Service Autopilot

Top tier software

Pros:

I wouldn't have seen a tremendous improvement in my company without this powerful software. The full functional automations makes things very easy and productive very high.

Cons:

It's a little bit complicated to use as a beginner. Helpful videos need more watching time to get used to using some tools. I think the pricing is a way too expensive.

Too in depth

Comments: Terrible. Everything seemed like it would be great when talking to people before signing up. Once we signed up, we were basically on our own. Even when we called to cancel, no one offered to get help right away, they just let us go.

Pros:

I liked that it had a map to measure properties

Cons:

It’s way too extensive and we had to wait 4 weeks for our first training session, so we were on our own for the first month. There are plenty of training videos but no one to explain them or show us how to put them to use. It was confusing and difficult to even get our logo on an email. Templates are very confusing how to use them and we finally gave up and switched to LawnPro. Very easy to use and inexpensive. Not as many bells and whistles as Service AutoPilot, but definitely enough to get the job done well.

Do NOT sign up, Service Autopilot is criminal.

Comments: Online sign-up was easy. We tried the software out for several months, and don't have any particular complaints about the product itself. We ultimately decided to end our subscription due to it not being a good fit for our company at the time. Canceling was immensely frustrating. There's no way to end your subscription either in-app or online; you have to call-in to customer service, which we did. By the way, the "click-to-subscribe, call to cancel" subscription model is illegal according to the FTC. Then, 4 months later, I discovered that Service Autopilot had continued billing us. Again, we called to cancel, and requested a refund for those 4 months. That didn't cut it for Service Autopilot. They requested another phone call so that they could again receive "verbal confirmation of your (cancellation) request," for "security reasons." Of course, at this point we'd already given them such at least twice. They also demanded that we fill out and return a cancellation form, though they were seemingly incapable of sending it to our simple gmail address. The form never got sent, but thankfully the billing was stopped. We still haven't gotten our due refund. Every time I get close, the customer service agent assigned to my ticket ghosts me. I will be soon serving Service Autopilot papers, out of principal. Shame on this company for it's deceptive, abusive, and parasitic actions against the small businesses of America. I'll see you in court.

Pros:

Online sign-up was easy. We tried the software out for several months, and don't have any particular complaints about the product itself. We ultimately decided to end our subscription due to it not being a good fit for our company at the time.

Cons:

Canceling was immensely frustrating. There's no way to end your subscription either in-app or online; you have to call-in to customer service, which we did. By the way, the "click-to-subscribe, call to cancel" subscription model is illegal according to the FTC.

Working out soms kinks

Comments: This totally eliminates paper route sheets. Helps with end-of-month billing streamlining although not perfect.

Pros:

Auto billing, tracking of jobs dispatched, dispatching jobs, APp for foreman works well, work tracking, time tracking are good

Cons:

Has issues with QuickBooks sync, has some glitches when it comes to adding jobs in the field, very little mobile capability from an owner stand point

A game changer for the service industry

Comments: Great company to work with, amazing customer service, and they are always working on devoloping new fetures with new techonlogy. Highly recomdended.

Pros:

The system is very customizable. You can export all your data at any time and run excel reports if you choose to, however the internal reports are very detailed. This program will save any service business huge headaces by automating your service business. Service autopilot handles routing, invoicing, marketing, CRM and accouting seamlessly. It also handles large sales volumes efortlessly. As it runs on the cloud, it can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Very happy with this program.

Cons:

Be prepared to spend extra time setting up your account the way you like it. This is a huge plus, because you only have to do it once, and after that, you will get huge time savings.

Stop and smell the roses

Comments: It's been a headache but because we spent so much time and money implementing this program we are stuck with it for a long time.

Pros:

It's easy to accept payments and bill out of the program

Cons:

Not that easy to schedule client appointments. Lots of steps and multiple windows to do one task. If you want continuity in your accounting think twice about this program. The accounting aspect is terrible and when you call for support you always get "well this is why we are not an accounting software." There are some really easy fixes that could be done to help get this program to be more accounting friendly like communicating with Quickbooks to show credits, refunds, etc. You end up with two programs that don't "talk" well with each other. If you want to see detailed customer history for service calls then forget about it.

