Hills Waste Solutions reduce manual data workload and improve efficiency with the help of VWS Software Solutions PurGo. The waste management company has fully utilised both the portal and CRM feature to effectively manage business.
Hills Waste Solutions is a family-owned waste management business that has been providing both the private and public sector with waste management and recycling services for more than 50 years. An environmentally conscious company, they are at the forefront of helping to pave the way for a circular economy across the UK, by utilising waste as a resource and working closely with customers to reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfill.
Following a series of presentations and workshop sessions to determine the viability of PurGo, Hills Waste Solutions was impressed with what the waste management software could provide and so began working in partnership with VWS Software Solutions.
Working together, the two companies identified exactly what it was that Hills Waste Solutions needed from their software to enhance their business. This process ensured buy-in to the PurGo Solution across the business and allowed both parties to evaluate any missing functionality with an agreed plan to develop and deliver to an agreed timescale.
- PurGo went live in early January 2018
- Initially across 3 depots – running 43 vehicles with weighbridge operations including ANPR integration
- Now operating PurGo across all depots
PurGo enables customers to effectively manage their business to maximum efficiency and allows for complete management of waste collections and management processes end-to-end. A modular and scalable solution, it has the ability to grow with business, adapting itself to a company’s ever-changing needs.
For Hills Waste Solutions, one of the main benefits of PurGo is the portal which has resulted in a significant reduction in manual data entry, allowing them to better communicate with over 5000 customers. Customer reports, documents, jobs, and weighbridge tickets are all securely located within the portal. Another beneficial feature is that PurGo automatically generates scheduled reports which can either be sent internally or externally – estimated to save several hours each week alone. Hills Waste Solutions has benefitted from saving 16 hours a month just from reducing time spent processing manual reports.
Waste Source, a customer of Hills Waste Solutions, has also benefitted from the efficiency of the portal. “Having access to this portal has significantly increased process efficiencies between Hills Waste Solutions and Waste Source, the data is simple to navigate and manipulate meaning we can get the answers we need quicker, in turn improving our offering to our customer base. As a company with tech at its core, Waste Source welcomes any innovation by our Service Partners to continually find those marginal gains, so that working together, we continue to exceed customer expectations”
Existing sales coverage is displayed on a map in Back Office PurGo which visually presents to Hills Waste Solutions which areas they are yet to target and further develop business opportunities. Recently they rolled out the portal application to one of their top broker clients who regularly require up to date information. Prior to this, they were stuck in an email/telephone relationship which is often time consuming for both businesses.
Neil Robbins, Sales Manager, Hills Waste Solutions: “Moving to the PurGo system has been vital for our growing customer base. The relationship with VWS allows us to make necessary changes to the reporting element of the system to suit our clients’ needs and because they speak the same language as us, the communication lines are always clear”.
There are multiple business benefits to PurGo, but one in particular that Hills Waste Solutions has been impressed with, and is continuously developing their skills on, is the CRM element. They began using the PurGo CRM feature on the 6th of February 2020 after switching from their previous provider. The comprehensive web-based Sales CRM system provides sales teams and managers with a complete set of tools to manage the sales process for both customers and prospects. This ranges from the enquiry stage all the way through to quotations and live conversions of prospects and agreements to the back-office system, whilst offering full contact management functionality. The CRM element has made workload more efficient and time saving than ever before. Employee tasks are easily added to the system, whilst providing managers with complete visibility of sales team activities and pipelines.
The ease of agreements means the waste sales team are able to do this in “live” time while on the phone to the customer, and with an electronic contract option, there is a reduction in paper usage across the company as well as quicker responses from their client base.
As well as providing managers with a clear timetable or sales activities, it also allows for full clarity on what their team are doing on both a daily and weekly basis. The CRM feature means that managers can track and view sales activity from any chosen location whenever necessary.
The transport element of the software allows the depot manager/supervisors to download maps and routes for existing rounds which can then be passed to the sales team in the field. This is vital information as it not only shows the vehicle route for infill, it also shows the existing customers which allows an up-sell opportunity. By running reports on specific customers or waste streams, the sales team can highlight customers with regularly overweight containers and can offer sensible solutions so they can manage their waste better.
With the waste industry constantly becoming more technologically advanced, PurGo has truly modernised Hills Waste Solutions and has assisted them in implementing more efficient work methods.
The company has become digitalised through its use of PurGo and has been able to place a much larger focus on the sales side of business, which ultimately has led to cost savings for Hills Waste Solutions.
Going forward, Hills Waste Solutions is eager to begin streamlining the sales process by transferring jobs to individual tablets, which will allow for flexibility and a more mobile approach to working. They will soon be rolling out the Portal to a further 10 customers, in order to access both job and weighbridge tickets.
The support and response time from VWS Software Solutions has been incredible, and as a whole, Hills Waste Solutions has been able to run a smoother operations process across its operational area.
Joe Barnes, Sales Director, VWS Software Solutions: “We at VWS Software Solutions are delighted to be working in partnership with Hills Waste Solutions. Our close working relationship has assisted in the development of PurGo and we look forward to the continued growth of both businesses as a result”.
