“Commusoft was perfect for us, and I think they would be for any service company.”
Joe Jennings, Managing Director at Heat Plex Ltd, explains how Commusoft continues to help his plumbing and heating business grow.
In just a few years since adopting Commusoft, Joe has been able to scale his team and boost revenue to well over six figures.
With a particular fondness for how Commusoft handles data and proposals, hear more about Joe’s journey with Commusoft, below:
About the Company
Joe Jennings:
I would definitely recommend Commusoft to anyone who wants to take that next step in growing their company.
How Heat Plex Tripled in Size and Scaled their Operations
For many field service businesses, scaling up from working as a sole trader to a multi-vehicle operation requires clear communication, reliable job tracking, and seamless customer service.
Access to data lies at the heart of that growth journey and for Joe Jennings, Managing Director of Heat Plex, finding the right software was the key to unlocking the substantial growth that they’ve achieved in recent years.
Heat Plex was founded back in 2016 and is based in Clapham, London. As a reactive plumbing and heating contractor, they primarily serve high-end residential and light commercial clients—including schools and embassies.
In the four years since Heat Plex adopted Commusoft, Joe has seen his team grow to a staff of 12 and as for turnover:
Financially, we’ve gone from a business doing—before we took Commusoft on, we might have been doing a few hundred thousand—and now we’re in the millions.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
We had great fun catching up with Joe and his team, and they gave us a lot of insight into the impact Commusoft’s had on for businesses.
You can learn more about their success, below:
Overcoming the Growth Bottleneck
The start of Joe’s story is one that many trades business owners will be familiar with.
In the early days, Joe ran Heat Plex using pen, paper, and spreadsheets. While these tools can work fine as a sole trader, even by today’s standards, they’re inefficient and often prone to errors that can hold businesses back.
Even when Joe did adopt software, he found himself juggling a mixture of disconnected tools, with each one fulfilling a different need, from emails, to accounting, to diaries, and stock.
Of course, like many tradespeople: it’s just how Joe was used to working.
The one thing I never understood when I was on my own was having systems and processes. I thought they were all just individual things: everyone just used the same ones. But it’s not!
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Of course, when system are disconnected, admin tasks can end up muddled and lead to bottlenecks.
This became increasingly problematic as Joe looked to grow the size of his own team and offer new services to his customers, like service contracts (more on that, below).
While it’s clear that Heat Plex has always had a fantastic reputation for doing excellent work, the demand for their services put more strain on the systems Joe did have in place. It was obviously becoming a point of friction.
If he was to avoid disappointing customers and damaging the business’ reputation, Joe knew he needed a better solution…
Exploring Heat Plex’s Early Growth Journey
At first, Joe experimented with different tools, like ServiceM8, but he found this software lacked what he needed to achieve the growth he wanted.
Fortunately, Joe’s search eventually led him to Commusoft.
Commusoft’s all-in-one field service management software gave him the tools he needed to properly connect his business, share information, make use of automation, and easily communicate with customers.
As a result, Joe could streamline his business. And as they got more confident with the software, tasks that once took hours were being completed in minutes!
Today, invoices and job reports are generated and dispatched instantly upon completion, providing clients with clarity.
There’s a high level of automation that significantly reduces the administrative burden and Heat Plex is more efficiently and more profitable as a result.
I think a lot of trades businesses will go through that growth pain, where you’re transitioning from being a one-man band or just a sole trader to running a business with staff.
Being able to have a system where you can all use the same software to produce the same results: it’s perfect.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Joe has also been able to give his team back time without compromising on the quality of their services.
This gives them the opportunity to work more strategically and look at perks like training his staff, growing the team, and creating better relationships with their customers. Or simply (but importantly) going home on time!
This can feel impossible when you’re not working efficiently.
Intuitive Tools: Getting to Grips with Commusoft
No matter what software you’re using, the tool needs to be user friendly.
While Commusoft certainly has a lot of complexity beneath its surface, it is a system that is designed to be intuitive and specifically tailored to plumbing and heating businesses, amongst other trades.
Ease of use needs to also apply to everyone: from engineers in the field using the mobile app to staff working on a laptop or computer.
Fortunately, the Commusoft mobile app enables engineers on the road to view job details, record location notes (such as stopcock and gas meter access), attach photos, and complete gas safety certificates directly from their devices.
The app’s offline functionality ensures data syncs automatically once coverage is restored, preventing information from getting lost when working in basements or low-signal areas.
The engineers really like it and I find it very easy to use. They do like that the app can work offline.
So, if they’re in a basement or they haven’t got any signal, any of the photos just log straight onto the app. They don’t have to worry about it syncing. It will sync up as soon as they get data again.
A lot of the other software that we tried didn’t do that, so you’d lose a lot of information.
For Heat Plex, their wider team all get on with the software really well:
Knowing his team can reliably pick up the software is a huge help, too.
It’s been an easy platform to share within the team. It’s great because they want ease in their day.
If they can just upload photos, fill out their notes, everything’s seamless: that’s changed the day-to-day operations.
Miles, who’s the Operations Manager at Heat Plex, agrees.
He joined the company in February 2026 and when we spoke to Miles, he shared some his experience of learning to use Commusoft. Whilst at another business, he’d previously been using a tool called Sugar, specifically for managing tenancies. He swapped to Commusoft are joining Heat Plex.
Coming into Commusoft, obviously the first week was a little bit of a shock [but] the actual use of the software is pretty easy.
Miles, Operations Manager
There’s always a learning curve, but both Joe and Miles spoke about how helpful the support team have been in helping them, whilst also learning to use the software themselves.
