Larry,
I look at the offer of a 30 day money back guarantee for The Customer Factor as a free demo… or am I just not understanding what free demo means. I don’t really want to go to my computer maintenance dude to clean off a bunch of downloaded files. Just saying… you have turned me off to even looking at the program for comparison.
Great success to you and your business.
Jon Brown
Grime to Shine Window Cleaning
Hey Larry you used to have a downloadable version of your product a few years back. I remember it was crashing on Vista and then you seemed to move to the online version. Any chance you might be pushing out a downloadable client anytime? I don’t like to host my information as I’m stuck with the techs knoweldge of maintaining a DB and or server depending if the company is even maintaining it’s own dedicated server in a colo. When I tried your older downloadable client I love it on XP. I still maintain boxes in my house that run XP but would not like to buy something that can ONLY run on an XP box. So any client versions in the pipeline?
On a side note for people who build these types of products. Take a look at this company https://www.adkad.com/ There products are for lawncare and snow removal. I have tried the demos and they are spot on what a window cleaner would need. One price gets unlimited installs of the product on unlimited systems. But again the company makes this product for lawncare only. If they switched it to a general route service type business I would buy it. There is a full working demo on the site.
Sorry I see you are still offering Shine SC. I’ll check it out again on a vista and 7 box.
link??
I did a lot of research before making my final decision of which program would be right for me and my company. By a lot I mean, I searched for 4 months and learned a lot about the features each did and did not do. Taking the price into consideration, but not being lead by it. Programs I looked at cost anywhere for $3000 plus additional fees for each, customer support, multiple users, and yearly updates, to the least expensive $150.00 a year which was Remote Shine.
I choose TCF over all the others for many reasons, some of which I would like to share.
[B][U]# 1, [/U][/B], and probably the most important to me: Steve at TCF was the ONLY company that I called which I did not have to leave a message and wait for a call back, which was returned 2 to 3 days later by all the companies I called. Steve actually picked up the phone when I called, took time to LISTEN, and answer all of my many questions in detail. Even thoroughly explained how the program works and walked me through some of its features which I had questions about. (Which to me is even better than an online demo.)
That told me that his customer support, when learning the program would be there when I needed it. I would not have to leave a message and wait for a call back. I would also like to add that I was correct in that fact. Since signing up, I have called Steve several times with questions and all but twice Steve has answered the phone and helped us with our question on the spot. The two times he didn’t immediately answer, he called back within the half an hour. PRICELESS TO ME!!
When inquiring about some of the things I was looking for a software program to do, if TCF didn’t have it at this time, (which were only a few things) Steve valued my thoughts, and wrote down my suggestions as features to add in the future. He really listens to what his customers are looking for in their software and works to give them what they want. Being in sales myself for several years, I have learned that selling is about listening to your customers, and providing them with what is important to them, not what you think should be important to them. Thank you Steve for making me feel important by listening to me and valuing my thoughts and needs.
I like that I can do everything from one program in TCF. From a new estimate, turning that estimate into a customer, scheduling the job, assigning it to a truck, (and or Tech), creating an invoice for the job, paying the invoice at the end of the day, and setting them up for a recall automatically. As well as enter my expenses for the day. And I must say, it is so user friendly even someone like myself who has been using a paper system can usually easily figure out how to do everything. Or call for support if you are stumped.
What TCF has that no other program I looked at has including Remote Shine is an expenses feature. Which can be integrated with Quick Books if you choose, but does not require you to if you dont want to have two separate programs to work in. I personally like that it is all in one spot, and that I can do expenses at the end of the day right there. ALL of the other programs I looked at (including Remote Shine) required you to use another program such as quick books for your expenses. So add that to the cost of the program you choose.
It also gives you a daily running, P&L statement. That you can print at the ease of one simple click should you need to, or simply see it at a glance.
TCF has reports that allows me to track my advertizing results and my conversion rate. Which helps me know what is working and what is not.
Since we have a daily production amount that we strive to meet, I like that on the daily calendar, I can see at a glance how much is scheduled for each day, and how much we need to fill the day. There is also a total amount scheduled for the month at the top of a monthly calendar.
There is no extra cost for the awesome customer support that Steve provides, which many other software companies do charge for yearly.
There is no extra charge for multiple users, which many other companies charge for.
And there is no cost for you to have all the updates that Steve is constantly adding to the program.
The TCF program does not have a limit on how many customers you can add to your account, so it can support large companies as well as small companies. It will grow with you as your company grows, so you will only need to enter all your data one time.
It is true that Remote Shine may have a couple of features that TCF does not have at this time. However TCF has a couple of features that Remote Shine does not have as well. The Expenses Feature being the most important to me.
Please do not take what I have shared as a bash against Remote Shine or any other program. It was not meant to do that. I just thought since I started this thread, I would write an endorsement of TCF by sharing why I chose them over all of the others.
I am very happy with my choice in TCF, and the $25.00 a month fee is well worth it for the customer support alone. Plus, I didn’t see any mention that if you pay for 3 months at a time Steve does offer a 10% discount on the total.
Thank you Steve for all that you offer your customers at such an affordable fee. Thank you for being so Customer Service Oriented, and valuing the opinions and suggestions of your customers. Thank you for being professional and keeping the bar high by placing value in your program and it features, rather than trying to bash or diminish another program or its clients. I now have even more admiration and respect for you.
I have already referred you to 3 of my alliances and have even more confidence in you now and will not hesitate to continue to refer you to others.
Here is to a prosperous New Year to all.
Sounds like a geniune from the heart post. I’m glad Steve is still passing on his Excellent Customer Service, and I’m sure you’ll be as happy with your choice as I am.
If I was to pay him $25 an hour on tech support for all the hours he’s spent helping me, I’d be looking at a couple years worth of monthly membership.
