How Olshan Foundation Uses ArcSite to Impress Customers and Sales Reps

When Olshan Foundation Solutions went looking for a way to improve their sales process, they found ArcSite and never looked back.

Olshan Foundation Solutions is a family business founded in 1933 out of Houston, TX. They focus mainly on foundation repair, waterproofing, concrete repair, and driveway replacements for Texas residents.

Shawn DeShazer, Business Analyst and CRM Manager at Olshan, says that their previous drawing software was overly-complicated. This made it difficult to train both new hires and experienced employees who were used to drawing plans by hand.

"Transitioning that employee with all their knowledge from hand drawing to doing it on the laptop was very difficult and they would get overly frustrated and give up," said DeShazer.

Not only was their old process of drawing site plans costing the company hundreds of hours of wasted time, it also required them to do "double work" by typing numbers into a spreadsheet template.

There Has to Be a Better Way

One of Olshan's company values is "continuous improvement" and before transitioning to ArcSite, it had been a long time since they looked at improving their sales and estimation process. "We knew that there had to be other solutions out there that were better than what we were using," DeShazer said.

That's when Olshan found ArcSite and immediately saw the benefits of having a mobile software that would save both time and effort.

While they weren't looking to ditch their laptops in the field, they quickly realized a hidden benefit to the unobtrusive nature of a tablet-based program.

"Once we found ArcSite, we found the benefits of having it on a tablet wasn't a drawback at all, it's almost a benefit – mostly because it's less intimidating to a client and training a new rep."

Professional, Digital Drawings

Olshan struggled for a long time drawing up plans on-site. DeShazer said that over half of their estimators still preferred to do a hand drawing on-site and convert the drawing into a digital format at a later time.

"I don't think it's really possible for a hand drawing to compete – as far as looking professional – with something done on a computer or tablet."

In Olshan's case, a 3D program would have been too much of a hindrance, so ArcSite's 2D canvas was the perfect solution.

"The intuitiveness and the ease of use for both a brand new sales rep – that doesn't know anything about foundation repair, waterproofing, etc. – training him how to design and draw a repair plan that is very intuitive for that user, and then our other users that have been doing hand drawings for 20, 30 years. It’s extremely intuitive for them to just draw on the tablet because it feels just like drawing on graph paper or grid paper, just digital."

"The real kicker, especially as a time-saver/productivity-saver, was finding out that this will also be able to create your contract and put together the estimate as you draw."

Combining what was once two totally separate processes was what interested Olshan the most in ArcSite.

Always Putting the Customer First

Olshan Foundation Solutions prides itself on building a relationship with their customers, but their old process was causing that to be more and more difficult.

"You're not trying to create any separation between you and the customer, you're just trying to do your work and put together a professional-looking repair plan. But that really almost shuts you off from the customer," said DeShazer. "And then they feel like they're almost interrupting you in your office and just standing over you and really, you're just trying to do your work so that you can work through and talk through the repair plan with the customer."

Training Sales Reps in a Fraction of the Time

Overall, onboarding and training new reps who have never done foundation repair to use ArcSite was the game-changer.

"What we definitely found is training new sales reps or new users has been unbelievably easy. It's been the best thing ever."

"The new sales reps love it. it’s so much easier than AutoCAD training. It's very intuitive. They can pick it up like that."

It's not easy training new reps to sell something that they know practically nothing about. It can take months, often years, before a rep fully understands the ins and outs of the business, products, and prices. With ArcSite, reps are ready to sell in a matter of minutes.

"It would take six months to really have a new sales rep start creating their AutoCAD drawing in the house. Whereas, I think we had one of our users spend 30 or 40 minutes training with (ArcSite). And then the next day she was able to draw on ArcSite while looking at the house."

General managers love ArcSite. With their previous pricing template, Olshan managers were combing through Excel spreadsheets to get the right information, and implementing pricing changes was a headache. With ArcSite, pricing changes are done instantly with the tap of a button.

"Ultimately, we end up providing better repair because we have a repair plan that's been reviewed and checked by our experts, our general manager."

Giving Employees Their Free Time Back

Olshan wants to see their reps enjoying their time off work, spending more time with their families and friends. With ArcSite, reps are no longer going home to get their work done.

"We had a lot of long-term sales reps that would do a week's worth of hand drawings, and then Sunday night, they're going to spend up to five hours, just recreating those hand-drawings in AutoCAD. And like a weekend is supposed to be fun. You're supposed to relax. Spend time with your family. Nobody wants to be doing that Sunday night at seven o'clock at night."

"We've had lots of our long-term and newer reps say, 'Oh man, this tool is so great. Thank you all for providing it for us.' And I truly think it makes their jobs easier and improves their productivity and, essentially, their quality of life while they're working for the field."

ArcSite's Commitment to Improvement

DeShazer also praised the ArcSite team for listening to their suggestions and quickly implementing improvements to the app.

"They'll help us come up with solutions and just make us more efficient and better in the field. I can't stress enough how important that's been to us."

See how ArcSite can benefit both your customers and sales reps. Schedule a personalized demo today.