How much is it costing you to dispatch a field service technician?
It may seem like an easy number to figure out, as someone answers a client’s call or email and schedules a technician for the job. But from the time the call is received to the time it is closed, the cost of dispatching a technician could begin to eat away at your bottom line.
Administrative costs grow as your business does, so the more service calls and technicians you take on, rightfully so, the more dispatchers and back end administrators you would need to keep your business fielding calls and your technicians on the road working. Reducing those administrative costs is a simple way to reduce the cost to your business, and that is where a field service management software can help in many ways to cut down on the cost of dispatching each technician for a call.
Automating the Field Service Process
When a call or email comes in for a service call, someone must enter in the job information. However, in a field service application, some of these tasks can be fully automated to create work orders. An email from a client can trigger the creation of a work order, removing that task from this dispatcher’s schedule. They simply schedule the right technician for the job, who can receive the work order on a mobile device through a field mobile app, and the work can get completed.
Automation also occurs with the creation of service level agreement and contracted maintenance agreements that automatically generate work orders when the scheduled time to complete a job is required. Any time interval can be set for when these maintenance agreements are generated, but they are done automatically without the need of a dispatcher to create the task, ensuring the work order doesn’t get missed and keeping dispatchers focused on other pressing calls.
Lines of Communication
It takes time to communicate instructions, and while healthy communication helps to make a business thrive, too much communication takes up time that both dispatchers and field service technicians could be doing other work. A technician would need to call back to dispatch for new work order information, however, with a field service software, all tasks are sent to them using a field mobile app, cutting down on a number of times they need to speak directly with a dispatcher about a call.
Even instructions on certain aspects of a repair, field notes and manuals can be sent along with the work order, giving the technician everything they need to complete the work without having to make calls that take up time on both ends. At the same time, dispatchers can continue to route calls to a field service technician’s mobile field service app, without having to call them to change their schedule. It’s a real-time, live ability to update service calls on the fly, without having to make phone calls to those working in the field.
Embracing an Electronic World
By switching to a field service application with mobile app capabilities, the administrative cost can also be cut down on time needed to produce invoices. This can be done by giving the technician the power to collect an electronic signature in the field to push the invoice out automatically. By also including all notes and checklists on a mobile app, which can be electronically sent back to head office, time is also saved on the technician returning written hard copies of forms and checklists that will need to be reviewed by administrative staff for billing and other business related matters. Instead, an electronic version can be sent instantly from the field, clean and neat with all needed information, speeding up the billing process from weeks to days or even minutes. With the field service industry continuing to grow, every bit helps in reducing costs. By eliminating some mundane tasks from dispatchers and technicians, less time is spent reviewing and communicating between each other, and more time is spent on dispatching the work that produces revenue for the business.