Honeywell Survey & Design launches Surventrix to transform client management and workflow.
Honeywell Survey & Design Ltd
Website:
honeywellsurveydesign.com
Services:
RICS Pre-Purchase Surveys and Valuations, Defect Inspection and Diagnosis, Project Design, Planning Applications, Building Control Submissions and Commercial Surveying.
Honeywell Survey & Design is a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) registered firm, with its head office in Barnsley, operating to the highest technical and professional standards in the residential and commercial surveying market covering the North of England.
The surveying firm has been announced as the Best Engineering Consultancy at this year's Construction and Engineering Awards. Surventrix spoke to Managing Director, Patrick Harley-Blake, finalist in the RICS Matrics Surveyor Awards 2023 to discuss his journey and early successes with Surventrix.
Patrick began his career in the commercial sector, and during the pandemic became burned out by the sheer volume of work thrust upon him. Later, he explored the opportunity of working in the residential surveying sector, but again came across the same challenges inside a small practice.
With a baby daughter on the way, it was then that Patrick decided to create his own firm. Following registering the business in December 2021, Patrick was fully self-employed the following year.
The challenge.
One of the key areas Patrick focused on when starting out was getting the technology right. In his previous practice, Patrick used RICS ProForms, and templates previously set up by colleagues.
"The challenge here was typing up a report from scratch using paper notes. A lot of surveyors still do that but it takes a lot of time. The quality of note taking wasn't ideal either, and it was taking longer on site than needed. I knew I needed software to enable me to record notes more efficiently and standardise the report. I used a word document with standard paragraphs to speed up report creation.”
Patrick also faced challenges with client management. "I used Excel to track leads, and everything was sent out via email. It was clunky, with everything saved on my computer's hard drive. As the company grew, I needed something much more refined with a more seamless approach to our firm's CRM. I looked at all the options, but settled on Surventrix."
The solution.
Patrick chose Surventrix for a number of reasons. “Ian Bullock, Sales Director at Surventrix pitched the technology so well. Being a surveyor and with so much knowledge of report writing and technology, helped create an excellent pitch. This was supported by a Pay As You Go pricing option which was helpful for a company starting out.
I didn't know what turnover I would make, so helping to keep costs under control was important to me. Having the CRM at the same time as the report writing tools was an excellent benefit. The standard paragraphs and note collection seemed better than what competitors offered."
The outcome.
Honeywell Survey & Design is growing and will hire its fourth surveyor in May. This is a great reflection point for Patrick. "I'm in control of the quality of what we're doing, the company is manageable and we're comfortable with our turnover. Our Office Manager is always busy and supported by a fantastic team which includes a specialist in Quality Assurance."
Patrick said: "The Surventrix software certainly does what I need it to do and I enjoy report writing and note taking. I also enjoy working with the team at Surventrix, it's a smaller company where the experienced management team are always on hand if something needs to be done, and we appreciate that"
(L-R: Patrick Harley-Blake - Honeywell Survey & Design, Ian Bullock - Surventrix, Ian Hughes - Surventrix.)