Creating a customer delivery ecosystem with vWork

One of the key drivers for selecting vWork was its ability to seamlessly integrate job scheduling and delivery with accounting in Xero and inventory management with Cin7. The combination of tools creates an ecosystem that enables Ecolife Solutions to excel at delivering to its customers right across its operation.

The family-owned business has been manufacturing high quality thermal and acoustic insulation for over 25 years. From its Brisbane and Sydney factories, Ecolife Solutions is able to deliver insulation to most major cities from the Sunshine Coast to Canbera including Brisbane, Sydney, Wollongong, Central Coast, Northern Rivers, Gold Coast and Toowoomba.

Integrating vWork, Xero and Cin7

As General Manager, Kevin Bracken, tells the story, the change brought about from engaging with vWork, Xero and Cin7 has lifted the Ecolife Solutions from the dark ages into a fully connected, digital world that has made life exponentially better.

“We can now track everything related to a delivery in real time versus it taking two days after a delivery to deal with the paperwork, push it through to invoice and reconcile the inventory.”

The bulk of Ecolife Solutions deliveries are to the building and construction industry. They run a fleet of 10 large delivery trucks, a couple of smaller trucks and a couple of utes which collectively make around 100 deliveries a day. It means the accuracy and timing of deliveries - to what are often large and busy sites - is critical.

Absolute proof of delivery

“We have the ability with vWork to accurately track on a map every route a driver has taken,” explains Kevin. “We can then produce a one page report that covers exactly when and where a delivery was made with the related signatures. It is really easy to send this to a customer as proof-of-delivery if a dispute is ever raised.”

The business also values the ability for drivers to do everything that is needed at the touch of a mobile phone.

“Not only can job updates be viewed in real time there is proof of everything built into the app,” explains CFO Kirthi Chauhan. “Everyone is following the same steps through defined tasks and alerts. It makes our job much easier as we are not dealing with handling a whole lot of variations on a daily basis.”

She also views vWork as a time saver citing just how much easier it has made account management for the sales team.

Cut 75% of calls to dispatch team

“We estimate vWork has cut out about 75% of calls per day to our dispatch team as our sales team can answer for themselves exactly when a job will be delivered to a customer. It has also minimized customer queries with enroute communication plus we have accurate time stamped proof of delivery - as well as the ability to cross check this with invoicing.”

While vWork had a native integration with Xero the Cin7 connection required vWork’s API coming into play all of which was described by the Ecolife Solutions team as a ‘really good experience’.

The onboarding team made it easy

“There were no real surprises. Everything was pretty well documented and explained as to what we can and can’t do. The onboarding team made everything very easy and worked really well with our third party development team for the Cin7 implementation,” says Kirthi. “Probably the biggest challenge has been getting our team to follow the steps to create all the correct integration paths.”

Kevin also views the change made to the business in a highly positive light and sees vWork as taking the lead in Ecolife Solution’s transformation journey with the fewest issues and providing constant support through the process. “We estimate vWork has cut out about 75% of calls per day to our dispatch team as our sales team can answer for themselves exactly when a job will be delivered to a customer.” Kirthi Chauhan, CFO, Ecolife Solutions