Ignite® Mobile delivers efficiency upgrade for United Oil Heat
With 13 trucks on the road making dozens of deliveries each, Wes Madan of United Oil Heat in Massachusetts had a problem on his hands. Older technology – mechanical meters and printed tickets – was costing his drivers several minutes per stop. That time added up to nearly two extra hours on a typical winter’s day.
“Our company leads the way in many areas of technology, but we were behind the curve when it came to invoicing and processing deliveries,” says Wes Madan, owner of United Oil Heat. “Then I got a call from Todd Kipperman of Blue Cow Software.”
Todd introduced Wes to the Ignite® Mobile app, which is a component of Blue Cow’s comprehensive Ignite® Ecosystem of energy management and financial software. “Five minutes into Todd’s demo I was sold,” says Wes. “Ignite® Mobile reduced everything we were doing from 15 steps down to one step.”
“Our drivers had been calculating a delivery volume by hand, printing out a ticket, taking a picture of the ticket, then emailing it back to the office for processing. Ignite® Mobile eliminated all of that.”
Not only did Ignite® Mobile speed the delivery process it made things faster and easier for United Oil Heat’s office staff. The app automatically posts each invoice and bills the customer’s credit card the next day. This has reduced processing daily time from several hours to 15 minutes or less.
“The biggest proponents of Ignite® Mobile have been our drivers,” says Wes. “They get to focus on the delivery and not all the other work we had them doing. And it is so easy to use that even our older drivers took to it in no time.”
Because United Oil Heat implemented Ignite® Mobile in May, too late to see the full benefits during the heart of a heating season, Wes Madan is eager to see temperatures drop. “I can’t wait to get into the winter,” he says. “I think we’re going to save about $9,000 a year in delivery tickets alone!”