Skyline Services, Inc. creates custom apps with Zoho Creator

The company

Established in 1982, Skyline Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated cleaning service provider. Located in Madison, Wisconsin, the company is dedicated to providing clean and healthy environments for homes and businesses in the Madison area.

Isaac LaRonge, the general manager, has been running the company, comprised of 20-30 employees, for around 10 years. He handles the day-to-day operations and works with different teams to solve problems and achieve Skyline Services's business goals. The company offers its customers affordable prices, trustworthy services, and clear communication with their high standard for satisfaction.

Skyline Services, Inc. categorizes their services into commercial and residential cleaning, which includes janitorial, window, carpet, tile and grout, pressure washing, disinfecting and sanitizing, construction cleanup, floor finishing, and house cleaning.

They offer cleaning services in the Madison area to the following industries:

Office buildings
Restaurants
Healthcare facilities
Multi-tenant buildings
Financial institutions
Retail spaces
Industrial facilities
Schools and childcare facilities
Event centers

The challenge

Cleaning industries face numerous challenges like meeting health regulations and standards, being cost efficient and sustainable, and staying up to date with new technologies. This particular company faced inefficiency and ignorance in their data processes due to using multiple software in their business operations. One such software was spreadsheets which were difficult to maintain multiple records of their business.

LaRonge, the general manager, decided to centralize them. That's when they decided to move to Zoho. As a part of their operation, they had over 300 keys that had to be checked in, checked out, and tracked, which was a challenge. LaRonge was looking for an application to automate this process but the software available on the market was either too complicated or more expensive than what was needed for his business.

The solution:

How Zoho Creator helped Skyline Services, Inc.

When LaRonge decided to switch to the Zoho ecosystem to manage and centralize his business processes, he spotted Zoho Creator.

By switching to Zoho Creator, Skyline Services, Inc. was able to enhance their user experience, improve their ability to use applications on mobile devices, include more images and videos, and—most importantly—create a relational database that spans across multiple apps a lot more easily than a spreadsheet.

"I like Zoho Creator for its rapid app development technology to solve problems where there are gaps in the technology or the software out there, because there are a lot of different business issues that are maybe unique to our industry or other industries, and there is no software developed for those. That's what's great about Zoho Creator; you could develop something really unique, that's specific to that exact issue in your business.”

Isaac LaRonge, General Manager, Skyline Services, Inc.

LaRonge further mentioned that he can develop an app pretty well within a week with Zoho Creator. However, it's an ongoing process. He first creates an app in the developer environment within a few days, he then tests it in the stage environment, and comes back and makes necessary adjustments to it. Finally, he publishes it in the production environment. He likes Zoho Creator for its rapid app development technology to solve problems and its capability to bridge gaps between the business processes.

He describes Zoho Creator as:

User-friendly
Customizable
Precise

8 solutions built with Zoho Creator

The eight primary applications built by Skyline Services, Inc. to improve operational efficiency and functionality of their business are:

Key inventory management:

Using Zoho Creator, LaRonge was able to keep better track of their keys and security codes for accounts, which other apps couldn't do. It sounds simple, but they have over 300 keys in their inventory to track for different customers. They also have to check them out and check them back in whenever they use them.

Account management for residential homes:

The second application built in Zoho Creator is for managing the account information of residential homes. There were various separate profiles for different types of residential buildings and homes and the information the company wanted to track for each was always unique. The main purpose of this application is for operations and they were able to create a custom solution that was able to track all of this information, such as homes and buildings, for each account.

Equipment management:

Another application developed by LaRonge with Zoho Creator was one to manage their equipment. This app's core function is to monitor the performance of their service equipment, manage the lifecycles, and automate the maintenance processes. Building this app helped the company quickly monitor the conditions of their cleaning service equipment.

Account management for commercial buildings:

LaRonge developed another application aimed at managing the account information for commercial buildings. It helped Skyline Services, Inc. improve their sales and client relationship by making it easier for the company to keep their clients' information organized and up to date.

Vehicle inventory and maintenance:

This particular application was built to track and monitor the company's vehicles. It gives them updates on the vehicles' conditions and when they have been serviced.

Inspection application for quality check:

Another unique application built by LaRonge was to inspect the quality of service provided by his team to their clients. They use this app to assess every service provided in a given appointment, so they can meet their own standards and quality checks.

Human resource management:

There is also an HR application where they track their training for different employees. Using this app, training and attendance can be submitted.

IT management:

LaRonge created one more application to track their IT services. This is ideal to monitor their IT devices like computers, phones, and other digital devices used in their business.

Benefits and ROI

Skyline Services Inc. credits Zoho Creator with giving them the tools to develop custom applications specifically fitting their business needs. In turn, the apps they've developed so far have allowed them to keep better track of all of their business processes. By giving the company the means to store and retrieve client information in an organized fashion, they are able to offer their customers a more individualized service in a timely fashion. Their inventory and tracking apps also save them time since employees no longer have to search for things manually or sift through piles of paperwork. Finally, using Zoho Creator has saved the company money as it's easy enough for LaRonge to use on his own without hiring outside contractors or taxing their own resources more than necessary.

Looking forward

LaRonge is looking to expand their business solutions by leveraging other products from Zoho ecosystem, one of which is Zoho Books. His main objective is to integrate his business with only Zoho by utilizing each product for its specific use cases.

When it comes to Zoho Creator, LaRonge loves the platform and looks forward to solve more problems for his business using the platform, as it helped them expand their capabilities for tracking various processes. He appreciates the mobile access feature which they use to access information at their fingertips and has definitely created efficiencies. He is looking forward to build customer-facing applications as well. "Zoho Creator has definitely improved our operational efficiency," LaRonge stated. "I'm excited for any updates that are coming out, like with branding options, and different things like that. In general, I think it's met all of our basic needs."

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