Training a Team to Use Commusoft
For Joe, using the software has come fairly easy, particularly with the training and onboarding provided, which Joe spoke very positively about:
From the start, the team at Commusoft have been really good.
I’m not overly tech-savvy [but] everyone who supported me at the start has been brilliant, and up to this day you can’t fault them.
Of course, no learning experience is without its issues and hindsight is 20/20. When asked about any advice he could offer to other businesses adopting Commusoft, Joe says he’d encourage owners to involve more of their staff early on in the process:
Because if there are certain parts that you don’t understand, or you’re flicking through the training, someone else might pick up on something you’ve missed.
I’d get engineers on the Teams call with the training, just so everyone knows exactly what you’re getting into.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Building Recurring Revenue and Customer Portals
A primary driver for Heat Plex choosing Commusoft was how our software supports recurring revenue models.
Heat Plex offers home care plans and is looking at expanding to offer memberships with perks like priority services for repeat clients.
Fortunately, Commusoft is a perfect match:
I did look at other software that you could use, and none of it seemed to support the recurring model quite as well, so that was why I chose Commusoft.
Service contract management software gives Joe the tools his team needs to support a recurring revenue model.
Our system enables businesses to create detailed Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) schedules for every contract. The software will automatically generate jobs when they are due and add them to your calendar, ensuring you always deliver on your promises and secure your recurring revenue.
Powerful reporting tools also mean you can forecast earnings based on contracts, too (see screenshot below).
It’s this level of detailed reporting that Joe is an especially big fan of, as you’ll see further on.
Accessibility for Dedicated Clients
In addition, for Joe and his team, the customer portal has been a significant tool for improving customer service, particularly for contract clients.
The customer portal tool has helped transform how Heat Plex interacts with property managers and other contracted commercial clients, too.
The customer portal gives their customers access to information they can find themselves, which is great—particularly estate agents—who need information for their own clients to be readily available.
It’s pretty streamlined. You don’t have to be juggling one software here, one software there, bringing them all together and then tracking where you’ve actually [files] from. That is a big benefit of having it all [in one place].
If the customer then reaches out and they go, “Oh, can you send that report? That certificate?” We’re like, boom, straight away!
Miles, Operations Manager
Property managers can access job histories, safety certificates, and billing records independently at any time, saving time for both the client and the office team.
A lot of our clients want reports the same day.
If it gets to the end of the day and you’ve got an engineer on call, they can complete that job, and then the client can log in and see it.
Agents really like how quickly you can get a very professional report and invoice to them as soon as a job is completed.
By empowering clients to access the files and information they want, 24/7, Joe has been able to win back time for his team, whilst retaining confidence in his customers. “That was a big selling point for me,” Joe continued, “because it meant that I had more time to myself.”
The portal is just one of the many ways that Commusoft supports teams who want to save time without compromising on their services.
Commusoft has been brilliant in making sure that our customers receive a smooth service.
They can always access their account.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Learn more about how we support your team with customer database software.
Winning More Work with Professional Proposals
When it comes to winning work for Heat Plex, it’s Commusoft’s proposal tools that Joe says has had the biggest impact.
With Commusoft, you can be confident you’ll not only win more work, but stay on top of it, too.
That’s something Heat Plex have achieved through the use of Proposals using estimating and quoting software.
The proposals we can do in under a minute, and it looks like it’s taken hours. That’s been really good: creating that proposal and then being able to make that proposal a job straight away.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Commusoft gives trades businesses the tools they need to both capture and act on opportunities.
Success with sales relies on having a smooth workflow. From creation to acceptance, the process is seamless.
Our software’s template builder allows businesses to create customisable, professional quotes—complete with branded cover pages—in under a minute. This can easily be attached to an email and sent to a customer.
When they accept an estimate, it automatically converts the opportunity into a scheduled job, eliminating a huge amount of manual data entry.
These jobs easily get picked up by the office and assigned to engineers to ensure that both reactive emergencies and scheduled appointments have a place in your calendar.
Presenting well-branded, comprehensive proposals also helps to set Heat Plex apart from competitors who may rely on informal estimates.
The proposals have made things a lot, lot smoother for us and customers love it. It looks great.
You show up with this really nice, shiny, glossy brochure and it sells itself!
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Data-Driven Decision Making Can Lead to Growth
As we round up this testimonial, let’s focus on final feature Joe mentioned a lot whilst we were visiting: reporting and analytics in Commusoft.
Reporting lies at the heart of why Joe has enjoyed using Commusoft.
It’s access to real-time performance data through our reporting tools that help him make important decisions about his business. From monitoring turnover, performance, and so much more: he gets a detailed look at what’s working and what could improve.
I love the reporting tab. It’s just having all that information to hand at any time of the day that you want, and at the end of the week, you’ve got confidence in the way the business is going.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
Even better, it’s how it impacts his team, and it was great to hear how Commusoft is helping Joe transform not only customer service, but training for his team, too.
Software doesn’t just have a financial impact, but it can help you constantly improve, and Joe’s experience is testament to that outcome.
By moving away from fragmented processes and moving to a unified system, Heat Plex has a solid foundation capable of helping them grow.
I don’t see any reason why we can’t scale to 20, 30, 100 vans now, using Commusoft. It never really slows down. It’s got unlimited usage as far as I can see.
Joe Jennings, Managing Director
For field service businesses seeking to grow, implementing centralized operations software like Commusoft provides the structure, efficiency, and professional image needed to expand confidently.
After achieving so much in such a short time, we’re truly excited to see where Heat Plex takes things next!
If you’d like to talk about how we can help your business, reach out by clicking the banner below:
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