RPH

What is an RPH?

From a business perspective an RPH is like a lite version of a lead.

But for a better understanding of it, let us review some things that happened some time ago and which will drive us to what an RPH means for the company.

Right now in the system you may find RPHs, Leads and Accounts, but it wasn’t always like that.

At the beginning, everytime that the company would go out and find a pothole, the account managers would create a Lead in the system for that pothole. But at that time there was no mechanism to know what happened with it after a while. So it was pretty hard for everyone to answer simple questions like: Did it become a sale or not? Is anyone interested in having us fix it? This kind of methodology would then generate that a lot of duplicates were created and wouldn’t allow the company to track the evolution of the sales process.

That is why we decided to make this part of the sale process different and fit it to our needs. In a regular company you may find Leads only, but in our case we have also reported Potholes (RPHs).

Now everytime we get a reported pothole, it is recorded in our system in the site record weather is a Lead or an Account. And we can see over time, everytime we had an opportunity to talk to them about a damage on their lot and that exists now

Like we said, in a regular company this would be a Lead, but in our case we have reported potholes. Which effectively means “we have heard you have a problem we can help you with”

So you might still be wondering, What is an RPH then?

Well an RPH is a pothole that exists right now in a site. We know where it is and we are interested in it, yet we don’t know how this is going to end. So to avoid duplicate records and having bad information in our system, we create first an RPH and time will say whether it turns into a Lead or not.

What is the difference with a Lead and an Account?

Leads and Accounts are very similar and share a lot of information. At this point once a Lead has a quote and the quote becomes a sale, the Lead automatically becomes an Account.

The Lead itself is basically just a mini account.

For every particular address we want a record in our system, and this is a permanent record. That record is going to be either a Lead or an Account depending on if we have done business with them.

An RPH is an actual opportunity to start a discussion with them right now about maybe, for instance, doing some repair work.

How is it generated and when?

There are several different ways in which RPHs can be created.

One way in particular is over an external marketing company we have an arrangement with. This company is based in India and through the access to their database, their digital marketing campaigns allow us to reach more people interested in hiring our services.

This particular company uses an external portal to create an RPH or Lead every time they get an answer from a potential customer. This action will generate the correspondent record in our system with their footprint and stamps, so we can know the RPH/ Lead proceeds from them so they can get paid and credited for it.

In some cases they might get a response from someone who has already done business with us, in this situation they follow the same process and get the same credit than in the situation explained before.

Another way to create an RPH is to manually do it. This happens when someone picks up the phone and calls us, or they receive an email, visit our website, etc. We usually have to manually create a record for all these situations where a person directly contacts us.

Finally and the most common way in which RPHs are created, is through mobile applications. This way generates by far the largest amount of records in the system. We hire independent contractors, we assign them a territory, give them a license and they are literally paid to go out in the wild, visit every parking lot they can find and report the potholes in the app.

These records can be found in the system with the “pothole hunter” label.

RPH creation through Mobile application

There are TWO different mobile applications to create an RPH:

• Lead Generator used by “Hunters”
• Proposal Maker used by “Surveyors”

Just for reference:

Hunters are temporary contractors that generate RPHs, like we explained before they "hunt" potholes.

Surveyors are full time employees. Their job is to visit sites that have requested a quote. Then the surveyor goes to the site and inspects the entire lot.

Do not worry if the doesn't make sense now, we will explain more about the whole process later

These mobile applications allow the user to easily send THE RPH information to the system by following a simple process. This information is processed by the Data Analysis Team so they can analyse the likelihood of an RPH to successfully become an opportunity.

The Hunters and Surveyors must complete/upload at least the following information:

• A photo of the reported pothole
• A leasing picture (a reference place to geolocate the pothole)
• Complete site information

Once completed, they need to validate the address (the system does it through an integration with Google Maps with geolocation). This way the system triggers a whole validation process of the site database, searching for any existing account with such address/ location.

If the site already exists in the database, then the system will inform the user about it. This way when the user finalizes the process of RPH creation, this will be automatically linked to that existing Lead or Account.

The result of this process needs validation by the Data Analysis team as well.

If the site does not exist, then the RPH is created without a linked site, which may be added afterwards and depending on the results of the analysis performed by the Data Analysis Team. If this happens, it can be easily identified on the UI looking for the icon "".

Manual RPH creation (through CRM)

Despite that the 90% of the RPHs are created by some external application, the CRM allows to manually create an RPH through a quick process. Like we said before, this process may be used on the scenario where a customer directly contacts us, I.E. a customer ask for a pothole repair.

To manually create an RPH, the user needs to press the " " icon on the top right corner of the menu section.

This option shows a form with the following sections:

RPH Creation Form

General information

• RPH status (Mandatory)
• Owner (Mandatory)
• Assign to
• Company/Site (Mandatory)
• Property Type (Mandatory)
• RPH Source (Mandatory)
• Site Source (Mandatory)
• Region (Mandatory)
• Where Obtained
• Next Follow up
• Upload Damage Images

Contact Information (See contacts)

• First Name
• Last Name
• Direct
• Mobile
• Email

Address Information

• State (Mandatory)
• City (Mandatory)
• Street (Mandatory)

Damage Info

• Damage Info (Mandatory)

Once this is done, all the information is then logged in the system database, no matter the source of the RPH. This action automatically triggers an email to the user who has been assigned to it, with two possible results:

• If the site exists, the user needs to verify if the location is correctly linked to the site.
• If the site does not exist, then the user will analyze it and verify its potential.

