CTS

Headshot of Ceri Crannis

“By centralising our operations in one platform, we can efficiently track our jobs, allocate resources and communicate with our team and clients in real-time.”

Ceri Crannis, Managing Director

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Headquarters

Swindon, United Kingdom

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Industry

Electrical/Data

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Employees

3 Employees, 5 subcontractors

The Facts

CTS Now Enjoys: Faster customer payments and full integration with their accounting package Xero.

CTS Now Can: Quote jobs efficiently with a built-up price list and smoother processes.

CTS Now Has: Dedicated customer groups to track revenue and leads.

The Story

Who They Are - CTS

Started in 2011 as a man in a van operation, CTS has come a long way since the beginning of the twenty-tens. Managing Director Ceri Crannis remembers the early days well, as she and her husband successfully grew the electrical business past its infancy and started taking on staff.

With a strong client base and no shortage of renown for their honesty, integrity and specialty in inspection and testing, they did very well for themselves. Ceri took over when her husband Darren left the company to become a Technical Manager at ECA, continuing CTS’ legacy and committing fully to her passion for the electrical industry.

Now, the business employs a variable workforce of up to 3 staff and 5 subcontractors, a sizable team who share Ceri’s vision for electrical excellence.

What They Do - Electrical Contracting

CTS operates like you’d expect an electrical contracting business to, with multiple technicians on the road providing electrical services and an office team supporting these efforts back home. Across industrial, education and commercial clients, the team specialises in inspection, testing and condition reports and has the workforce capable of taking on any work that comes their way.

Why They Started With Simpro - Unmanageable Schedules & Markups

Like many successful trade businesses, CTS reached a point where operating using manual methods could no longer facilitate the kind of growth the business was chasing. The two main pain points they experienced were familiar to the trades: trouble managing schedules for an ever-expanding workforce and issues factoring markups into quoting.

These challenges caused CTS a lot of operational friction, with Ceri spending excessive time acting as the conduit that kept the entire business running. But that’s not a reasonable expectation to place on any trade business owner long term, and eventually, Ceri began exploring her options and discovered Simpro’s powerful software tools.

How Simpro Changed Things - Faster & Better

It would be an understatement to say that Simpro has merely improved how CTS does business. Ceri herself confirms that she “Couldn’t put a price on it”, with the software bolstering both her operations and her confidence as an operator. After some initial anxiety about investing in an entirely new system, she decided to commit.

Today, Ceri says that Simpro has “Without a shadow of a doubt” solved the problems the business was experiencing, with the software acting as a “One-stop shop for the activities necessary to help the business operate”. Quotes are faster, with a built-in price list that the team easily updates yearly to account for material fluctuations. Invoicing jobs out is also quicker and smoother than ever before, with everyone able to access the information they need for the job easily through Simpro’s ability to sync between every enabled device simultaneously.

The business isn’t the only one benefiting from Simpro, either. Cleanly designed digital invoices are now the standard for CTS, leading to faster customer payments and showcasing that clients love the speed and quality of the service they’re getting.

All in all, it’s a story of complete success between CTS and Simpro, and Ceri is thrilled with the resulting efficiency, saying, “By centralising our operations in one platform, we can efficiently track our jobs, allocate resources and communicate with our team and clients in real-time.” That’s a glowing review, and with everything running so smoothly, it’s easy to see why Ceri and the team aren’t shy in saying, “We rely on Simpro.”

Where To Next - Customer Groups & Business Tracking

Now that Ceri has applied Simpro’s software to CTS’ everyday operations, she’s decided that the next step is to start improving lead acquisition. With dedicated Customer Groups set up in the software, the business can track where its new leads are coming from and how much revenue specific groups of customers are generating for the business.

Simpro excels at facilitating this kind of forward-thinking planning and development, and when combined with a business like CTS, the sky's the limit.

As for whether Ceri recommends Simpro, her advice to any trade business owner experiencing similar challenges to hers is “Do it! Do it now, and don’t look back!”

CTS Technology Services hasn’t looked back since embarking on its Simpro journey, and why should they when there’s so much to enjoy on the horizon?

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