McLeod Cranes uses vWork to closely connect with customers and lift growth

McLeod Cranes: a business built on customer service

When McLeod Cranes was formed in 1995, there was a clear ambition for the company – to build and maintain customer relationships through operational reliability and sincere, personalised customer service.  Today for Scott McLeod, Managing Director, the vision is the same – to earn unrivalled customer respect. And it is this ethos that has underpinned the company’s significant growth and expansion. 

Today it is a business with over 100 staff, specialized equipment and assets valued in the millions of dollars and servicing a wide range of customers throughout the central and upper North Island. With over 22 cranes, 40 hiab trucks and a field team of 85, cranes, trucks and drivers are dispatched daily to multiple locations - often having to respond to ever-changing customer timeframes. 

The complexity involved with matching qualified skilled staff with equipment and customer expectations meant manual job dispatch was fraught with challenges. It was as early as 2009, when it became apparent the existing paper system wasn’t able to scale with the increasing job complexity needed to meet customer demands as well as to the high health and safety standards the business set for itself. 

As Scott McLeod says: “We were at a point of stress… what have I forgotten? Have I dropped the ball this morning?”

Bringing operational reliability to the most complex jobs 

For McLeod’s, having robust business systems is the foundation of their operational reliability. And Scott’s passion for business improvement meant that he had a clear idea what any new process had to do for the team. 

Bringing transparency to job scheduling and real-time visibility of jobs as they progress, especially as they often could change was of paramount importance for both field workers and dispatchers. And moving away from an unscalable, cumbersome paper system was a must have to remove the job scheduling headache.

With the adoption of vWork software to schedule and dispatch jobs, the team could achieve complete visibility and auditability of each job in real time. This means that the dispatcher knows with 100% confidence the progress of each job and location of field staff and workers to meet unanticipated changes to their schedule with accuracy. 

Smartphones for use in the field

As part of the implementation of vWork software, Scott gave all his crane and hiab operators smartphones for use in the field. Keeping everyone informed via the app is the way to go for the McLeod team – as it reduces manual calls clarifying changes to job requirements. 

Additionally, the app allows field workers to accurately record time and data capture when completing jobs, which resulted in an increase in billable hours, impacting positively on the bottom line straightaway. 

The app includes a proof of job completion function, which can be either time stamped photos or signature based. This kind of accuracy and auditability meant that McLeod Cranes was able to win new business.

Achieving new heights of customer service 

With the customer portal enabled, McLeod customers take ownership of their own bookings via a McLeod branded portal, which they like. vWork’s customized alerts are triggered at various stages as a job progresses providing customers with vital information about each job.

Customers frequently refer to the photo proof of delivery captured by McLeod’s staff to show the product has arrived safely, as often many hiab deliveries are made without the customer being available to sign for it in person. 

McLeods’ customers are enjoying the customer service that vWork software enables. Scott says “The wrap around communications layer between our customers, mobile workers and dispatch teams that vWork gives us, is unparalleled.”