Overall, we like the price / feature / values and have been using several years.

Pros:

It does the most of the basics and has an awesome upside. Like the cloud based, the vision of it, and potential to make a huge difference. The customer service is pretty good and responsive.

Cons:

It is somewhat buggy but had gotten a lot better. They work on it a lot to improve. The reports have a lot to be desired. It would be nice to have ToDo and Job notifications / texts based on time / date. Tracking and feedback on suggestions for improvements and requests would be nice.

The best solution on the market. period.

Pros:

This program is the best thing to ever happen to my company. It is extremely user-friendly and incredibly efficient to use. The team at Service Autopilot have put major thought into creating a superior product, that actually automates many aspects of my business.

I switched from a different scheduling software to Service Autopilot.

Comments: I can track almost everything about my business in Service Autopilot.

Pros:

I like that I don't need different software to handle different functions. Service Autopilot handles almost everything. Employee time clock, GPS, scheduling, CRM, estimates, job communications, automations and more.

Cons:

It can become expensive as mobile users are added. It can be difficult to learn because it is complex. Once you understand the system, it is not difficult to use.

Central time zone phone support only, support times not good for those who do field work in Cali

Comments: Tried to use this for small landscaping business but did not contain the functionality I needed to export employee time gracefully into quickbooks - they had a complicated "work around" but I need it to be smooth and simple. Company wants to form their own payroll solution rather than work with QB - understandable given QB's issues, but it doesn't work with my workflow.

Pros:

Many options available for customizing the software. Unfortunately implementing and understanding it all is a full time job, so if you only want or need part of the functionality, look to a simpler solution like dropbox or tsheets.

Cons:

Crashed quickbooks, took 2.5 days to import all of my quickbooks info had bugs and errors in setup the start up info is all in video format, and it's slow, conversational, and takes a long time to get info this way. Tried calling support numerous times but it seems they'd always just closed by the time I arrived home. numerous marketing emails for their conventions, despite unsubscribing twice to the emails they STILL kept coming for months. They made canceling more difficult than I felt it should be.

Well.....what can I say.

Comments: Without this company my life wouldn't be what it is today. Its truly made my business and my life easier in so many ways. I used to have thousands in collections, now in 2019....$0.00 Yep, nothing because we charge credit cards and an automation collects a new card when they get declined, by itself! While I am doing other things making money :) One more thing I want to mention is that anything that this software lacks is surely coming in the future although I cannot think of anything. One of the founders has experience building a multi-million dollar service business so think about it, do you think he might know a thing or two about whats needed to build a business like yours? He struggled and got through it and now this business has thousands of clients!!! I started writing this review because I was helped so much by them the last few weeks I was moved to share it with you on this site. I hope someone finds this helpful.

Pros:

I love everything. I use all their features and each one does an amazing job of saving me time and helps me better serve my clients. 1. The people are amazing, absolutely amazing! 2. I charge ALL my clients by credit card and I get paid the NEXT DAY! I select all the invoices for the week and click charge cards, and done. Merchant fees are the lowest they have ever been. 3. Automations feature is priceless for me. Here are a few examples of how it helps me. -I have an automation that once a new client is created, I send them automatically by the way, a welcome email, a faq letter, and a pack of brownies with a welcome card in the mail. -After a spring a fall cleanup i notify my clients by text or email that its been completed, they love it -Renewals used to be so streesful! Now an automation makes the offer in the spring and they click or retun a text back to my office text message number through service autopilot. If they don't answer, no worries, SA follows up with them. I mean come ON! AWESOME RIGHT? Yep :) 4. I use their quickbooks sync so when I get my taxes done all my accountant has to do is log in and all the info is there for him. I could go on and on its great take a look or give them a call they are so nice.

