Serious Waste boosts growth with BigChange Tech

Serious, a nationwide sewage, grease and waste-water management company, has grown its business by 30 percent following the introduction of BigChange fleet and job management software.

Tanker drivers and engineers armed with mobile devices and tracking are live-linked to a back-office system allowing for the real-time exchange of time critical information and the automatic sharing of job-specific paperwork. This streamlined approach has resulted in less routine administration, improved operational efficiency and better financial control.

“BigChange gives us a single, centralised system that has streamlined every aspect of the business,” commented Jeremy Proctor, Managing Director of Serious. “Using BigChange we spend less time firefighting and more time forward planning and our list of ‘nice to do’ tasks has become our ‘let’s get it done’ priority with resources previously deployed on routine admin now being used to chase aged debt, proactively plan, and invest in sales and marketing campaigns, for example.”

With the head office based in Staffordshire, Serious, offers a range of services including waste removal, engineering, installation and project management covering all aspects of sewage, grease and waste-water management. Serving more than 15,000 commercial and domestic customers, from six UK depots, Serious’ clients include Marston’s, Whitbread and Admiral Taverns, football clubs such as Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers and utilities including Severn Trent Water and Scottish Water. The Serious fleet ranges from engineers in Transit vans to 32 tonne vacuum tankers.

The BigChange job management system, which incorporates customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, resource management, job finance and business intelligence, replaced a number standalone systems within Serious, including spreadsheets, sales management software and isolated trackers. One simple to use and easy to integrate solution BigChange dramatically reduced the time and resource required to manage the mobile operation and undertake administrative tasks.

Everyday activities such as vehicle checks, filling in timesheets, dynamic risk assessments, waste transfer notes and job reporting are all completed in real-time and with just a few clicks on the BigChange app, improving efficiency and customer service.

BigChange has also boosted customer service with a greater capacity to respond to emergency call-outs and total visibility of the field operation. Back-office staff and management now have 24/7 visibility of all aspects of business reducing response times and allowing for better allocation of resources for emergency response.

Office-based staff can also access real-time updates, including photographs, to keep customers informed and answer any queries without having to refer to busy field operatives. With integrated CRM and financial tools, BigChange has also helped Serious reduce the time taken to create and issue invoices by more than 60 percent which has had a positive impact on cashflow and working capital, further fuelling business growth.  

“BigChange has been an integral piece of the puzzle that has been Serious’ journey over the last few years,” Jeremy continued. “We had experienced good levels of growth before being impacted by Covid and, with the support of BigChange, we have bounced back from this and are stronger than ever before. 

“We also completed a management buyout of the business and BigChange is part of the investment we have made which we hope will see the company grow by a further 50 percent creating up to 20 new jobs.”