Usually, companies follow a similar cadence when adopting new software.
It typically begins with adding a small handful of users to the latest software.
As your team becomes more comfortable and knowledgeable, you look to expand the user count and integrate the software with more internal teams.
The journey for ’58 Foundations and Chief Marketing Officer Richard Fencil was different in more ways than one.
“When we started, we added everybody,” Fencil said about the initial adoption of CompanyCam with ‘58 Foundations. “Our sales software can pull the photos into the accounts, so in each record, you could have the photos, but the access to that was a nightmare.”
It was already different than most software adoption stories in that they started with adding a boatload of users.
Then, they made another big decision about how many users were working with CompanyCam.
“We were all in, and then we backed off drastically,” Fencil said about being established early. “We scaled it down to like less than ten accounts. We thought, ‘Oh, we’ll save money [with fewer users on CompanyCam.]
“But it didn’t save us anything. We tried to get off the expense, but it was more expensive not to be on it.”
Project photos and general job documentation are essential. But for Fencil and ‘58 Foundations, the value was far beyond CompanyCam being a photo documentation solution.
“The ease of the software is worth the cost,” Fencil said. “There are a million ways to shoot photos, but it’s that connection.”
More Users = More Ways to Sell a Service
With more ’58 Foundations team members using CompanyCam, Fencil says the benefits go beyond streamlining communication from the field to the office.
CompanyCam provides a way for their team to show work in the customer’s area.
“Functional proof,” Fencil said. “[To say] ‘look, we serve this area, and a lot more around them. That gives people confidence that even though ‘you might be 45 minutes away, but we do work here all the time.
“It’s not just ‘look at all the pins on the map.’ As I click in, I can open up these jobs and show the photos.”
That work is the most important part of every contracting business. Being able to show that the quality of completed work makes the most significant difference.
“I mean, the whole business of a contractor is the work you install,” Fencil said. “It has nothing to do with marketing or sales… The only thing the customer pays for is the install.”
Scaling Your Business Means a Need for Better Job Site Visibility
“That’s a challenge for a lot of service companies – you don’t know what’s happening in the field.”
That statement came from Fencil as he explained another important reason why going back to more users on CompanyCam was the right move for ’58 Foundations.
“Your team can take photos on their phones and e‑mail them to you, but that’s a bad solution,” Fencil said. “That’s a small company solution. As you start to scale, you need this for checks and balances.
“You have a photo of a finished job. And I want to see that the sump pump was put in the pit, the pump was plugged in, the yard sign was [put] out, and all these things. That’s the way to track it – to have a piece of software that accelerates your efforts.”
We scaled it down to like less than ten accounts. We thought, ‘Oh, we’ll save money [with fewer users on CompanyCam.] But it didn’t save us anything. We tried to get off the expense, but it was more expensive not to be on it.
To say CompanyCam handles photos quickly and efficiently is an understatement. CompanyCam is beyond just a software solution for Fencil — it’s a game-changer:
“We need our eyes on [the work] from the sales side,” Fencil said. “I can’t be in nine places at once. So those that are in the field, they’re the ones that need it [to document work].
“Then, when it rolls into the sales side of the office staff, that’s a whole different need. They’re not actually taking the photos, but they are using this software in a different way. It’s almost like pieces of a pie. There are feature sets that everyone’s using to all get to a commonplace.”
What Can More CompanyCam Users Do for You and Your Team?
Want to read more about real-world stories of how companies have scaled with CompanyCam?
Recently ClearlyAmazing talked about their business-scaling results with increased user adoption of the CompanyCam platform.
Learn how to invite new users and assign those key projects to users in CompanyCam.
Need to learn more about all of the features that CompanyCam can offer your business? Schedule some time with our pre-recorded demo to get up to speed quickly!