Cons:

Psh just stop showing off you know? Sometimes it just gets old. Service Autopilot, you're like the guy at the gym with his shirt off asking everyone if his 12 pack abs make him look fat....come on. Your the best, no question but maybe release new features a little slower so you don't come off so intimidating. Dominate the competition? of course, humiliate them? You really shouldn't. How do you guys think you make all the other software companies feel? Have some compassion, show some humility! Sorry I went off like that but this has been bothering me for years and needed to get it off my chest...

If you have a few hundred customers, expect to spend 10-15 hours per week correcting its mistakes.

Comments: Much easier than using a spreadsheet and hand inputting info into invoices and estimates.

Pros:

The estimate, invoice templates and customization for letters is awesome. Other companies need to take a look at making easily customizable forms for invoicing and estimates. The software is excellent for emailing detailed estimates and letters. Converting leads/estimates into active customers is very simple. The pricing matrix conversions (size or piece per job into prices) is extraordinarily well done. Honestly, the software setup shows a ton of promise. I believe it could easily be the best out there if they would fix the basics listed below.

Cons:

They do not have the basics down. Payments that are applied to balances are constantly unassociating from accounts. I spend 10-15 hours per week rechecking this error which causes serious billing problems and has cost me customers. Payment check boxes also tend to dissociate every once in a while. I spend another several hours per week on routing because single accounts cannot be pulled. If I have to add a customer into the route for that day the entire days work has to respool for printing. This takes up to 2 minutes to load and then another minute or two to scroll through the pages to print the necessary work. Routing, Call Logs, and To Do's are all scheduled for route printing. This costs a ton of time sorting it all out and paper costs add up quickly. My business (lawn care fertilizing and pest control) runs on renewing accounts each year. There is no way to auto-renew and send updated pricing and service schedules to existing customers. Each year I have had to input entirely new estimates for every active customer and send them individually. I then have to delete the prior years services and convert the estimate (pre-pay letter) into a whole new package. For a few hundred customers this process takes 90 hours! Customer information is split up between multiple screens and the jobs history for each has to be manually looked up by pulling up prior invoices. Support answers the phone but has not fixed even one of these issues nor has answers.

Do not purchase waste of time and money

Comments: Hello I started with service auto Piliot in March 2014. I had extremely high hopes and what they offer or said they offer I thought was exactly what was needed to run business. Wow was I wrong and they are a joke. I paid $108/ month for March April May. I cancelled end of May. Called Credit card company and disputing charges for fraud.
They stated for fee a website they would build. I had info to them in 5 days of sign up on March 8. May 27 I finally was able to review the website. Let's say I had 5 people provide opinions. 1 said ridiculous a 4 year old could do better. 2 just stated you have been had. Get money back.your site is a joke. The last called me in such disgust and wanted the company information cause he felt they were a fraud of a company and wants to make sure this happens to no one else. The site stated we mowed lawns and next sentence asked to call to have swim pool opened. One area stated to check out our lawn care services and then listed swimming pool services. The pictures and format is something from th 80's. I do have screen shots and they stated its first one with this new format. I tell you this site would not have been acceptable for any company and back in times when we all used dial up. It was that sub par.
The accounting services. I watched what felt like hours of videos and you will cause its set up that way. The gentleman who does them rambles on and on says the same thing over and over and what he accomplished in 19 min of video He could have done in 5. I spent hours and hours learning and finished criteria they ask you to do so you can have your one on one training session with a tech. I asked so many times to get my one on one I was begging by May. Each Time a new video of step to complete. I finally screamed I am paying for this I will sign a form if I waste my one on one training phone call I will not ask for another one. ( they stated they do not do the one on one training unless you complete certain steps cause they do not want you to waste) That did not work and no one on one. I can go on and on. It looks to me like they have a great base system and now are using it to make money to figure out how to implement to different fields of work. They offer websites and have no clue how to make one and the wording was poorly done. I beg of all you business owners. I truly wanted this to work. I sent clients letters raving about our new system, client portal and website. I wasted 3 months and now have to start over

