RDI Renewables Boost Business with Culverdocs

RDI Renewables is a family business based in Thurso in the Northern Highlands. It serves a diverse customer base across the Highlands delivering a range of solutions from traditional oil and gas appliances through to various renewable energy systems such as biomass, solar and air source heat pumps.

Ryan Pollard, Managing Director identified the need to improve internal processes to allow them to scale the business. With engineers following paper processes, ‘Every van would have six inches of books in the front,’ says Ryan, ‘books for Gas Safe checks and OFTEC, it was a bit of a mess.’

The paper certificates had to be distributed to customers and the customer information was being recorded on an Excel spreadsheet. With more than 350 maintenance customers on its books, ranging from domestic boiler servicing to commercial 750kW systems, RDI Renewables had outgrown the current processes.

After endless demos with extremely large and over-complex solutions, Ryan and the team set out their key requirement: freeing the engineers of the paperwork in their vans and replacing the spreadsheet with a more user friendly and efficient tool. Office Manager Siobhan Pollard says, ‘We had already issued the engineers with tablets so they could manage their calendars, so realised we really needed some kind of digital form app. And that led us to Culverdocs.’

The first impressions were good, says Ryan. ‘Culverdocs answered immediately with a friendly and knowledgeable voice. And I haven’t been disappointed; this has continued throughout. Culverdocs has delivered a personalised service and we have access to their technical advice and their app developers. For me, that’s a huge selling point because it mirrors the relationships I aim to build with my customers. It’s important to me that my customers trust in the technical expertise of my team too.’

Culverdocs has delivered a personalised service and we have access to their technical advice and their app developers.

Ryan and Siobhan gathered the team together to review the first digital form. ‘The engineers and office staff all gathered together in the office, as we had for the previous demo,’ says Ryan, ‘and we all agreed Culverdocs was infinitely better. It was so simple, intuitive, the design was so clean and it was so easy to use. We downloaded the app during the demo and we had access to the first form immediately. Culverdocs pumped out three forms a week after that. They would just email me a form, check: how does it look? And within ten minutes I was notifying the team that there was a new form in the app for them to use. It was great for us. And it was instant; that was a big bonus.’

The benefits for the team were immediate. Instead of filling out paper forms after completing a job, the engineers completed the digital form on their tablets as they ran the checks. Instead of grappling with multiple coloured copies, the digital form was emailed to the customer before the engineer had even left the house. ‘To that customer, we must look like rockstars!’ says Ryan, ‘We’re really organised. To me, it’s less about making money and more about customer satisfaction.’

The office team also receives a copy of the completed form immediately so they can action and invoice the customer straight away. ‘We are so much more efficient,’ enthuses Ryan. ‘Engineers no longer need to drive to the letting agents to drop a copy there, and then drive to the office to drop a paper copy there. Everyone gets a copy as soon as the engineer completes the form.’

The new processes couldn’t have been implemented at a better time. Siobhan explains, ‘As well as saving on paper, postage, vehicle fuel and time for both our engineers and our office staff, we are able to be much more COVID-19 secure. We’ve eliminated the need for touchpoints with letting agents and for engineers coming into the office between client visits.’

We’ve eliminated the need for touchpoints with letting agents and for engineers coming into the office between client visits.

The digital forms have helped to streamline back office processes. There is no longer a need to archive physical copies. This saves money and ensures information is at everyone’s fingertips when it is needed.

‘The forms have evolved into something more,’ says Ryan, ‘The digital forms of themselves are a huge asset, but we also have a management system now for all appliance services that need to be carried out annually. Culverdocs has built a dashboard in which we can immediately see all the sites and their associated information.’

Now, office staff can easily schedule any services that are due in the coming month. Planning is improved and the team can be absolutely sure no one misses a service. ‘If you consider we might miss five percent of services before – and that’s lost revenue for us and under-performing appliances for our customers – nothing slips through the net now. Just on that improvement, Culverdocs has paid for itself,’ says Siobhan.

Support from Culverdocs is another major selling point, as far as Ryan is concerned. ‘If an engineer is onsite more than an hour, I start losing money,’ he explains, ‘so if we have a problem, it needs to be sorted immediately. For example, we realised that we need a “not applicable” option added to a form for when an appliance isn’t on a particular site. If I report an issue like that, within five minutes there is usually an update pushed out to the iPad. I’d call the engineer for an update and he’d say “yes, it’s fixed”. There’s definitely a great, quick response every time.’

This support gives Ryan confidence that new functionality can be added as the business requires it. Even in its current form, the system will perform as a full records management solution. Certificates and documentation can be accessed directly from the dashboard. The dashboard also displays useful KPIs. These new business insights are helping to inform RDI Renewables’ business planning.

Ryan says, ‘We now have an accurate and truthful picture of how many customers we have. We’ve never set a target before, but Culverdocs has transformed that. Once we got Culverdocs, we could see exactly how we are performing, how many customers we have, and what our ongoing revenue streams are. I am confident now that I can increase to 1,000 services on my current structure – and that just wouldn’t have been possible before. Now, we can grow three-fold without adding headcount. We aren’t hitting our head against a ceiling anymore – we can grow faster now.’

‘It’s a fantastic tool,’ continues Ryan. ‘It has grown from what we first envisioned, but it is still not complicated. We feel as though we have an app for us. It’s been tailored to our needs and it’s been done fantastically. The product is perfect, but the service really sets Culverdocs apart. It couldn’t have been better throughout the whole process. Based on my experience, I couldn’t recommend them highly enough.’

We feel as though we have an app for us. It’s been tailored to our needs and it’s been done fantastically. The product is perfect, but the service really sets Culverdocs apart.