FileMaker Pro: The Clean Solution

The Kleening Business

RideKleen is a national mobile car wash and fleet management company. They leverage proprietary technology to conveniently offer eco-friendly cleaning processes to both their fleet and corporate customers. Their nimble team of managers and leaders are able to provide efficient, reliable and quality service to customers large and small while fulfilling an altruistic purpose of preserving the environment and serving the community.

The process is simple: customers schedule cleanings, a Kleen Team member performs the services and then shares before and after photos as proof of performance. In theory, the workflow is straightforward and simple, but developing the technology to manage the process wasn’t so easy in the beginning.

In 2016 we started a project with a software development company to build a fleet management system for our B2B clients. It was estimated that the project would take about 6 months to complete. After about 10 months of work and an unusable program, I turned to The Support Group for help with taking over the project and delivering a system that functioned. Within 3–4 months, they were able to not only allow us to roll out a minimum viable product, but we also implemented features that were not part of the original project scope. They took the time to meet with me to understand the purpose of our system and what we were trying to accomplish for both our internal management team and our clients. I am proud to say that our KleenCare Technology is allowing us to scale our business to a new level across the country with all our major clients, and The Support Group continues to deliver implementations of all new phases for technology builds as we grow.

– Pratik Patel, Founder/CEO

The Dirt

As with most businesses, data management and paper records are a challenge when it comes to managing operations efficiently. The RideKleen service basically sold itself, but business development was limited by time and communication. Communicating and tracking services were manual tasks. If RideKleen wanted to expand their business, they understood that they would have to create a more efficient way of scheduling and documenting their services.

RideKleen approached The Support Group to help them improve their workflows quickly and within a reasonable budget. The TSG developers went to work on designing their system, which combined a few different FileMaker products and development technologies: FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go and Custom Web Publishing.

First, we completed a mobile sync process using a custom syncing solution. The mobile application is an important part of the system because it allows the Kleen Team members to be more productive as far as creating, managing and completing jobs, whether in the office or on-site at a client location.

We enhanced their custom solution with custom web publishing capabilities to manage their customer interactions, primarily work completion notifications and photo confirmations. As you can expect, photos add considerable weight to a system and our custom web publishing solution was strategically designed to optimize system performance so that productivity was not adversely impacted.

After we fulfilled the basic requirements of the application, we improved the user experience by customizing the mobile application for the Kleen Team members. For example, the system automatically filters jobs based on the user’s login credentials so they can quickly access and manage the jobs that are relevant to them. A seemingly small, but very useful maneuver to maximize their time and allow them to focus on servicing customers.

And yet, we did not stop there. Understanding that convenience is an important service attribute to RideKleen, the custom web solution allows corporate customers to schedule and pay for cleanings when it is convenient for them. Previously, only fleet customers were able to schedule cleanings. Corporate customers had to wait for announcements of when RideKleen would be on-site and then try to schedule cleanings during limited windows of opportunity. The new customer interface is not only a service enhancement, but it automatically facilitates communication with customers.

KleenCare Technology

There are three distinct user groups of this application: RideKleen customers, team leaders and managers. Custom Web Publishing facilitates the interaction between corporate customers and RideKleen Team Leaders. Corporate clients can quickly and easily schedule cleanings, monitor the progress of scheduled jobs, view completed jobs and process payment for services. The system features a familiar calendar-like interface for scheduling and a backend database of vehicles makes it easy for users to select their cars so that manual data entry is minimized. Fleet customers use a similar interface, with slightly different functionality. They are able to access records of completed jobs, but they are also able to easily update and/or upload vehicle information for their fleet of cars. All RideKleen customers are able to share feedback about the service via a simple rating system and open dialogue box.

RideKleen Corporate Customer Interface

RideKleen Fleet Customer Interface

Kleen Team members use the tool while they’re in the field to schedule jobs, fulfill the services and distribute completion notifications and confirmations. One feature of the mobile app that they particularly appreciate is the barcode scanner, which allows them to scan a vehicle identification number as opposed to manually entering the 17-character unique identifier. This saves time and ensures accuracy.

The back end of the system is where RideKleen managers and team leaders manage clients, jobs, vehicle information and schedules. Administrative users are also able to run reports to help evaluate business operations:

• Number of services provided by location
• Team Leader ratings
• Billing

Sparkle and Shine

Since the implementation of the applications, RideKleen Team Leaders are able to spend more time on business development opportunities. Because they are able to effectively communicate and manage jobs through a centralized tool, they’ve expanded their service area geography to service more vehicles and customers.

RideKleen takes pride in the integrity of their service. Customer satisfaction is key and the feedback provided by customers via the tool is carefully reviewed and management responds promptly if there are any complaints.

A Bright Future

RideKleen is an innovative company and in order to keep the custom app on par with the vision of management, we proactively recommend new ways to improve the experience for the various user groups. We are currently working on enhancing the reporting functionality of the application in order to further optimize business growth.

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Originally published at blog.supportgroup.com.