Is your Field Service Platform holding you back?

Introduction

Your Field Service team is critical to the success of your business. They're on the front line, interacting with customers and helping them solve problems. And they deserve a solution that's as reliable, flexible and easy-to-use as possible. While advances in technology have made many aspects of running a business easier than ever before, if you rely on your Field Service platform for everything from scheduling to reporting, it can be difficult to keep up with those advancements when it comes to managing field staff.

Do you have the ability to track technician time in the field?

Tracking technician time in the field is important. It allows you to understand how efficient your technicians are and how long they spend in the field.

If you have this information, then you can:

●    Understand how much time it takes to complete specific tasks (e.g., driving from job site A to job site B). You may also want to know if there are any unexpected delays along the way that cause delays in completing a task.

●    Compare actual completion times against target completion times for each task (e.g., how long does it take our customers’ technicians to complete a repair?). This will help you determine whether or not changes need be made within your operation—either by improving efficiency or by creating new processes altogether—in order for your company’s goals and objectives to be met on time and with consistency.

Do your contracts, quotes and invoicing take longer than they should to process?

Sure, you’ve got the best CRM in the business that allows you to track everything from sales leads to customer service and support tickets. But is it fast? Is it efficient? Are your contracts, quotes and invoices processed quickly enough to keep up with demand?

Because in this day and age, with increasing energy and labour costs, speed and efficiency are more important than ever.

If your team of field service professionals struggle to complete their jobs because of inefficient processes or paper work in the form of reports, then they're going to be less productive overall. What about your customer service operators back in the office processing the data, scheduling the jobs and managing the team? Do they have the right tools and systems in place to support growth or are they using spreadsheets?

Your customers expect excellence from every interaction with you—so if any part of that experience takes longer than necessary (like manual offline data entry), then guess what: You're going out of date just like everyone else who isn't using an integrated system like Collabaro Cloud Services.

Does it feel like your Field Service solution is holding you back?

Does it feel like your Field Service solution is holding you back? If you can't answer “yes” to the following three questions, then it might well be:

●    Are you using outdated software that makes it difficult for your field employees to do their job well?

●    Are your solution's features not flexible enough to meet the unique needs of your business and field service technicians, or do they require too much manual work on the part of your team members?

●    Is there little or no collaboration across departments and teams when working with customers or suppliers in real time via tablet devices (e.g., iPads), smartphones (e.g., iPhones), laptops/desktops etc.; instead relying mainly on emailing attachments back-and-forth or using WhatsApp between team members who are several miles apart from each other physically but miles away digitally due to limited access points within buildings where they may be located at any given time during the day

Is manual processing of paperwork slowing down technician productivity?

Field Service Platforms have greatly reduced the time and effort required to perform field service tasks. But what about paperwork? Manually processing information is time consuming and prone to human error, which can lead to data integrity issues. In addition, manual data entry can lead to paper forms being lost or misplaced by the technician—a huge issue when you’re dealing with an industry where time is of the essence.

Are your teams drowning in manual processes and overwhelmed by administrative tasks?

Although the impact of administrative tasks on employee satisfaction is well documented, it's important to consider how these activities affect your bottom line.

For example, if one of your field service professional has to spend 1 or 2 hours every day writing reports when they could be using that time more effectively engaging in inspection, maintenance or warranty work or being more productive by servicing more customers, what does this mean? And even if writing reports isn't directly impacting the customer, and it probably is—it still contributes to low morale among your employees who want more than just their paycheck. Employee retention is directly linked to employee satisfaction.

Not sure how to answer these questions confidently? Maybe it's time to review your Field Service solution.

If you're not sure how to answer these questions, it might be time to review your Field Service solution. Of course, if you aren't using a Field Service solution yet, it might be time to start looking into one. Not only will it allow you to keep your information both up-to-date organised and centralised, it will bring consistency and efficiencies across the business as well as improve employee satisfaction.

Conclusion

In this day and age, it's critical to make the most of everything that your mobile workforce has to offer. There are no longer any excuses for letting processes or bureaucracy hold your business back from achieving its goals. Contact us today for a free demo of Collabaro and find out why it's time to upgrade your field service productivity!