On March 29, 2022, we met Samuel Karim and David Le Gern, technician and sales-developer for La Bonne Prise. The Toulouse-based company belongs to the CIRKAD group, created by Ghislain Gardes and Nicolas Vasseur in 2015. This group of companies, which has a turnover of €4.5M for 50 employees only 6 years after its creation, specializes in public lighting, VRD works, electricity / HVAC / plumbing and electric charging stations. Samuel and David, kraafteurs for almost a year, tell us about their experience.
"My role is to install electric charging stations for cars," begins Samuel, who welcomes us to job site in Colomiers. On this kind of project, communication with the client is essential, whether they are companies, co-ownerships or individuals. Especially since La Bonne Prise manages a large number of projects per year, and it is essential to guarantee the same level of quality for each project.
The other challenge for the fast-growing group is to offer future employees easy-to-use and effective digital tools to help them in their daily work and convince them to join the company.
"When I arrived, I was surprised to see a small business using an application like Kraaft to facilitate communication between job site and office. I found it very fun and that's what it takes (...) no matter what level of computer skills a person has, there's no subject matter. Kraaft is child's play" explains David.
And indeed the principle is simple: for each new file, David creates a news feed on Kraaft. The mobile application's interface, similar to WhatsApp, allows Samuel to upload photos, voice notes, videos, or forms directly from the field. If he has any questions, he can ask David, who answers directly in the job site chat, and who in turn shares updated plans, a new estimate or technical recommendations.
"When I make my visits I do everything on Kraaft, I take pictures with my smartphone, then I send them to my folders and it's all very smooth" continues David. The application also offers an integration with SharePoint that allows to store all the photos of job site automatically on the company server. "I've been using Kraaft since I started so I don't even know how I would have done it without it. What I'm doing now I would have done by email, or I don't really know, but it's anything but simple. With Kraaft it's fast and efficient" continues the salesman-developer.
"The handling is very intuitive. Now, for each job site, I have a conversation that corresponds to my job site, it simplifies the organization (...) I use Kraaft every day for the planning and the job site" adds Samuel.
"When technicians have a question or a problem, we have the Kraaft reflex. They send us the picture directly on the right conversation (...) in instant we have the information and we can answer their problem" explains David.
The latest example: the company had to rework a cable duct for aesthetic reasons. "I signed an estimate with a client who has a traditional red brick façade of a Toulouse house. Unfortunately, when we have to install a charging station, we have to connect to the board and there is a cable passage to make. We painted the passage to try to hide it but the color is not exactly the same as the brick and the person refused. We had to run the cables differently and redo the estimate (...) We always try to adapt and react so that the customer is happy" says David. In this example, it is essential to communicate well with the customer and to explain the difficulties encountered on job site.
"On each stage of the job site I send photos to my superiors so that they can see the progress of the job site. I often take pictures of the trenches on Kraaft before backfilling to show that the cable trays have been put in" adds Samuel.
The great benefit of Kraaft here is the traceability of all the work sites. David, who is not on site every day, can visualize at a glance from his computer the progress that Samuel is reporting to him from his smartphone. And he can produce Word reports with a single click.
"I use Kraaft every day, because every day I have site visits or I have to communicate with job site (...) Not a day goes by that I don't use it." (David Le Gern, technician and sales developer for La Bonne Prise)
✅ Easy company-wide membership in a WhatsApp-like field tool.
✅ HR attractiveness thanks to a simple tool adapted to TP
✅ Time saving on the generation of geo-located and time-stamped photo reports
✅ More responsive and transparent collaboration with customers.
✅ Better traceability of hazards during job site