What happens once the RPH is created?

Once the system has done the proper validations and everything is on place, a new record is added. RPH records can have different processes, it depends on whether the site already exists or not, or some other specific scenarios. Nevertheless it is always created in a “Raw” status by default, until the analysis of the data analysis team or the site owner.

If the site does not exist, the RPH will evolve through different statuses which represent a specific scenario. Once the RPH is generated the Data Analysis Team assesses the uploaded data, E.G.: images, voice notes, descriptions, etc. and decides whether it is good enough for approval. If the team considers the RPH to not be eligible for processing, either due to lack of information or the scope of the business, then the RPH is closed as rejected (death), and the Hunter or surveyor responsible receives a notification.

On the other hand, if the team considers the RPH to have potential, they will start with a new activity process that consists of a series of automated emails that seeks to capture the potential client.

If the site exists, similar analysis can be done by the Data Analysis Team to link and validate that the RPH was correctly related to a site. Also, the opportunity can be directly created from the RPH without the need to create a Lead.

What information is visible on the UI?

The RPH´s list contains basic information necessary to further develop the contact and possible opportunity.

The information visible from the UI is:

• Mgment Account: parent account of the site (if exists).
• Site: name of the site or account name.
• Location: coordinates of the location, supported by Google Map API .
• Property type: the kind of building/ construction, E.G.: gas station, shopping mall, etc.
• Assigned to: the person responsible of this account.
• Related opportunity: in case it has an RPH assign to it.
• Status: these are useful to quickly see the level of progress of the detective work executed by the Data Analysis Team.
• Next Action follow up: shows which is the next action scheduled .
• Creator: the person who uploaded the RPH.
• Options: a set of buttons that allows the user to access more actions.

How to see the RPH list?

To see the list of existing RPHs the user needs to click on “Reports” menu, and select “Reported PH report”

Filters are available to refine the search

The available filters are:

• From date
• To date
• Assigned to
• Status

Once the filter is applied and the list is shown, a dynamic “Search bar” is also available to reduce the results.

What options are available?

Thru the CRM any user with access to see the reports list can use all the available actions in order to analyze and work with the RPH and decide how to proceed with each one of them. The last column on the UI is the one in where the users can find all the available options, and will vary depending on variables such as RPH status, if the has a site related or not, if is realted to an existent account, among many others.

By using the Options panel, the users can:

View damage info

Shows the information related to the pothole, provided by the hunter. Such as site name, location and property type, etc. It also includes a description and comments about the pothole like its size, shape and any supporting information like coordinates and google maps search results.

Send Email

If the RPH contact has an email address registered, it is possible to send an email directly from the system. The user can choose among a set of templates according to the level of progress in which the RPH is. For further information please check the Emails page.

Move RPH to specific Site

Allows the user to assign the RPH to a specific existing site. This site could be an existing Lead or Account. Is used when the RPH reported needs to be linked to a site already existing in the database in order to avoid the duplication of sites.

The user only needs to click on the button and search for the desired site.

Remove Site relationship

Allows the user to make corrections regarding the site assignment in case the RPH was assigned to an incorrect site. Once the user clicks on the button, the system asks confirmation to remove the relationship between the RPH and the Site

Create new lead

With this function the RPH is quickly converted into a Lead. The system only validates that the RPH has an assignee/owner. For more information please visit the Lead page.

If the conversion is successful the user will receive an in screen notification

Audio files

In case the RPH has attached an audio (uploaded usually by the RPH creator), the system allows to play those audio files so that the Data Analysis Team or the Owner can capture more information. Also, using the same function, is possible to upload audio files and attach it to the RPH.

View History

The system saves a log of all the actions that are done over the time for the selected RPH, allowing the user to see the historical information and keep track from the earliest stage until the end of the RPH process.

View RPH Images

Allows the users to see any image that may have been attached to the RPH for further information.

Add RPH Images

Let the user add more images for reference by selecting a file from the local disk

Change RPH Status

The user can change the status of the RPH according to its progress. Each status have a specific meaning and represents a separate stage in the entire process.

Add Note to RPH

The system allows adding a note about the RPH so that further information can be easily captured.

Set Next AFU Alert

Allows the user to set a new action to follow up RPH conversion. The user can select a date and the system will trigger a notification when the date comes up.

Send Info to another email address

Allows the user to add a different email address and send messages (E-mails) without changing the main one assigned to the RPH.

Assign to

Allows the users to assign RPHs to specific users depending on the needed action for that RPH.

Create Opportunity

If the RPH is related to an existing Lead or account, the system allows to quickly create an opportunity from the RPH. The system validates:

• The contact of the Site is correctly uploaded
• There is no other open Opportunity for the selected site. In case there is an opportunity in progress, the system will allow to either close the current opportunity and create a new one, or split the existing one to add this RPH.

If the account related to the RPH is protected, the system will inform and ask the user to decide how to proceed. There are two possible options:

• Create Without Splitting: the user creating the opportunity will not have access to work with the Item since it will be protected by the owner.
• Split With Me:The owner will remain the same, but the opportunity will be managed by the user creating the opportunity.

RPH Process Diagram

IN PROGRESS