Housecall Pro Review 2023: Best for Home Service Businesses?

Having a client portal in place is essential in today's fast-paced world.

A self-service portal allows customers to solve their own issues and lets your team focus on what matters—completing more jobs.

Housecall Pro offers a one-stop shop with their client portal, allowing customers to easily do the following:

• Book appointments directly: Customers can schedule their own appointments right from the portal, eliminating the need for back-and-forth emails or phone calls.
• Pay for services: The portal integrates with popular payment processors so customers can conveniently pay for services online.
• View their service history: Customers can easily access past invoices, making it easier to keep track of services they've received.
• Access important documents: You can share estimates, invoices, and other important documents directly through the portal.
• Update their contact information: A simple user interface allows customers to keep their contact information up to date.

Our takeaway: The Housecall Pro client portal is a win-win for both service providers and clients, driving productivity and enhancing customer satisfaction across the board.

Housecall Pro shines when it comes to creating and sending out invoices to clients.

Throughout testing this platform over three months with the SBB team (and using it for years, building my business), I've found the invoicing capabilities of the platform to be an absolute lifesaver!

At my agency, I had a residential cleaning client whose business I helped scale using Housecall Pro.

This client struggled with the following aspects of invoicing:

• Efficiently generating invoices: She found it difficult to quickly generate and send invoices after completing the jobs. The manual process was time-consuming and left room for errors.
• Tracking pending payments: With her growing customer base, keeping track of pending payments became challenging. Sometimes, payments would slip through the cracks, causing a loss of revenue.
• Managing recurring invoicing: Her business had many loyal customers who required regular services. Managing recurring invoicing for these customers was a major pain point.
• Offering multiple payment options: She wanted to give her customers the flexibility to pay through different payment methods. Implementing this was proving to be a hurdle.
• Automatic reminders: Chasing down late payments was awkward and took away time that could be spent on more productive tasks. She needed a solution to automate the process of sending reminders for unpaid invoices.

Once we introduced her to the invoicing feature in Housecall Pro, it was a game changer.

She was able to create clean, professional invoices with all the necessary details (saving a ton of time in the process).

Here's an example of an invoice she was able to create (in just a matter of minutes).

This feature of Housecall Pro saves time and significantly reduces the risk of errors, helping businesses like our client's to manage their finances more effectively.

Housecall Pro excels in dispatching, based on our testing and my experience using the platform to help clients at my agency.

Let's look at a specific example (to give you a better idea).

One of my clients at the digital agency was a plumbing company struggling with dispatch management.

Their business was growing rapidly, and they had more service calls than they could handle.

This is where Housecall Pro's dispatching feature stepped in and got the business back on track.

Here's how it helped:

• Real-time dispatching: Housecall Pro allowed my client to dispatch plumbers to different job sites in real time. This meant that a service request could be assigned to a plumber who was available and near the job location as soon as a service request came in.
• Easy communication: The dispatching feature facilitated easy and clear communication between the office and field technicians. There was no scope for miscommunication or confusion as all job details were transparently shared.
• Smoother workflows: Housecall Pro streamlined the company's workflows by allowing dispatchers to manage all field technicians from a single dashboard. Every job status update, from assignment to completion, was tracked centrally, eliminating the need for back-and-forth calls and messages.
• Increased productivity: By automating the house call dispatch process, Housecall Pro freed up time for my client's staff to focus on other important areas of the business. This led to a significant increase in their overall productivity.

Overall, the dispatching feature of Housecall Pro is a powerful tool that can revolutionize the way businesses manage their field operations.

It certainly had a significant positive impact on my client, and I believe it can do the same for many others.

Housecall Pro provides a centralized customer database that can be accessed from both the office and the field.

At SBB, we liked how easy Housecall Pro made it to add and manage our contacts.

We tested this feature extensively over three months, adding our B2B affiliate marketing contacts.

New contacts could be added with just a few clicks.

This allowed us to manage our relationships with clients while saving time in the process.

Here's how it looked to add a new contact.

In addition to the SBB testing, I've used Housecall Pro, helping clients manage their customer base with the powerful platform.

Let's look at a specific example from a home service business that benefited from this feature.

I had the opportunity to work with a roofing company that was still largely paper-based and relied heavily on spreadsheets to manage their clients.

This company was struggling with its operational efficiency and customer management above all else.

The transition to Housecall Pro drastically improved their operations.

The roofing company particularly appreciated the following features of Housecall Pro:

• Digitization of Records: Moving from paper records and spreadsheets to a centralized digital database was a breath of fresh air. It eliminated the need to manage physical records, reduced errors, and made data retrieval quick and easy.
• Ease of Use: The user-friendly interface of Housecall Pro made it simple for everyone in the company to adapt to the new system. It was intuitive and required little to no training.
• Dashboard: The customizable customer dashboard was a hit with the team. It provided them with a comprehensive view of all customer data, including contact details, service history, and job notes, all in one place. This made customer management efficient and effective.

Here is a screenshot of their customized customer dashboard.

The impact was evident—Housecall Pro achieved the following for my client:

• Streamlined their operations
• Improved their customer service
• Kept them organized as they grew

While Housecall Pro doesn't have the fanciest contact management we've ever seen, they keep it simple and get the job done. I've seen firsthand the difference having a great system in place can make.

