Tori Freeman: How Bolt Streamlined HVAC Operations at Long Heating & Air Conditioning

Trade contractors need technology tailored to meet their needs—a solution to manage projects, communicate with builders, and grow their business. We sat down with Tori Freeman from Long Heating and Air Conditioning Inc. to discuss how Bolt trade contractor software has helped run their business more efficiently. A family-owned business, Long Heating and Air is a leader in HVAC services across the Upstate and Midlands of South Carolina, installing air conditioner units, furnaces, as well as gas lines for new home construction in addition to providing homeowners with maintenance and upkeep service for their air conditioner units.

ECI: How has Bolt helped your business?

Tori Freeman (TF): We were looking for a user-friendly system that our team could use on a tablet in the field. Before we found Bolt, we were using Google Calendar. It was a lot of work with many emails, scanning, and uploading documents to a shared drive so everyone could access the job information. We used many different systems to get all our information in one place.

But with Bolt, things are much better. Now, our team can see their specific houses and their daily tasks. They don't need any printed paperwork when they use Bolt in the field. They can quickly access everything on their tablet, like the floor plan, what kind of equipment, and any documents we upload for that specific job. Using Bolt has cut down on printing and switching between different programs.

For me, Bolt makes my job easier. Instead of searching through the shared drive for more information, everything I need is in one place with Bolt. It’s much easier for me to keep track of each job. And since we can clone an existing job, when we have a neighborhood with similar floor plans that need the same equipment, all that information gets copied to the new job. This helps us avoid mistakes like choosing the wrong plan or spelling the neighborhood name wrong because you do not have to type in the information. Everything is already there.

Bolt was designed with contractors in mind. It allows those in the field to access the same information I can in the office. If there’s missing information, they can add it directly to Bolt. When I’m in the office, I don’t know if a house is ready or not. But those in the field know and can update that information. Things change all the time, so using Bolt to check on all job information has made things faster and cut down on wasted trips to the site. Everyone has access to the job information in Bolt, which is helpful.

ECI: What are your favorite aspects of Bolt?

TF: Bolt has expanded the company's reach while maintaining security and confidentiality. I like how Bolt lets us control who sees what information. We can choose to show or hide things like pricing. This helps keep our information secure and private when we need it to be. We can put all the information into the system, but only certain people can see it.

I also like how information is entered uniformly, so I know where to find the address or the lot number in the system. This is helpful when you’re working on 700 homes. Knowing where to find information is important when you have so many jobs, and it makes it much easier to review.

In addition to photos being helpful when providing information to the builders, our team in the field can take pictures of the serial number of the units so the homeowner can register their unit and extend their warranty.

ECI: Overall, how was your experience implementing Bolt?

TF: The setup process was great. I appreciated that the team could come in and sit with us. We all learn in different ways, so the online meetings were helpful. We could watch them in real-time and replay the recording when needed. We could just email the team if we had any questions, and they would get back to us quickly. They gave us all the information and tools to use the system well.

ECI: Why would you recommend Bolt to other contractors?

TF: If you’re a contractor and your information is all over the place like ours was before we found Bolt, Bolt can simplify things. There will be some new processes to learn, and you’ll need to get used to a new way of doing things, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll see there are many more benefits than reasons not to try it.

The team behind Bolt really cares about its customers. They want to ensure that everyone is getting the most out of the system and is there to help every step of the way. This made a huge difference when we were learning how to use it, and we never felt like we were on our own.