After almost 5 years calling it quits

Comments: We started using this in 2015. Many of the features that were rolled out since are not useable by us, or are too expensive for the value. Known bugs have not been worked out, such as the 5+ year problem with download XLS files on a Mac. The biggest problem is that the mobile app hasn't been restructured in the time we have used it. Even in 2015, the mobile app was nearly unusable, and it really hasn't changed. The potential for making mistakes in scheduling jobs is high. These user mistakes can lead to jobs simply disappearing, or unable to be found. We run a fast and furious company, and software needs to be bulletproof and easy to use; but Service Autopilot takes a lot of concentration and time to be sure you are doing things correctly. It is a complex piece of software, and has many awesome features. But if the features don't work properly, then. it is unusable. In fact, their latest release, V3, is a disaster. The interface is unforgivingly bewildering. We have tried to use this software effectively, but can no longer wait for the 5 years old bugs to be fixed.

Pros:

Full set of features, complex customizations, good form builder; complex scheduling; great customer service;

Cons:

Poor execution of good features; atrocious mobile app; buggy interface; slow loading interface; downloaded xls reports don't work with OSX or iOS; style sheets look 20 years old; frustrating to work with in the field ; Service Autopilot is partially owned by a payments company that does not have a competitive fee structure for small companies.

After a season, I'm not sold, but still willing to give it another chance.

Comments: We started using this program this season. Previously we tried another system that was atrocious to implement. SA has been much better, but also has some serious issues. First major problem: We offer 2% 10 day discount, have for over a decade. There is no accounting setting for this in SA. I can accept payments into SA and add it as a line item with another 4-5 steps per payment. It's not a savings of time, or effort. If I enter the payment through QB Pro with the discount, SA does not recognize the discount and the customer has a past due balance. This can later be "adjusted" with more steps.
Second major problem: If you use QB Pro for accounting (purchasing material for jobs or using it out of inventory, and assigning the expense as billable to the customer) you can not easily add the billable charges from the QB Pro side and have it sync to the the SA side. YOU MUST MANUALLY SYNC EVERY TIME before switching from QB Pro to SA and vise versa if you are adjusting invoices to avoid losing data. This program is mostly good for tracking time. It has good features and is pretty easy to navigate. Customer service has been very good and helpful. We have not been able to reach our goal of eliminating paper records from the trucks, but still intend to do so, perhaps with SA involved. It's still too easy to lose data with SA in the trucks. I plan to continue working with the software to see if we can indeed get it where we need it to be during the slow season. An observation about the company: The culture of SA is to push more products (acadamy, sync, training convention, etc...) and the constant statement that you need to "follow their program" in order to be successful. This is the only way you can do so. And the new products/ services keep coming, but I still see the same glitches in the core program. Maybe they should follow through with the original and make it a little stronger before chasing the next rainbow. .... I just keep getting the feeling like when I used to deal with a big bank. They want you to be so entangled with multiple accounts, programs, etc.. that even when you want to, it becomes difficult to extract your business from them.

Pros:

time tracking converts to invoicing

Cons:

Very weak on the accounting side. Minor glitches in the drop down boxes are annoying.

From a few clients to a thousand, this CRM software will change your business!!

Comments: My overall experience with Service Autopilot was good, it just didn't provide everything I needed as we transitioned more into pest control.

Pros:

I really liked the ability to communicate with my clients and the expansive user interface.

Cons:

The main con was that there was no way to integrate the current weather conditions into my reports.

Great ideas and features, too many issues

Comments: After submitting a solid dozen or so "Trouble tickets" for them to look into "Fixing" issues.... nothing ever comes of them. Its become quite the joke. It gets old. They are always pushing new features, in order to up the amount they can charge. They are fairly expensive compared to many others, but I was willing to pay whatever I needed to, in order to run an efficient company. With all of the issues they have, they fall flat. Oh, and they are upping their prices again in 2 months. I can't even justify the thousands I pay them already per year! So we are changing companies. Hopefully we will have better luck this go around.

