excel spreadsheet, insert everything. But still - what, when, when did I do those things? Ok, maybe I can try to look at some type of Google Maps and chart it out that way. It was just very time consuming, I would say two hours a night, just trying to get the schedule together and kind of memorize what you did. But as soon as OptimoRoute was something we utilized, I just realized it's very user friendly. It allowed us to put things in and in a way it gave you the best of both worlds. I can automate stuff where I know where I want things to go but I can still manually change things around that I needed to. If one location needed something done earlier in the day and another location might be nearest to a location, it would automatically have me go to that first one, but it allowed me to change it over and say, you know what, I don't want to go to this first one first, I would rather go to here first. So it became very customizable, very user friendly. And of course, I'm a big coupony person so it's very cost effective. Utilizing it, keeping up with the subscription was very, you know, just effective overall, I appreciate it. It saves us maybe 2 hours a night that we would take into like a 30 minute increment of just planning things out for the week and then just going in little by little and fixing it. Love that ability.
How has OptimoRoute helped your business?
Angie Sarah G.: With running a window cleaning business and having to drive many miles in the Wisconsin area, reducing cost was a main priority. Being able to put information into OptimoRoute, allowing it to help us increase productivity without sacrificing expenses in increased miles or increased fuel or more time than a driver is on the road. Just even fixing that in five minute increments here, 20 minute increments there, three minute increments here, it all adds up. So it's very cost effective, but it allows for us to be super productive. It would know how to say, you know what, you're starting at this point, let's utilize this route instead and you get to save this amount of time, I love that. Fuel efficiency is definitely big. I'm a very big coupony person. I'm always looking for a way to keep costs low and I love that it allowed for me to do so, but still get the job done. Honestly, it's like I you can add one or two more points in the schedule today and still get, not the same amount done, more done, but in the same amount of time or less with less cost. Incredible. Something that manually was hard for me to do. But it was really cool because it's like it became the brains of it and I could just play around with it and figure out how to keep revenue high and cost low. Love that feature.
Angie Sarah G.: So with having a window cleaning business where we have to drive all over the Wisconsin area, we have employees contractors and of course, we want to increase productivity, but, rule of business, figure out how to minimize costs as much as possible. We just found ourselves spending more time in driving the miles to get to a location, spending more time in fuel cost, spending more energy and trying to figure that out. And so when we used OptimoRoute, we realized, wow, this is very, a big cost effective resource. We would insert information, it would basically figure it out for us. It would allow for us to take a few minutes, pockets of minutes of miles of time that would overall save money, right? I've heard this saying, like people $5 a day themselves to death, right? Even in their personal life. To be able to figure out how to $5 save on gas here. $3 save on gas here just by changing or allowing OptimoRoute to think for us was a really cool way for us to cut cost. I love the reduced labor cost because less people on the road, less miles, increased productivity, I even found one more cool thing, is that if I'm able to get 10 jobs done in a certain amount of time just because I manually charted the route, but I put it into OptimoRoute, I figured out, wow, I can actually get 11 done and still less time and less labor costs, which is amazing because it allows for more work to be done, less cost. But it also took away the headache of trying to figure those things out. So I really appreciate OptimoRoute for that strategy and that resource.
How easy is OptimoRoute to use?
Angie Sarah G.: So I'm very big on user friendly sites. I need something that is super simple to use, straightforward and I love how OptimoRoute can do that. Honestly, simplicity for me is key. I don't want to have to go and break things down to understand how to use something and then click on details and explain an extensive training. I just need it to be like, OK, let me take a peek at it. I understand the basic skeleton of it. Boom. And this layout is super user friendly, smooth. I also love how customizable it is. So for me, I don't want to be confused on how to like navigate certain things. I want to change a route to go here. I need to make this for this driver, time frame. And it's like where do I find this information? All of it is just pretty much right there. I mean, within the first week, I felt like a pro. Now it just takes like minutes to set the schedule for the entire month. If I have to change something thing, I love, I can just go right back in it. I can fix it. It doesn't affect so many things. My favorite part is that I can fix my mistakes on there if I set up a whole route and realize later, oops, wrong time for this one, wrong day for this one, wrong location for this one, I don't have to start all the way over and it's just very clear visuals. For me, I just need to be able to see where things are going because I'm a visual person, so I'm able to insert routes, and then on the side of that, I can see the map. That map allows me to know if what I have in my mind, on paper or on the site - are they aligning? And I love the ability to do that, allows me to make best, better decisions about my route, what I need to have happen, how do I keep costs down, how do I keep it super simple for my drivers. Simple for me to use, simple for my drivers to understand - let's get the job done. And that's what the site does. That's what OptimoRoute does.
How important are speed and flexibility for you?
Angie Sarah G.: So let's be honest here, speed and flexibility are very crucial in running a business, especially when it's a window cleaning business or anything that has to do with route mapping planning, you name it. Honestly, we live in a competitive world and at every moment, we gotta figure out our own competitive advantage. So I appreciate OptimoRoute because it allowed me to have a fast paced business environment without sacrificing productivity, efficiency, professionalism. Honestly, our customers are really satisfied. I noticed that in a world like today, like you can, personal touch is very important and customers love that competitive advantage and OptimoRoute allowed for last minute changes in delivery scheduling, accommodating to specific customer needs, being able to adapt to just like a change in someone's schedule at any moment. And I just love the dynamic of it altogether. So speed is important, without sacrificing effectiveness, efficiency, productivity. Because sometimes speed allows for casualties. And I love OptimoRoute because I'm able to mitigate that as much as possible while also getting the job done
