Bright Seasons owned and run by the Beqiri Brothers, Agron and Pat who have been working in building and gardening along with their father Hodge for over 15 years. They have a reputation as one of the best and most professional small landscaping companies in South East London.
From full on landscaping with design to smaller projects such as decking, fencing, paving, building garden walls, building planters, removing garden waste, turfing, sheds, outhouses and garden buildings, they pretty much cover it all.
And that much work creates a lot of paperwork. Invoices, quotes, paper diaries and spreadsheets full of customers. At least that was the way it used to be. Agron says ‘We knew as we took on more and more work and employees that we couldn’t continue as we were. We needed a software system to help us grow our business. We didn’t know how many quotes we were sending, how many we were winning and we were getting sloppy with invoicing – we had to change.’
Pat continues ‘We heard about Flobot from a new employee who came to work for us from another really good landscaping company. They had been using it for a year and he had great things to say about it. We called them straight away. The guys knew all about our business, exactly what challenges we were facing and they had a really strong understanding of landscaping and the problems we had with contractors, invoices, clients and quotes. We were really impressed and we knew we could trust them to get this to work for us.’
Agron says ‘We started straight away and we had it set up and ready within two days. I am not very computer literate but I didn’t find it difficult to operate and when I got stuck I just called my account manager Stephen and he helped me out. I did take the time to have a think about the way I wanted things to be and I think that made all the difference. I love it and I use it all day every day. The very best thing for me personally is the stage system. It tells me instantly where all my jobs are and how they are doing, whether I need to order materials for a job, if there is a problem or if I need to send an invoice. That is invaluable to me.’
Pat continues ‘It has made my life a lot easier in the office and we have won way more quotes because they look so much better when we send them to the client – it makes us look professional. Even when we first take a call and ask for their postcode for their address, people just think that they are dealing with a good company straight away. We get our invoices out to the customer the very next day the project has finished and we know where we are owed money. It has been a real eye opener. I have been working in this industry for over 15 years and I just didn’t know that you could have this sort of thing with one piece of software – so well thought out, and that it would make such a difference. We couldn’t go back now – we wouldn’t be able to run the business without Flobot.’