Pros:

Feature packed, routing, assigning jobs to crews, client data etc

Cons:

Theres too many to count. Its become a joke around the office. The software is glitchy, and after 3 years of using it, we continue to find issue after issue. Payments that were entered somehow vanished, basic things such as being able to search for payments or other data is sometimes lacking as well. They seem to be in a HUGE rush to push the latest NEW FEATURE, that they never get any of the old features solidified. The snow plowing side of the software is completely different than the lawn side, which is very odd and requires learning 2 different ways of creating routes and dispatching crew etc.

Service-Software Dominant Player

Comments: Service Autopilot has not just been another CRM to hold customer information and track sales. As a $5MM+ service company with a database of over 55k contacts and their related records, choosing the right software company to transition to was very critical. We had long outgrown our previous CRM and until Service Autopilot we had almost given up on finding a real solution that would fulfil our needs to help us continue to grow and improve our system in the process. Service Autopilot has brought the whole spectrum of a service business together in an easy-to-use format for us. From incoming leads to re-marketing to previous customers and everything that happens in between Service Autopilot is a complete solution that saves times, increases efficiencies and pays for itself. Their awareness of the swift technological changes, attentiveness to member's needs and rapid/timely upgraded solutions is what separates them as the dominant player in the service-software market. In addition, everyone from the support staff to the leadership team of Service Autopilot has proven to be extremely receptive and helpful to provide answers and solutions to its member's needs. This is one of the most valued partnerships we have ever established and are looking forward to a long-lasting relationship as we both grow together.

Pros:

The fact that it seamlessly moves every activity of a lead from one phase to the next, from an incoming lead generated through an advertising campaign all the way through the sales process, follow-up, scheduling, invoicing, payment to re-marketing and upselling.

Cons:

The reporting has admittedly been their weakness, but they have recently dedicated more resources to improving and adding reports as requested and needed.

Great Software Some Caveats

Comments: Overall a good software with some excellent people in the company. They just need to slow down enough to ensure transitions from other software is done accurately, focus on service and resolving known issues before adding more features. I would choose this software again.

Pros:

- Automations (sending automated messages for marketing/collection etc.) - Automated arrival preferences (again, part of what they call Automations -Able to text clients from software - Setting up To Do's for employees - One report - Job Costing - has potential to make price increase easier to evaluate for under-performing accounts - Time saved entering leads

Cons:

- Closed API - so make sure you want to own and be owned by this one software - Not able to get support on your schedule (wait for a call back which may happen when you can't take the call) - Fast growth and race to add features seems to have created a back log on issues - Can't open a client account right from the calendar - Issues with the Quickbooks Online synch - Scrolling through a client's receivables is wonky (you have to click to load more transactions)

Complete let down

Comments: No idea why some of these major bugs havent been worked out and why the current system hasnt been tweaked.

Pros:

I like the estimate presentation, how customers can e-sign estimates, the forms feature except for all the glitchiness on the app

Cons:

Software is over engineered. Help features skip a lot of info when going through the steps that I had to figure out myself. NOT user friendly at all. Almost impossible and extremely time consuming trying to teach this to office staff. Ive spent countless waisted hours trying to figure out why something in the system doesnt and if you dont do something the right way then its game over. Its actually 11 at night and I've spent 3 hours just trying to figure out why the hell a job that I just dispatched is missing ONE task and all the jobs that did show up on the dispatch board have no job notes attached after I went back 6 times to try and fix it through multiple different ways of scheduling a job, so now I have a crew that has no idea what they need to do tomorrow. When you ask for help the support can rarely give you a straight answer of how to do something because it seems like the system has them stumped as well. Great idea for a system for the landscape business but someone did not think this all the way through, Im very skeptical about the new version coming out but we will see. Very disappointed.

Awesome Product and Company!!!

