The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdowns have made life difficult for many business owners. Danny Richardson was unlucky as he founded his rental business, DMR Plant Hire, just before the first lockdown hit. However, that didn’t stop his determination and he has been able to scale his business and earn a reputation for great service and excellent equipment within his local area.
During the early lockdowns, a lot of larger equipment rental businesses had to shut down due to staffing issues among other problems they encountered. This left a big hole in the market for quality equipment that needed to be filled, which gave Danny the perfect opportunity to make an impact with his equipment business while taking safeguarding measures to ensure both his and his customer’s safety.
DMR Plant & Tool Hire
Danny’s passion for quality machinery and servicing equipment developed during his time as a rail employee and work he did in his spare time as a landscape gardener. Because of this, he had quite the collection of high-quality tools that he maintained, and he received a lot of interest for hiring his machinery from other trades in the area.
It developed into him starting DMR Plant Hire, and he has been able to make it his full-time job in less than a year. He now rents out diggers, track barrows, pressure washers, stump grinders, and scaffold towers, among other tools. This has helped him to fill the void left by larger companies after they went under and provide a more accessible service to customers all over the North East of England.
“We offer many of the larger companies products but make it much easier and accessible to customers through the use of Booqable. This allows us to keep that small local company feel while keeping up with demand by using Booqable rather than our old way of working, which was the Apple calendar.”
Keeping it simple
Before using Booqable, the staff at DMR Plant Hire would take calls and write down names, equipment, and addresses into their calendar. It worked when the team was small, but they found it hard to manage shortages and double bookings as the company grew. The switch to Booqable has allowed them to accept online bookings where customers fill in all of these details themselves with this information automatically populated in the software.
Also, the fact that customers book online means that they can maintain a comprehensive database of their customers without constantly updating it themselves. Danny also loves the in-depth inventory tracking that Booqable provides, as he can see all of the information required in just a few clicks.
“A feature I particularly enjoy in Booqable is the ability to track equipment at any given time. It allows me to see who, where and when has individual equipment. So, when a flag pops up for the maintenance due on a certain piece of equipment, I can see where that particular piece is and arrange a visit if it’s out long term.”
1,200% revenue increase
Within the first few months of the business, they generated less than £1,000 per week from hiring equipment. However, when they streamlined their processes with Booqable, they could spend more time expanding the venture into equipment sales, groundwork, and storage solutions. It also allowed them to do so while keeping staff numbers low.
One year later, they have grown to generate almost £10,000 a week, and they credit this to the change in workflow Booqable gave the team. “This just wouldn’t be possible with our old way of working.” It resulted in a 1200% increase in revenue in the space of just 12 months, thanks to the workflow improvements they were able to implement.
The benefits of Booqable have not only helped the company, but they have made booking easier for customers. The feedback they have received has been overwhelmingly in favor of the simple and user-friendly way of booking equipment. They also love the customer login accounts, which means repeat customers’ information gets pre-filled during checkout, resulting in a more streamlined booking experience.
