Jacob Buschmann, System Administrator for Matt’s Moving, has been looking for ways to automate the business for a while. 

“We've been trying to automate as much as possible to clear everyone's plate a little bit and to eliminate that human error factor as well," he says.

So when Supermove launched a new Automations feature that lets customers build automatic, custom processes, Jacob didn’t waste a second on diving in and automating some of the high-volume, repetitive tasks that his sales team deals with every day.

“With the sales nature of the work we perform, we end up sending a lot of messages to people, and sending messages really quickly is important as well.”

In under two hours, Jacob built out five workflows that automate hundreds of sales emails. This automation is helping the Matt’s Moving team quickly and automatically respond to leads (even if the quote acceptance comes in after hours), collect inventory more efficiently, and shave minutes off these otherwise repetitive, manual tasks.

And while minutes might not seem like a lot, Jacob expects this to have a big impact come busy season.

“During the summer, we run about 25 trucks at any given time. And we're fully booked during the summer with one to two jobs a day for most of our trucks. So we're running maybe 30 to 50 jobs a day depending on the day. And we stay very booked during the summer– our reps have several hundred leads come in a day and we're pulling in 15 bookings per rep at five reps. So we have a lot of traffic.”

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That summer traffic has historically translated to a LOT of emails– between securing the job, getting inventory, and sending out confirmations and reminders.  

“Any sort of automation that we can do really helps save time. So as Workflows develop and we can use them to cut down on time in other areas that's gonna be huge this summer. I'm looking forward to it."

Events and actions: The basic building blocks of Automations

Jacob admits that his background in computer science helped him dive into Workflows with confidence, but he says you definitely don’t need a technical background to get it.

“I feel like just getting in there and messing with it is probably the best way to figure it out. I really didn't find it super complicated. It seemed really self-explanatory.”

He says the biggest thing to know before starting to build, is the difference between events (also called triggers) and actions.

An event/trigger is something that happens in Supermove. This can be things like a quote being sent or accepted, a confirmation being sent, confirmed, or skipped, a virtual walkthrough being submitted, etc. 

An action is what you would like to automatically happen after that event– this can be actions like creating or archiving a task, delaying (this lets you build in time to your workflows), or stopping a workflow. 

Example: When: [Event] "A new project is created", Do: [Action] "Assign a task to the salesperson".

You can see a full list of events and actions in the Supermove help center. This list will also continue to grow as we build out more automation in the software.

5 sales automations you can scoop from Matt’s Moving today

Below are five workflows that Matt’s Moving is using to expedite lead follow-up, inventory capture, and bookings, and automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks ahead of busy season (note that these are just the structure of the Workflows— you still need to build out relevant email templates as well).

1. Confirmation resend: Automatically remind customers to confirm their move

If a customer hasn't signed the confirmation 3 days after it was originally sent, the confirmation form will be resent automatically. When it’s signed, the workflow stops.

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2. Date almost full: Create urgency with customers

If the quote has not been "accepted" (by clicking continue on the quote doc) in 10 days, resend the quote with a new email stating availability is limited and the date is almost full.

*Note this is NOT tied to the dates actually being locked and is just assuming dates will fill up if quotes are not accepted within 10 days.

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3. Move inquiry: Respond to every lead automatically

When a new lead comes in, send an email immediately with the inventory form link to be filled out.

*Note this does NOT fill out the supermove inventory form. The form still has to be copied by sales into Supermove to get weights.

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4. Quote accepted: Get jobs booked and deposits paid faster

Sends an email 1 day after the quote was accepted asking the customer to call the office to pay the move deposit and book the job.

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5. Quote follow-up: Get quote confirmations quickly and efficiently

Sends an email follow-up including the quote link 1 day after it was initially sent if the quote has not been confirmed. 

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If you're already a Supermove customer and want to dive into Workflows, get in touch with your CSM or our support team. If you aren't a customer yet and you’re interested in building some automation into your business ahead of busy season, contact Supermove or check out our quick demo of Workflows from our Product Manager, Anita.

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