How Bolt Helped C&S Home Services Run their Operations More Efficiently

Trade contractors need technology tailored to meet their needs—a solution to manage projects, communicate with builders and grow their business. We interviewed Candi Cahill, owner of C&S Home Services of Central Florida to discover how Bolt helped them run their business more efficiently, manage growth, and improve communication with builders. C&S Home Services is a family-owned cleaning company in the Tampa Bay, Fla., area. The business has 45 crews working with 20 builders, servicing around 200 communities. Their dedicated and highly trained team members focus on making the move-in experience exceptional.

ECI: How long have you been using Bolt?

Candi Cahill (CC): Our team has been relying on Bolt for over five years. I received an email about Bolt that got my attention, so I decided to explore it further. Bolt’s construction-centric approach appealed to me. I could see that it was designed with contractors in mind.

ECI: What value has Bolt brought to your operation?

CC: Bolt has been amazing for our business in so many ways. The work order feature is also fantastic. Creating a work order that has all the job information and notes is great for what we do.

It’s also improved communication with builders. We work with 300 superintendents, and 95% of them confirm the job or reschedule using Bolt. They love getting confirmation emails. They also like that they can leave job-specific notes in Bolt that our crews can read. I get a lot of compliments from supers on that feature. They'll say, “I wish all of our trades used Bolt.” They're very impressed that we’re using software to manage our jobs.

The ability to take pictures through the app has also been great. It’s significantly reduced the number of complaints from superintendents since we can now identify and address issues before they even notice. It has simplified our quality control inspections, making the process much easier. And if there are any disputes, we can show them a photo of the job site. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Having the Bolt app on the crew's phone is outstanding. They can take pictures if something's wrong and leave notes as they click and complete each task during the day. In the office, we can follow them along their route and know their location. If a super calls and asks when the crew will be at their community, I can let them know that the crew just completed their last job and is headed their way without having to call the crew. This is great when we get a last-minute call from a builder who needs us to come back to a job. Because we can see where the crews are, we can look and see who we have close by. I use the calendar a lot to filter by crew or community to see who we can send.

Bolt also helped with scheduling. Before Bolt it was an absolute nightmare. We built our schedule using an Excel spreadsheet and sent it to the crews individually. If a job was canceled or changed or a crew was called off., we had to redo that whole spreadsheet. It was just very inefficient.

ECI: How has Bolt’s impacted your growth?

CC: Reflecting on the past two years, I can confidently say that our growth wouldn’t have been possible without Bolt. In 2021, we started with 25 crews; a year later, we nearly doubled to 45. Despite the industry’s growth during the pandemic, we would not have been able to grow like we did without Bolt.

With growth we’re adding new customers and new users. Bolt has made this a breeze. When setting up a new customer, I can quickly enter the new company details into the system, such as the super’s email, other contact information, floor plans, and pricing. I can also set up new users quickly. Once a new user is set up in Bolt, they are sent an email inviting them to use the system. And if we need to make changes to the team, it’s easy to click that active button to inactive.

Before Bolt, it wasn’t that easy. We’re now much more efficient, and we can serve our customers better.

Our experience with Bolt has been great. The office team loves it, our employees love it, and our supers love it. It's been fantastic for us.