For service businesses, managing your assets, scheduling & dispatching your field staff, and managing your daily workflows are the tasks that must be completed, no matter what. They are repetitive and take a lot of your time. If only there was a way to automate it…
A majority of companies these days still use spreadsheets to keep track of everything that’s going on. That is a common way of doing things, but not a very efficient one. While spreadsheets will keep everything organized and accessible, there are more efficient methods of data entry and workload distribution.
With field service management software, you can coordinate all field and office operations successfully.
How does field management software help your small business?
A field service management software system can launch your company to a whole different level. Most FSM software solutions come with similar features and the most common ones are listed below:
- Work Order Management
- Field Service Scheduling
- Intelligent Dispatching
- Intelligent Location Services
- Estimates and Invoicing
- Timesheet Management
- Mobile Application
- Analytics and Reporting
- Data automation
The first step in integrating any FSM software into your business is to identify the challenges and goals you have with using it. Once you determine what things often slow you down, you can choose the right software for your business to help alleviate those bottlenecks and speed up operations. In case you need an FSM software that comes with the features mentioned above, you should really consider looking into Zuper. They’re a leading FSM software solution that helps make both office teams and field workers more effective and productive every day.
What are field service management best practices?
1. Track revenue & expenses
Once you have all your business finances in one place, you can easily assess your expenses and your profits. Most software solutions come with features where they show the estimated costs to complete tasks, work in progress, profit vs. loss estimates, forecasts, etc.
By tracking your expenses, you can make smarter business decisions that will benefit your company. For example, you may be spending too much on customer support without even realizing it while you gain little from it. With any FSM software, you will also receive valuable customer support features such as chatbots and FAQ hubs that may help you cut your expenses or transfer your budget to a different area – like marketing that can help grow your business.
2. Work Order Management
Every Field service management software system is designed to help you organize your daily tasks. Each member of your staff is organized in a project in some way and the communication between workers is crucial. With better communication, your staff members will yield better results.
Furthermore, assigning tasks and jobs through your FSM software makes it visible for everyone that needs to be in the know about it. This means that everyone’s held accountable. Should any mistakes occur, you can quickly identify them, correct them and proceed.
Another huge part of work order management is scheduling services. Your field force can learn in advance where their next location is. It is crucial yet easily to plan out where to dispatch your field service staff.
The service scheduling feature most field service management software solutions offer allow you to do just that. You can allocate jobs and resources more effectively this way. Moreover, you can quickly react to any job changes and cancellations as they occur. The FSM software helps to eliminate unnecessary phone calls between the office and field workers too.
As new jobs roll in, you can quickly assign them to one of your teams or groups. In most cases, the teams or workers cover certain parts of the city, so that they wouldn’t have to travel for half a day otherwise. However, you can assign more complicated tasks to your most skilled workers, letting them know in advance that they will need to switch locations.
3. Organizing Projects
Often, your company may be involved in a long-term project which consists of multiple stages. Tracking this, in addition to other regular jobs, may become very complicated over time. Following the progress is important for both sides and so is saving costs associated with the job.
At the end of the project, you’ll be able to see a full summary of all the costs involved, but thanks to the FSM software, nothing should come as a surprise to you. Also, you can compare your actual costs with the estimates and forecasts and prepare for your next project with more accuracy. The FSM software will always help you learn from your jobs, which in turn helps you become a more effective business.
4. Test and organize your assets in the field
In case your company organizes maintenance visits, having the latest information from the field workers is a must. Your field workers must quickly update information in your FSM software so that you can plan and anticipate the next service.
This also means that the FSM software we are talking about needs to have a mobile application – this is a must. Field workers have to access it effortlessly and include all the information required of them in a matter of minutes.
Look for field service management software or field service invoicing app that comes with the mobile app – ideally for both iOS & Android users and which provides access to all the features mentioned above. Knowing when each asset needs service allows you to plan your staffs’ schedules, inventories, and communicate with your customers seamlessly.
This is a win-win-win situation. Customers are happy because your team showed up on time. Your staff is thrilled because they can set up everything with minimal stress, unpredictability, and your field workers know their schedule in advance so that they can better prepare their work days.
5. Set up recurring invoices
Setting up recurring invoices will save you a lot of time. Having templates that you can send out immediately instead of manually creating each invoice is a must for regular maintenance work. Wherever you can create a template, don’t hesitate to do so because you will be able to automatically generate the invoice and send it to your customers whenever that’s required. This cuts down on laborious tasks and at the end of the day, this gives your team’s hours of time back that they can allocate to revenue generating work.
The bottom line on FSM software
The 5 practices that we’ve described in this article, together with the few extra ones we’ve mentioned in the beginning, are the main reasons why companies integrate the field service management software and use it regularly in their daily business operations. They can help your business grow no matter the industry you are in.
Before you select the right field service management software, you can always compare different FSM software brands, offers, and always make sure to schedule a consultation or try a demo to see what works best for your unique business needs.
