Field service companies: the 5 benefits of job management software for your competitiveness

Have you heard about the digital transformation of businesses? It's a process that has been underway for several years now, affecting all sectors of the economy. To respond to an increasingly demanding market, companies are constantly seeking to improve their performance: customer responsiveness, employee productivity, enhanced customer experience...

To stay competitive, companies are increasingly digitizing the way they do business. Little by little, digital technology is replacing paper, making organizations more fluid, both internally and in relation to their customers.

The service sector is also affected by this digital revolution.

To remain competitive with their rivals, reduce costs, increase sales and win and retain customers, technical service companies must also adopt new, more efficient, faster and more productive modes of organization.

However, although they are aware of the need to take steps to improve the way their business operates, many service company bosses are overwhelmed by the day-to-day management of their technicians' activities.

So how do you step back? How do you sit back and think things through? How can they analyze the benefits of dematerializing service management for their company?

In this article, we've decided to make it easier for field service company managers to think things through, and to present, simply and with a few very concrete arguments, the immediate benefits that a service management solution can bring to a service company with technicians in the field.

See all software Field Service Management

Benefit no. 1: Secure cash flow

The first benefit of implementing a service management software solution in a service company is the securing of cash flow.

Reduce invoicing times

Gone are the days of technicians with notebooks. No more paper work orders. No more waiting days for technicians to bring their reports back to the office. With service management software, all service reports are digitized in the technician's mobile app, and once completed, immediately uploaded to the service management interface. They can then be exported, or transferred, to the company's central IT system for invoicing.

In this way, the invoice can be sent out on the same day as the technician's intervention, considerably speeding up invoicing times.

Reduce customer disputes and the risk of non-payment

Short invoicing times, combined with features such as the insertion of before-and-after photos taken by the technician with his smartphone in service reports, reduce customer disputes and the risk of non-payment.

Equally beneficial for the company's cash flow, a service management software package enables the consumption of spare parts and consumables to be tracked, so that nothing is forgotten when invoicing the customer. It also helps to improve parts stock management, so that orders can be placed at the right time.

Benefit n°2: Improved operating margin

Adopting a service management solution also secures and even improves the company's operating margin.

Increase back-office productivity

The use of a dedicated software solution increases the productivity of your back-office staff, and in particular reduces the time spent planning interventions. Drawing up a daily schedule for technicians, mixing recurrent maintenance and emergency repairs, is generally a very time-consuming task for business managers. A job management solution can automate part or all of the scheduling process, by proposing the best mix of recurrent and emergency jobs for each technician.

A service management solution also reduces the administrative burden on office teams. The reports drawn up by technicians on their mobile application are fully computerized. Information is legible, consistent, complete and usable. Once the work has been completed, it goes straight into the management interface. Administrative staff no longer have to re-enter information from poorly drafted paper work orders. They waste less time on tedious, unproductive tasks.

Optimize technician workloads

As a result, each scheduler has more time to manage the schedules of more technicians. Scheduling management in the web-based planning interface also makes it possible to better manage technicians' working hours, and the number of interventions to be carried out according to the type of intervention, their location, etc. Generally speaking, a service management solution helps to optimize the workload of each technician in the field. Technicians can also declare their working hours directly in their mobile application, making it easier to manage overtime, on-call duty, etc.

Last but not least, a service management solution secures the service company's operating margin by reducing the number of kilometers traveled, thanks to real-time route optimization : less wear and tear on vehicles, less fuel consumed, less time wasted in traffic jams...

Reduced risk of penalties

The company also secures its operating margin by providing its customers with concrete proof of the work carried out: before-and-after photos are included in work reports. Detailed intervention reports are immediately e-mailed to the customer. No disputes are possible. And fewer disputes mean fewer penalties.

Benefit no. 3: Long-term customer loyalty

For a field service company, building customer loyalty means improving communication with them. Nowadays, with the uberization of services in the private sphere and all the VTC or home delivery applications, customers are used to being informed in real time of the actions of their service providers.

Real-time customer communication

In the professional sphere, it's the same thing. You need to be able to communicate with customers in real time about what's happening on your site. If he's not present, he wants to be notified when the maintenance technician arrives on site, and to know when the work has been completed. He wants to receive the complete intervention report as quickly as possible, with before/after photos, etc. Such proactive customer communication is not possible without a high-performance service management solution.

At the customer service level, a service management solution enables real-time information to be passed between the technician's mobile application and the operator answering the customer's questions. The operator can access the history of interventions carried out on a piece of equipment, and also see in real time the notifications issued by the technician on the progress of his or her intervention. For the customer, it's very reassuring to have this precise information available in real time, should they so wish.

Legible, 100% usable service reports

What's more, with a service management solution, reports are entered by technicians directly into their application. They can be parameterized upstream, so they are more complete, more detailed and 100% readable. In this way, the quality of communication contributes to increasing the quality of service perceived by the customer. This quality and transparency in communication increases the relationship of trust with the customer, and thus builds loyalty over the long term.

Benefit no. 4: Secure and develop sales

Equipping your field technicians with a mobile application to manage their service reports is also an interesting way of developing additional sales with customers. For example, a service management solution can set up forms in the application to enable the technician to issue an additional quotation to the customer, directly on site, in the event that the need for a second intervention on another piece of equipment, for example, is identified by the technician or even the customer.

The technician can complete a form to produce a quotation, have the customer sign it electronically, then self-create this new intervention in his application, specify the consumables used, and draw up a new intervention report which automatically goes back to the service center for invoicing. It's responsive, it's fluid, it's fast, and the customer is satisfied because his problem can be solved immediately. And for the service company, it's additional billing that boosts sales.

Benefit no. 5: Motivate and retain technicians

A service management solution and its mobile application give technicians in the field greater autonomy and reduce their administrative tasks. They don't have to return to the office too often to file batches of service reports. In this way, they avoid unproductive journeys. Secondly, as mentioned above, the mobile application can enable them to self-generate interventions when necessary.

Reduce technicians' administrative workload

It's also easier for maintenance technicians to avoid having to handwrite pages and pages of forms in the cab of their vehicle. With a mobile application, they can quickly and easily enter all the information they need into pre-prepared forms, usually using checkboxes and drop-down menus, with very few text fields to fill in. This means they can work faster, and they are also guided in filling in information by so-called "constrained" forms, where it is necessary to have answered step 1 before being able to access step 2. This saves them time on their administrative work, leaving them free to concentrate on the job in hand.

No disruption to business thanks to offline mode

In offline mode, the mobile application also enables them to continue working even if they're in a place where there's no network, such as a tunnel or a white zone. This doesn't prevent them from completing their forms, with data synchronization resuming automatically once the mobile terminal has regained access to the network. In this way, technicians don't waste time and don't have to go back to paper at the end of the day.

A lever for recruiting the next generation of technicians

Finally, the technician profession is currently undergoing a generational renewal. New recruits, who are younger and more accustomed to working with smartphone applications, are naturally reluctant to work on paper. They expect to use the same technology in their work as they do in their daily leisure activities. Equipping a service company's technicians with a dedicated mobile application is therefore a real lever for human resources, both in terms of recruiting technicians and keeping them with the company.

See all software Field Service Management

Conclusion

In conclusion, to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive economic environment, service companies began their digital transformation a few years ago. But far too many small and medium-sized companies are still working the old-fashioned way, with outdated methods that will not enable them to stand up to the competition or to the ever-increasing demands of their customers. It's time for them to take the plunge too.

Sponsored article. Expert contributors are authors independent of the appvizer editorial team. Their comments and positions are their own.