How FreshBooks Select Helps Michael Focus and Provide a Great Experience for His Customers

Company: Mold Busters

Industry: Trades

Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada

Problem:

Customer service breakdown

Solution:

FreshBooks Estimates and Zapier integration with CallRail

Results:

5,755 satisfied clients

Some might say entrepreneurialism is in Michael Golubev’s blood. His father was also a small business owner. During his youth, Michael spent many years shadowing him, learning the ins-and-outs of running a company.

It was only natural that Michael would start his own business one day. And he did. In fact, he has owned many. Past ventures include a furniture business, as well as a proprietary reporting software company. Today, Michael is CEO of Mold Busters, which focuses on mold and asbestos inspection, testing and remediation.

Michael started out in his present-day customers’ shoes. He was once on the market for these kinds of services himself but couldn’t find a viable solution that met his needs.

So, as a self-respecting serial entrepreneur, Michael sought to fill this gap in the market. He learned the appropriate testing and removal techniques himself.

Customer Support: A Real Difference-maker for Any Business

Mold Busters’ main differentiator is offering unparalleled customer service, a tip they learned from FreshBooks.

“I’m still blown away when you call the toll-free number at FreshBooks and someone picks up the phone literally on the first ring. That’s what we have basically replicated.”

Michael recognizes that customers who call in are likely very concerned about health and environmental impacts and want a solution to that problem immediately.

Regarding the company’s customer-first approach, Michael expands: “We do everything to solve (customer problems) like answering calls right away to providing same-day inspections to providing reports within an hour. Most of these are not provided by anyone else in (the) industry.”

The company is primarily based in Ontario (headquartered in Ottawa) and Quebec in Canada. They have also expanded to Asia, with locations in The Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. However, this wasn’t always the case.

Michael shared that they used to have even more locations and partners. But he soon realized that more isn’t necessarily better.

It wasn’t easy managing multiple locations worldwide, which was taking Michael away from other important aspects of growing his new business. The last straw: When Michael started seeing a breakdown in the level of customer service that he knew his customers deserved.

A tough decision needed to be made. Michael decided to scale down his ambitions to grow and conquer the world. Instead, he is laser-focused on establishing his company firmly in Ontario and Quebec. Michael now feels in control. He can really focus on providing exceptional customer service, helping his company grow more sustainably.

Using FreshBooks Select to Create the ‘Wow’ Factor for Customers

Michael Golubev and his team.

As an early adopter of new technology, Michael understands how important it is to be on top of the latest devices and software. Especially since it helps him provide superior customer service, stay ahead of the competition, and improve business processes.

With over 7,000 clients in his FreshBooks account, there is a lot to keep track of. So how does Michael stay in control and focus on customer service?

Enter FreshBooks Select. Michael can easily organize everything in the cloud. Plus, he has access to features that help him focus on building processes to “wow” his clients every day.

For example, with FreshBooks, users can view a client’s full history, which was a huge factor in the company’s ability to provide great service for their customers.

“We use (FreshBooks) almost as a magic tool. We’ll see that clients have opened an estimate we send on Friday and maybe they’ll open it 10 times over the weekend. So clearly, they are thinking about it and analyzing it. Now we have a system where we just call them on Monday, first thing in the morning.”

Most customers don’t realize that Mold Busters has this “magical,” birds-eye view of their account. So, when customers get a call after receiving and reviewing an estimate for a few days, they are pretty surprised and even more impressed that Michael’s team checks-in to see if they have any questions and concerns.

It’s like having a cell phone or an email account; we can’t run our business without FreshBooks.

With API Integrations, Michael Can Have His Cake and Eat It Too

There are additional tools that Michael and his team use to help provide superior customer support. With Zapier, they can ensure API integrations are in place to connect FreshBooks to call analytics software like CallRail.

Using CallRail to Keep up With His Customers

“Using Zapier, (we) can connect FreshBooks and this system we use for tracking calls, CallRail, so we can connect all the data together. Everything is connected into one dashboard and all the data (flows) autonomously. (It’s) amazing that you guys have API integrations for other systems. That’s a really big thing for us.”

By connecting to CallRail, the company now has a holistic view of all of their customer information. This is very beneficial for their call center agents, or “Solutions Providers.” Not only can the Solutions Providers see who a customer is and when they last called, but they can also view their invoice balances at the same time.

Michael explains: “Again, another ‘wow’ factor that the client feels: ‘I just called, you answered right away, from the first ring, and you already know who I am as a client.’ You don’t get this often with small companies in an industry like this.”

FreshBooks at the Front; Quickbooks at the Back

Zapier also allows Mold Busters to integrate with Quickbooks, which Michael still uses for traditional backend accounting, specifically expenses and bank integration.

But Quickbooks wasn’t up to snuff from a front-end client perspective. Michael explains: “Even though Quickbooks has features for sending invoices and creating estimates, I would say it is very outdated and rudimentary compared to FreshBooks.”

With Quickbooks running in the background, Michael can focus on building customer relationships by using FreshBooks as his primary sales and communication tool.

Conclusion

For Michael, FreshBooks Select is a very important addition to his company: “It’s like having a cell phone or an email account; we can’t run our business without FreshBooks.”

Michael summarizes the benefits he reaped from using FreshBooks Select, which he feels could also assist other small businesses:

“Ease of use, great customer service, great software, very affordable prices, and just another ‘wow’ factor other businesses can provide to their clients, which will result in better sales and more peace of mind.”