Are you wondering if your field service business will benefit from investing in field service management software? Migrating from tried and tested business practices, relied on for many years, to a new, unfamiliar digital approach is bound to be worrying. But we live in a digital age with customers who have increasingly high expectations. They expect their field service technicians to be fully aware of what they do, their industries, their service history and what’s important to them. They expect efficient, timely responses to their service requests and enquiries and they are not happy to wait.

Are you asking yourself the question: Does my business need field service software? If so, read on to learn about some of the tell-tale signs that indicate digital transformation and field service management software will be good for your organisation.

1. Customers complaining about communication

Have any of your customers ever grumbled or complained about communications and when was the last time you carried out a customer experience survey? Digital transformation strategies must always be informed by customer experience (CX) and CX is greatly influenced by communications.

If you have received any complaints, moans or maybe simply recommendations from customers regarding your communications with them, take note. If one customer has complained it’s highly likely there are several others who are not happy but haven’t yet complained. Poor customer communications can indicate where weaknesses exist in your current business processes and where improved customer management will help retain your valuable clients. Our customer management software provides a central location for storing all customer data and communications. This ensures all customer interaction is informed and their specific needs and desires are recorded and fully understood in your organisation.

2. Lack of business efficiency

Have you spotted efficiency issues in your organisation? Are certain tasks taking a long time or demanding a lot of staff resources? Business inefficiencies are a clear indication that change is required.

Efficiency is key when providing field services, especially for mission-critical applications. For example, if a client requires a site visit to deal with an urgent problem they need a competent field service professional to arrive as quickly as possible. If inefficient internal processes mean that the job isn’t quickly scheduled and allocated to the most appropriate field service personnel then the issue is likely to become far more urgent and the client will be increasingly anxious and unhappy.

Efficient and effective call management should ensure that jobs are optimally allocated to the most appropriate mobile personnel. Field engineers should be provided with all the information they need to travel to the site with a full understanding of the issues at hand along with the customer’s history. They should be enabled to speedily resolve problems and provide complete customer satisfaction. 

3. Unable to take on new customers and grow your business

Are you unable to take on new customers and grow your business because your existing workforce is already working at full capacity? If your staff are overwhelmed with their existing workloads is it due to staff shortages, skills issues or inefficiencies?

Resource limitations will stifle business growth but it’s important to understand exactly how existing resources are being used. If, for example, your field service business is largely paper based it’s likely that valuable time is being wasted in various data processing tasks which are far more efficiently and effectively carried out by software. Are your field service people using paper based reporting systems, timesheets, expense reports and purchase orders? If so then you can immediately relieve them of these burdensome tasks by implementing mobile field service management software that will make their day to day working lives easier and far more enjoyable.

4. Issues with document management

Paper based document management systems can be plagued with issues, but many businesses struggle on, simply due to long term familiarity and a lack of confidence in digital systems. Paper based business systems are notoriously expensive, partly due to the costs of paper, printing, archiving and storage, but also because such systems are labour intensive. Your field service people may have submitted service reports, invoices, expenses claims, purchase orders, time sheets and other documents, all completed by hand. Someone in the office then needs to accurately transfer the data in these paper documents into the various systems your business currently uses. This is clearly inefficient and susceptible to errors.

Customer documentation must be stored securely but remain accessible to those who need it. And you may need to keep track of everyone who ever accesses those documents along with what they wanted them for. Secure storage of all customer data is a vital aspect of effective customer management which is best achieved using software that’s designed for the task. 

5. Unhappy workforce

Are your field service people happy in their work and do you know which aspects of their day-to-day lives they least enjoy? People are most happy at work when they are doing what they are trained to do and if there is one thing that field service personnel hate, its paperwork. 

Alleviating your front line mobile workforce of their administrative load will make their working lives much happier and easier. Our mobile field service management software will do exactly what’s needed. It’s designed to conveniently run from any mobile device including smartphones, iPad and tablets. Engineers can create and submit their field reports on-the-fly and they can even capture customer sign-off signatures directly on their devices.

Summary

There are many signs that indicate your business will benefit from using top quality field service management software and digital transformation. If you have spotted any of these indicators or other tell-tale signs then now is the time to take action. If you would like to learn more about how our field service management software will help your organisation please contact one of our dedicated sales team today. Email [email protected] or call 01296 350350.