Clearview North March 2014 - Issue 148 | Page 68

timberNEWS CR Joinery recommends Joinerysoft again and again Cliff Bateman, owner of C.R. Joinery Ltd has been in the joinery industry for around 35 years. Manufacturing bespoke timber windows, doors and screens in Essex, Cliff has always had a reputation for reliability and quality. Until three years ago his client base was predominantly councils and trade builders but cutbacks and less favourable contracts lead him to question this decision and resulted in diversification into the domestic market. This change -while proving beneficial -has meant a lot more work in quoting and communicating with customers who now more often than not don’t know what they want. Cliff explains, “The domestic market has a wider variety of jobs and more scope for expansion; but domestic customers need a lot of attention and take up more time.” With increased number of quotes and a greater dependence on detailed and accurate quotations, Cliff knew he needed to speed up the process. This was when he decided to view Joinerysoft’s Joinery Management Software (JMS). Recognising the potential Cliff decided to purchase JMS in April 2012. Since then he has noticed a huge reduction in the amount of time he has to spend producing quotations. Customers still require frequent phone calls but JMS detailed quotations provide everything they need to know about their order including true scale images. Cliff is able to redirect the customer back to the 68 MAR 2014 quote when they have queries making his life much easier. He says, “This job is also about educating the customer to understand the differences between timber or paint finishes. Every order is bespoke and the quotations by hand used to take me several hours to do each one. JMS now provides the full detail behind each and every component and provides a full specification including the u-value of the item so customers know exactly what they are getting.” Adding, “I can now provide detailed quotations in just minutes and be sure that the prices are accurate for each specific item.” Quotes can even be emailed directly from JMS. Cliff describes himself as not overly conversant with computers, and previously had help in the office with quoting. Since the purchase of JMS, Cliff has been able to go it alone in the office aided by the joinery terminology and intuitive nature of the quoting and production software. Clif