5 Reasons Your FSO Needs Business Management Software

Effective field service management requires the ability to prioritize day-to-day tasks that will drive revenue for your company. However, many field service managers are still employing outdated manual processes that waste time on non-revenue-generating tasks. The opportunity cost of a delayed investment in digital transformation is high, and the time to invest in Business Management Software is now. In fact, leveraging Business Management Software is the best way your field service company can eliminate time wasted on non-revenue-generating-tasks, and instead, start prioritizing increased revenue for your business. This blog post will detail the 5 main reasons your field service company needs Business Management Software, and how it can increase your revenue.  

5 Reasons Your Field Service Company Needs Business Management Software

Fluctuating demand for service jobs is common in the field service industry, adding complexity to the service workflow. With changing demand for services, warranties, COD job applications, and last-minute changes to work orders, this complexity can slow down service, limit revenue, and mar the customer experience. That’s where Business Management Software comes into play. 

ServicePower’s Business Management Software improves field service job efficiency by consolidating applications, providing real-time updates, and enabling you to create and assign work orders on the go. With a single application to simultaneously manage warranty and COD jobs, access to OEM, TPA, and Home Warranty jobs from the ServicePower Network, and the ability to directly file claims and get paid for completed warranty jobs, you can rest assured that your business is consistently driving revenue. By tracking work order status in real-time and attaching notes, comments, and media files for field technicians, there is also full visibility and control of job progress. This creates a streamlined service workflow for work order management and gives service technicians real-time access to the information integral to providing high-quality service for your customers. 

The modern field service customer has high expectations for an easy, informative, and seamless service experience. And the stakes are high for fulfilling these requirements. According to Salesforce research, 80% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, with 57% reporting having stopped service with a company because a competitor provided a better experience. This means that your field service company needs to prioritize providing a positive customer experience to prioritize an increase in revenue. In fact, with a positive emotional experience, customers are six times more likely to buy, twelve times more likely to recommend the company, and five times more likely to forgive a mistake. 

Business Management Software helps ensure that you consistently provide the best customer experience possible, exceeding your customers’ expectations and securing your success. With ServicePower’s unified and real-time Customer Database, there is a single location for your busy company to store and access customer contact information, streamlining communication and enabling a positive experience. Customers can also upload their own pictures to the database, clarifying any confusion surrounding a service job and enabling technicians to delight customers with quick and efficient service. During the coronavirus pandemic, customer-centric solutions are more important than ever, and real-time communication capabilities empower customers to take control of their own service by reaching out with any questions or concerns. 

In addition, the ability to view historical service requests and jobs allows you to monitor your customer experience over time and accurately track service updates with a unified source of truth. Combined with the ability to attach and view estimates, invoices, and payments, you can expedite your entire service lifecycle and start exceeding your customers’ expectations. 

Field technician productivity is a critical component of a good service experience, and can either improve or degrade your company’s first-time fix rate. Research shows that the average first-time fix rate is only 75%, with one in every four service calls requiring multiple visits from field technicians to get the job done properly. Not only is this an expensive and time-consuming mistake, but it mars the service experience and leaves a lasting impression on customers. For instance, 57% of customers want field service companies to sustain better first-time fix rates. By providing your customers with what they want, and improved first-time fix rates, you can cut costs on duplicate service and transportation while providing an elevated customer experience. This increases your ability to earn more revenue and is a win-win outcome for both your company and your customers. 

So, how exactly can Business Management Software increase your technician productivity and improve your first-time fix rate? 

ServicePower HUB enables increased field technician productivity by allowing technicians to access the field service app from anywhere, anytime on all mobile devices, tablets, or laptops. The mobile app integrates with timesheets for accurate tracking of check-in, check-out, and breaks, mapping applications for expedited navigation, and real-time support for technician job workflow. Combined with a real-time inventory and parts management portal, there is a unified and easily accessible location for employing accurate inventory and parts data. By maintaining and monitoring a detailed measure of inventory and spares, item usage history, and audit trail history, missing or unaccounted-for parts will never slow down an urgent service job. With technicians able to leverage the inventory and spares from their mobile devices in the field, there is a seamless technician-to-technician parts transfer that guarantees technicians will have access to the exact parts they need to get a job done on the first try. 

Streamlined workforce scheduling is the secret to success, and last-minute changes such as delays and cancellations should never impact the quality of your services, the productivity and punctuality of your technicians, or the outcome of your customer experience. However, the complexity of workforce scheduling in the field service industry can lead to human error that produces negative results such as missed appointments, reduced productivity, wasted time and money, and can foster a dissatisfactory customer experience that leads to bad reviews and a bad reputation. 

Leveraging Business Management Software allows your field service company to schedule, assign, and dispatch the most qualified technician for each and every service job. With a Gantt-based scheduling view that illustrates technician availability and capacity, you can assess your service workflow in real time. By viewing assigned and unassigned jobs in maps, you can see exactly which technicians are the optimal choice based on skill, availability, capacity, and customer and technician location. Employing real-time data is integral to success in the modern field service industry, and advanced Business Management Software enables you to access the data you need to schedule, service, and track your service workflow efficiently and effectively. 

As discussed in the blog post, Top 5 Field Service Trends in 2020, data protection and privacy a non-negotiable for modern field service companies. Cyber attacks are a serious threat to data protection and privacy, and research shows that there has been a 63% increase in cyber attacks since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. A data security breach can lead to identity theft, fraud, and significant financial damage. It can also permanently break the trust of your customers. 

By providing strong cloud data security, you can reassure your customers that your company takes data protection and privacy seriously. This can help drive long-term customer loyalty, and save your company the complex and lingering issues related to a breach in data protection. ServicePower’s HUB software is a cloud-based solution armed with advanced cloud security that protects your data from the road, office, or home. 

Curious about increasing your revenue? Discover what ServicePower HUB Business Management Software can do for you with a custom demo.