Six Ways AI-powered Schedule Optimization Can Rescue Your FSM

Field service scheduling can be overwhelming, a whirlwind of service orders, conflicting priorities, and ever-changing conditions. Without the right software solutions in place, the entire business can be at risk.

It’s time for action.

Your field service workers don’t have to feel like they’re alone, floating adrift without clear direction or access to the critical information they need. You can help your dispatchers too, so they don’t feel like they are continually in over their heads, re-working schedules as customers cancel, weather interferes, traffic backs up, or new urgent calls come in.

AI-powered schedule optimization can rescue your organization from scheduling chaos. It’s a lifesaver for technicians, dispatchers, customers, and your business.

How serious is the situation?

Scheduling is complex. A poorly planned schedule wastes resources and can cause confusion and distrust in the system, forcing dispatchers to verify every field service assignment manually. Outdated, manual, or overly simple field service solutions don’t address issues like traffic or field service technicians calling in sick and failing to make real-time adjustments. In a rush to send the next available field worker to the next critical job, resources can cross paths or arrive at a customer’s location missing parts they will likely need. Such inefficiencies erode thin margins and profitability. Only a truly modern enterprise-grade schedule optimization solution can prevent such hazards.

Four driving factors you can't ignore.

1. Technician shortage. Solutions Review says that 70% of service organizations are facing a technician shortage. Giving technicians tools to make their jobs easier will help in recruiting and retaining these valuable workers.
2. Labor is costly. The 2023 TSIA Field Service Benchmark report says labor typically accounts for 60% of an organization’s expenses. Optimized scheduling maximizes productivity, helping to keep labor costs in check.
3. Consumers value service so much that 68% say they are willing to pay more for products and services from a brand known to offer good customer service experiences.
4. Losing a customer is expensive. Customers will quickly switch brands if they are unhappy. Research shows U.S. companies lose $136.8 billion per year due to avoidable consumer switching among brands.

AI-powered schedule optimization prevents you from losing valuable team members or customers because of scheduling mix-ups and inefficiencies.

What is an optimized schedule?

Schedule optimization is making job assignments that meet customer expectations for prompt service, as-promised arrival times, assigning the right-skilled worker, and the ability to get the job done efficiently and cost-effectively. To be truly helpful, scheduling optimization requires AI-powered technology and is continually adjusted for real-time changes. This happens automatically.

Here are six benefits of AI-powered schedule optimization:

1. Improved first-time fix rates. Assigning the right field worker—with the necessary skills, tools, and parts--helps ensure calls are completed on the first trip, which improves productivity and the customer experience.
2. More calls completed daily. If the field resource can successfully complete the assignment—plus, do it faster and with less drive time between jobs, then more jobs can be completed per day. This boosts revenue.
3. Reduced costs. True schedule optimization allows more work to be completed without hiring additional workers, while more accurate schedules reduce the volume of calls to your call center from frustrated customers. By assigning the right field worker who has the necessary product knowledge and parts on the service truck, fewer trips will need to be made back and forth to the warehouse, reducing travel and fuel costs.
4. Improved operational efficiency. Schedule optimization also considers a wide range of factors that will change throughout the day, such as weather, traffic patterns, cancellations, field workers calling in sick, and unexpected complications on service orders. The ideal solution monitors factors in real time, making changes as needed to maintain maximum efficiency.
5. Reduced travel costs. By assigning the right field worker who has the necessary product knowledge and parts on the service truck, fewer trips will need to be made back and forth to the warehouse. This saves time and fuel.
6. Improved customer experience. Schedule optimization leads to greater customer satisfaction as jobs can be assigned faster, with a knowledgeable technician arriving on time, and the service order completed promptly.
   

Scheduling optimization is a game-changing lifesaver.

Few technologies you can invest in will make such a major impact on your organization. Modern schedule optimization, such as that provided by ServicePower Scheduling, will save your organization from high-risk situations, such as slow-service call resolution, confusion around service requests, and technicians arriving late or without the parts and tools they need. A well-optimized schedule, supported by AI technology, improves the customer experience and more.

ServicePower saves your techs, saves your customers, and saves your business. 

Why risk anything else? 

Request a demo to experience the benefits for yourself.