My, how professional.
I don’t recall anyone talking bad about your product. I do recall you taking offense when people on this board talk good about your competitor. That’s silly and could reflect poorly in some eyes.
And you’re giving me guidance on what would be better for my business. How ironic…
Check Out ServiceSidekick. Cost as low as $90 a year, data based on the web, intragrates with quickbooks… Check it out!!!
i was useing remote shine, but its a bit too clunky for me. I liked the desktop shine way better. HOWEVER… remote shine IS allways upgradeing… I will be checking them back out… But till then its servicesidekick
I tried the Customer Factor and found it didn’t have what I needed. I asked for a refund which I got along with a long list of future plans to add the features I found were missing as well as a nice little note about how once a customer requests a refund they are essentially black listed from ever being a customer again in the future. Nice salesmanship.
Would you care to share what you needed and they didn’t have?
Oh and I see it’s your first post. Welcome to the forum 
I’m also curious how long ago this happened to you? Recently ?
The note came from the company?? What a strange way to do business.
I think its pretty good, it is very simple and to the point, there is a fair amount of features that’s for sure. I do understand that $24.99 hanging over your head each month could be quite a burden lol
You’re from Vancouver huh? Do you clean windows or different service? So we can get to know you better, what is the name of your business? I’m Justin with A Pane in the Glass from Spokane.
If a company offers a money back guarantee in order to get you in, it should not be with a qualification that if you ask
for the money back guarantee they offered, you are black listed forever. I don’t know if that is true, but I wouldn’t give
a company like that 10 cents a month. The company owner should reply to this and make things clear for us.
Hey Merv, I’m sure there are two sides to this story, which I’m also sure we will hear. Don’t jump to conclusions, yet…
Personally I’d like to know a little more about the new member that used his first post to bash a company I’m very fond of.
I didn’t jump to any conclusions. The man made an accusation.
That is why I mentioned the company owner giving his side of the story.
Hi All,
Good morning. I hope everyone is having a fine day today.
I’d like to explain our policy on refunds. It’s a bit controversial, but maybe by the end of this post, it’ll make sense. If not, well…at least I tried. 
When someone first signs up to The Customer Factor, there is typically quite a bit of time spent with that individual. I routinely walk new users through the many features in the software either remotely on their computer or just over the phone. The first month is when most of the time is spent with someone.
This time may also include importing data from another program. For example, if someone has used quickbooks for years, they’ll need to export their data out into a csv format so they can import it into The Customer Factor. But first it needs to be cleaned up. It’s pretty rare when a csv file from one software program will neatly import into another software w/o the data being manipulated in some way.
And we volunteer to do this for the individual as a courtesy. And if that person would like to import more data besides just customer info, then we provide a custom import which is also done as a courtesy. For example, we can provide the ability for a user to import job information with job dates, job types, job pricing, and even invoice information (including invoice numbers and dates paid). I’m not sure how many companies will go to those lengths w/o charging something for their time.
But here’s the problem. If we spend this kind of time with an individual and/or preparing a file to be imported, we’ve got a few hours invested at this point. If that individual then requests a refund for whatever reason, that investment just went south.
So now let’s fast forward a few months and say that that individual signs up to The Customer Factor again. The question I have to ask myself is are we willing to spend the time with this individual all over again? I’ve already done it once with no roi. So the answer up until now anyway has been no. We’re a small company so we have to make the best use of our resources. And spending the above mentioned time all over again with an individual isn’t really the best use of our resources.
If I can put it in window cleaning terms, let’s say a window cleaner has a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their service. So if a customer isn’t satisfied, they can receive a full refund or a complete do over. Let’s assume you serviced the customer and the job took 4 hours. They’re not really happy with the job for whatever reason and they want a refund. Now let’s say that same customer calls you a few months later. They might not remember you or your company, so they call you again. You remember them because refunds do tend to stick out. I’m not sure if any window cleaner would be willing to do that job again and risk spending another 4 hours for nothing.
Anyway, I’d like to close with one quick comment. I’d like to emphasize that we’ll spend whatever kind of time any of our users need. For folks who have called our office such as Lynne and Justin in this thread, they know this to be true. This includes not only questions/issues related to The Customer Factor, but also website stuff (we provide free webhosting), or even unrelated stuff like search engine optimization. I thoroughly enjoy helping folks through whatever questions or issues they may have. We’ll do things like resize and upload logos, remotely log into someone’s computer and set all the browser settings (so they can print labels, invoices, estimates, etc.), take care of the quickbooks transfer process if they have qb, and more. By providing unlimited support via phone 5 days a week and unlimited support via email/support ticket system 7 days a week, we know that users will stick with us over the years. So “time spent” is never an issue. It’s only an issue when we’ve spent a few hours with someone who ends up requesting a refund.
With all the above said, if we get some feedback in this thread recommending that we should allow for anyone to sign up at anytime regardless whether that person requested a previous refund, then we’ll definitely look at revising this. Please let me know your thoughts. If you’d like to email me directly, you can do that here. Or you can call 256-546-2446. We’re always looking to improve whether it be new features or new policies. One of the advantages of being a small company is we can change on the fly.
As a matter of fact, after I send this post, I’ll go ahead and take a look at this and run some numbers. We get very few refund requests, and even if we do get a refund request, we don’t necessarily spend the above talked about time with the new user who is requesting that refund. For example, I don’t think we cleaned up a file and imported it into The Customer Factor for mike (mc payne). And when we combine this with the fact that the floodgates have opened to The Customer Factor in the last 3 months or so, this “time spent on a refunded user” could be a moot point. Again, I’ll run the numbers and do some calculations.
I appreciate everyone’s feedback on this issue. It means a lot. Thanks for your time today and I hope you all have a great day. Take care for now.
Regards,
Steve