Housecall Pro's integration with Local Services by Google is a feature that I found incredibly useful in boosting the online presence and appointment bookings for some of my clients at my digital agency.

Here's a breakdown of why this feature is so awesome:

• Increased visibility on Google: This feature helped to significantly increase the visibility of my clients' businesses on Google, the world's most popular search engine. This resulted in an improved online presence and more customer inquiries.
• Improved credibility: Being featured on Google's Local Services has helped my clients establish credibility among their potential customers. The Google Guarantee badge, which comes as part of being a Local Services advertiser, provided an additional layer of trust.
• More appointment bookings: The integration with Google Local Services also streamlined the appointment booking process. Potential customers could easily book services directly from the search results, which led to an increase in appointment bookings for my clients.
• Trackable results: The feature offered a comprehensive dashboard where clients could track booked jobs, listen to recorded calls, and manage their ad budget effectively. This provided valuable insights that were used to further optimize their online marketing efforts.

This integration of Housecall Pro with Google's Local Services offered a straightforward way to do the following:

• Advertise services
• Connect with potential customers
• Track bookings

Getting paid is the final, crucial step in the service cycle, and Housecall Pro simplifies this process immensely.

Once you've sent your invoices out, it's time to get paid.

Housecall Pro offers a seamless, integrated payment solution through Plaid that enables you to accept payments directly from your customers through the platform.

Here's a sneak peek into the setup process with Plaid.

From there, simply select your bank from an extensive list (shown below)

This feature supports a variety of payment methods, including the following:

• Credit cards
• Debit cards
• Electronic checks

Additionally, Housecall Pro's payment system is PCI compliant, ensuring that all payments are secure and reducing the risk of fraudulent transactions.

Once you've integrated your bank, you can easily track payments, send payment reminders to customers, and automate your bookkeeping.

That leads us to one of the standout features of the platform—the ability to set up recurring payments.

This is a huge time saver if your business operates on a subscription model or offers regular maintenance services.

I've managed several home service clients at my agency that said this feature was essential to their operations.

Here's what they had to say:

• "The recurring payment feature has saved us so much time, and the automated reminders are a godsend!"
• "We never have to worry about collecting payments anymore—the Housecall Pro team takes care of it for us."

With recurring payments, the platform automatically charged their customers at set intervals, eliminating the need for manual invoicing each time.

Moreover, with Housecall Pro, they could also offer their customers the convenience of 'pay now' buttons on invoices and email notifications.

This, combined with the ability to swiftly process refunds if necessary, contributed to a smoother, more professional customer experience.

The bottom line: Not only does Housecall Pro help you bill and invoice with ease—it also enables efficient, hassle-free payment collection, making the entire process as painless as possible.

Housecall Pro helps you create estimates for clients in a matter of minutes!

This feature is incredibly beneficial when you need to give your clients an idea about the potential cost of the services they seek.

Let me share a specific example of a roofing company I assisted, which was grappling with the challenge of producing quick and accurate estimates.

They were still using paper for many of their processes and found it difficult to generate estimates on the spot without an error.

Housecall Pro made that process a breeze!

They were able to generate precise and professional estimates in real time, right at the job site, using just their mobile device.

The estimate included a comprehensive breakdown of costs, making it transparent and easy to understand for their clients.

This feature not only saved the company a significant amount of time but also improved their client relations as they could now provide prompt and accurate estimates on-site.

Furthermore, it helped them streamline their operations as they could accurately forecast the cost and resources for a particular job, helping them budget more effectively.

Here's a screenshot showing an example of an estimate they were able to create (within minutes) using Housecall Pro.

The final verdict: The estimate feature of Housecall Pro is a powerful tool that can transform the way businesses create and manage their estimates, making the process faster, more accurate, and, let's face it—more professional. So, if you're still using a calculator and some paper, it's time to get with the times and give Housecall Pro a try!

The automated marketing feature of Housecall Pro is a true game changer for SMBs.

We were able to test and utilize this tool to streamline and optimize our marketing efforts at SBB.

This feature allowed us to set up and automate various marketing campaigns, making it significantly easier to keep in touch with our customers and ensure they were up to date with our services.

The following are the key features we tested:

Postcard and email marketing: Housecall Pro made it easy for us to send mass emails or postcards to our customers. We created professional and engaging materials in a matter of minutes and then scheduled them to be sent out at specific times.
Reputation management: This tool allowed us to track our online reputation by monitoring and responding to reviews. We found this extremely useful for maintaining a positive online presence and addressing any issues our customers may have had.
Customer reminders: With Housecall Pro, we could automatically send reminders to our customers about upcoming appointments or promotions. This not only improved our communication with customers but also helped to increase our engagement and retention rates.
Targeted marketing campaigns: We were able to segment our customers based on various factors, such as their purchase history or their interaction with our previous campaigns. This allowed us to send targeted marketing messages that were more likely to resonate with specific groups of customers.
Marketing analytics: The platform provided us with robust analytics on our marketing campaigns, helping us understand what was working and what wasn't. This data was invaluable for improving our future marketing efforts.

All in all, we found the automated marketing features of Housecall Pro to be highly effective for improving our marketing strategy and efficiency at SBB.