” We have service technicians in the field across two states. It helps to have as much information as possible about where our vans are, which technicians are working a job, and how our drivers are treating our vans. ClearPathGPS gives us all of that and more.
Customer Quick Insights
Lauren Martin, Vice President and Co-Owner of Seaside Plumbing, describes how using ClearPathGPS fleet tracking every day helps her company improve operations, protect its fleet, and give the whole team peace of mind.
Seaside Plumbing: 18 years, 2 states, 5-star service…
For nearly two decades, homeowners, landlords, and businesses in Maryland and Delaware have been calling the experts at Seaside Plumbing. The company’s impressive customer rating—a 4.9-star average across almost 400 reviews—helps explain why. Where many of their competitors arrive at job sites with a “sell” and “upsell” mentality, Seaside shows up to serve.
This strategy proved so successful that in just a few years since that decision, Seaside has grown its service technician team by 400%. The company now has 30 employees, and its multi-state reputation for outstanding service is leading to more customer service calls than ever. In fact, Seaside’s biggest operational challenge today is hiring high-quality technicians quickly enough to meet the company’s ever-increasing demand.
Industry: Plumbing Services
Fleet: 13 Vehicles
Serving: Delaware & Maryland
Needs: Routing techs to jobs more efficiently and keeping track of vehicles carrying expensive assets
Solution: GPS vehicle tracking with a live map view
Q: Tell us about Seaside’s original reason for implementing GPS fleet tracking. What were you hoping to accomplish?
Our first concern was protecting our investments. The vans represent the most expensive assets for our company—not only in terms of the vehicles themselves but also because they carry around costly tools and materials.
We also saw the potential for improving our operations by giving our dispatchers real time information on where all our service technicians were in the field, so they could route the right people to jobs more efficiently.
Q: You didn’t learn about ClearPathGPS until after you had rolled out another service. What happened with that system?
The first GPS service was very clunky and not user-friendly at all. We tried to make it work, because we really saw the benefits of a fleet tracking solution in general. But eventually we decided the system we had was more trouble than it was worth.
Oh, and another reason we went looking for a better solution was that this first one didn’t integrate with ServiceTitan—which is our go-to app for managing our workflows and technicians’ jobs.
Trying to solve both of those challenges—finding a more user-friendly GPS tracking system… and finding one that worked with ServiceTitan—led us to ClearPathGPS.
Q: Can you give us a couple of examples of how you’re using the ClearPath system in your day-to-day operations?
Our dispatchers have the ClearPathGPS map up on their monitors all day. When a customer order comes in, they can quickly find the closest technician with the skills to match that job. It’s been fantastic for streamlining our routing, response times, and making sure we send the person capable of getting the job done.
We also have a team of parts runners and a materials coordinator who manages them. That’s another operation we’ve used ClearPathGPS to improve. If a service technician calls from the field needing parts, it’s now very easy for our materials coordinator to see where the tech is, where the nearest parts runner is, and connect them.
Q: Okay, you’ve walked us through how your dispatch and materials-coordination teams use ClearPathGPS. How about you personally? Are you using the app to improve your own day-to-day workflows?
Definitely. My official title here is Vice President, but it should really be Handles a Little of Everything. I’m involved with accounting, operations, customer service… you name it. And in just about all those roles, ClearPathGPS helps me.
On the accounting side, for example, I’ll use the ClearPathGPS app to double-check the accuracy of our technicians’ timecards. If I have any questions or just want a to-the-minute accounting of when they arrived at and left each Jobsite, each day, ClearPath has that data for me.
Or if we have a question about a technician driving a vehicle around on a weekend, when he’s not scheduled for a job, I can use ClearPathGPS’ data to get to the bottom of it. It’s just great for keeping tabs on things.
ClearPathGPS is also great for settling disputes or complaints. For example, we had a person call the office once to say one of our technicians was speeding on Route 50. I got the date and approximate time, pulled it up on our ClearPathGPS app, and sure enough, the driver was speeding. So, we were able to have that conversation to correct the behavior—and it wasn’t he-said, she-said, because we had the proof in ClearPathGPS.
Q: You mentioned ServiceTitan as one reason you switched to ClearPathGPS. Tell us about how you’re using the two apps together.
We use these apps alongside each other all the time, and the benefits are significant.
For example, our dispatchers have two monitors—one has ServiceTitan tabs open all the time, the other is always showing the ClearPathGPS map. This is how we’re able to quickly match skills and job requests. A job order comes in, the dispatcher scans the ServiceTitan app to see which technicians in the field are qualified to handle the order, and then they just look over at ClearPathGPS’ map to see if those techs are available, or when they will be.
Also, I use the two apps to double-check on things. For example, sometimes a technician forgets to close a job on his ServiceTitan app when he leaves. Now, let’s say I’m reviewing the status of our jobs in ServiceTitan in the evening, and I see one that should’ve ended at 8 pm but it’s 10 pm and still listed open. I’ll pop open the ClearPathGPS app and see that, just as I figured, the tech is no longer there—he did leave at 8 pm. He just forgot to log it.
And as I understand it, the best part is that we’ll find even more ways to improve our operations when I integrate the ClearPathGPS and ServiceTitan apps together, which I’m going to do soon.
Q: What if another service business owner asked you about GPS, and specifically ClearPathGPS? Would you recommend using it?
Of course. In fact, I would say it’d be stupid not to use it. Considering the minimal amount that we’re paying for the ClearPathGPS service, it’s absolutely worth it… for so many reasons.
It’s worth it for the day-to-day operational improvements for our dispatchers, for our parts guys who can move more quickly to get that water heater to the technician who needs it, to just our peace of mind knowing we’ve got eyes on our entire fleet of vans all the time.
Thank you, Lauren, for sharing your experience with ClearPathGPS… and to Seaside Plumbing for being a great customer!
At ClearPathGPS, we are focused on helping our customers improve their operations and bottomline. Our top-rated GPS fleet tracking solutions provide real-time data insights and tools needed to more effectively manage the vehicles, people, and assets businesses send into the field everyday. Can ClearPathGPS help your operations get better results? Let’s find out – request a demo or contact us today.