Comments: I have been using Service Auto Pilot since November of 2012. Setting up Service Auto Pilot:
We set this product up in the winter of 2013 and spent a few weeks doing this. I would highly recommend doing this in the off season. You have to be disciplined and watch the videos. Don't try to set up everything. Try it and use it. You will learn more using it and it is very easy to make changes as you go. We are three years in and we make changes all the time to improve our time management. Customer Service:
This is one of the bright spots of this business! These folks always respond and have spent hours with me and our staff as we learned all of the features of this product. They have helped us set up our invoices, estimates, packages, and services. They are really 2nd to none and I can't say enough about how much they have done for us. This product would be worthless without their customer service and they realize this. They have delivered in this area a hundred times over. How we use the product:
We email all estimate and invoices.
We charge credit cards for 95% of our business all done through the system.
We send all route sheets to our crews daily and if we need to change them they get an update in the field.
We are able to track and see what properties our crews have completed in real time.
We can send advertising emails to all of our customers with a few clicks and in less than 5 minutes.
We can track phone calls and keep important information about our customers for future reference in the customer file.
Our customers can log in to their Service Auto Pilot account and change their credit card info, see their invoices, and request services. All of this is tracked in the system and notifies our staff when this happens.
All of this is cloud based which means that I can work anywhere in the world. Many days I work from my car in the field as I meet my customers and work with my crews. I could go on and on about this product. In the past 2 years we have added over 400 customers. This product didn't do that but it has made adding that many customers easier and quite frankly it would have been impossible without a product like this.

Lacking in features

Comments: Any time I have a question and need assistance, I have always been able to easily access customer support. The majority of their staff seem very knowledgeable regarding what the software is capable of doing.

Pros:

Service Autopilot is relatively easy to use & does have the app feature that makes it even more easily accessed.

Cons:

There are many features that have been changed with "upgrades" that have taken away from the product. There are also features that should be no-brainers as far as employee schedules that are just not available. The lack of features creates more work on the HR end of our business.

Service Autopilot Makes Crew Management A Breeze

Comments: We started using Service Autopilot in January 2016. Service Autopilot has been a wonderful tool for streamlining the maintenance aspects of our business from scheduling to billing. The integrated mapping service makes it a breeze to modify existing routes. Scheduling changes are accomplished with just a few clicks. I love the budgeted vs actual job hours feature as it allows us to see which jobs and or crews are most profitable. My favorite feature is that billing is literally done with the push of a button. No more long weekends or translating spreadsheets to send out invoices! The mobile app has been an invaluable tool for logging labor in real time and tracking crew location. I love the United States based customer service. The Service Autopilot customer support unit is always courteous and knowledgeable. Additionally, there are online training videos available which are always continually updated. Service Autopilot made implementation of their software as easy as possible with their extremely helpful and patient launch and implementation staff.
I look forward to learning more features of Service Autopilot to help make our company even more profitable in 2017!
Renee Linkner
Lawnovations
Office Manager
Tulsa OK

Pros:

Dispatching Crew Management Mobile Reporting

Good software

Pros:

Dispatching, time clock, QB on line integration I hear is coming now, tracking when it use to work, affordable and for the most part easy to use

Cons:

The app no longer gives GPS tracking of the employee or the location of their trucks, now when we download the app on the iPad it no longer requests to use the app location, this is a much needed feature for us and will probably cause to find new software as SA can't seem to give us an answer as to why this is no longer requesting their location, on our iPads that we have not reinstalled the app it still requests their location.

Anyone in the market for a Lawn & Landscape Application must use this software!!!!!!!!

Comments: We are thrilled and love the software and its functionality. Most people don't understand the full capability of the software compared to the cost. Its very minimal money for alot of capability. We have personally gone through 4 other software programs in search of the right fit for us. SERVICE AUTOPILOT was it. From implementation to tech support we love our SA family.

Pros:

Two way sync with Quickbooks, the batch credit card function, dispatching and great mobile app, pretty much everything.

Cons:

I wish I could TEXT multiple people at one time, but its probably possible I just dont know how too.