Simple, Robust Software that Works Every Time: Why 1 Tom Plumber Uses Smappen
1 Tom Plumber is an emergency service plumbing franchise, meaning that they’re usually called to fix plumbing problems rather than installing new plumbing systems or retrofitting existing ones. Franchisees often own restoration companies, and buy a franchise territory to add emergency plumbing to their services.
The initial location was founded in 2018 and started franchising in 2020; the franchise currently has 59 locations across the U.S.
Vice President of 1 Tom Plumber, Angie Honeycutt is part of developing and tweaking the tried-and-true system they provide to franchisees—and giving them all the tools they need to succeed. She also plays a key role in the success of the overall franchise, working closely with the sales team to maximize growth.
Her mission:
- Training and onboarding new franchisees.
- Ensuring franchisees comply with overall franchise strategy and guidelines.
- Mapping franchise territories & keeping track of all the locations
The challenge
When running a franchise, mapping software is essential for drawing franchise territories, researching the competition, and even just showing potential franchisees what their options are.
Angie was already using mapping software before switching to Smappen, but it just wasn’t cutting it. While it was an industry leader, it was overly complex, dense, and far from intuitive. For a Vice President who already has a lot on her plate, software that takes extra time to figure out every time you need it—unless you reach out to customer support—won’t do.
“I used [other software] for a couple of years. But every time I would go to draw a map, I would have to look up directions on how to do it. The support was great, but I couldn’t just click on the map and start drawing a territory like I can with Smappen.”
The solution
USER-FRIENDLY SOFTWARE
As a Vice President, Angie has to deal with a wide range of tasks in her day-to-day work. She’s helping the team refine the overall franchise model, onboarding new franchisees, and ensuring that existing franchisees have everything they need to reach their goals. Mapping franchise territories is just one of these tasks, and she doesn’t have any time to lose doing it. That’s why she chose Smappen.
“We’re only mapping territories a few times a month. With our old software, it was complicated enough that I could just never remember how to do it. With Smappen, I’ve only reached out once or twice with questions. It’s just much easier to use from the get-go.”
ANALYZING DATA AT MULTIPLE LEVELS
Franchise territories should strike that perfect balance between meeting your franchise’s needs and giving franchisees the best chance to succeed. You can’t do that without data—and it needs a certain level of granularity. With Smappen, Angie gets exactly the data she needs.
“We can map a territory and see all of that data. That helps us provide our franchisees with a lot more information about their territory.”
SCOPING OUT THE AREA WITH POI DATA
Franchise strategy doesn’t begin or end with mapping territories. Franchisees usually come to Angie with an idea of where they’d like to operate, but it’s up to 1 Tom Plumber to do the necessary research to give them a territory they’re most likely to succeed in. That involves POI (point of interest) data, which Smappen also delivers on.
“Being able to search for anything is a nice feature. Since we’re a plumbing company, a lot of the places we target are restaurants or apartment buildings. You can put that in Smappen and easily get that information.”
The results
- Color-coded maps for better organization and analysis.
- Intuitive, user-friendly franchise mapping that just takes a few clicks.
- Robust, accessible POI data for competitive analysis and market research.
- Maps that work at the county and zip code level.
- Easily shareable territories for franchisee onboarding.
SMAPPEN ACCORDING TO ANGIE
“Smappen is very user-friendly. There’s so much data that you can pull from when you draw the maps, like population and business data. You can export everything for reporting and easily categorize your territories.” – Angie Honeycutt, Vice President at 1 Tom Plumber
Smappen is the quickest and easiest territory mapping software you’ve ever had 🤠