With customer needs changing, investment has been made into mobile field service software that offers plenty of positives to service delivery, the most important of which is improving the service with customers and meeting their demand expectations. And whether you’re a field service enterprise with hundreds or technicians and subcontractors, or a small-medium business with just a few technicians, there is value in a mobile field service software.
Aberdeen Group conducted a survey of field service organizations and this is what they found were the driving forces behind field service programs added mobility to their business.
Customer Demand for Improves Services
The top factor seems to be the most obvious one, and 55 percent of respondents said it was the most important factor in them moving towards a mobile field service software: customers are demanding for improved services. When you look back to how traditional service is carried out, it’s not very customer friendly. Service calls get requested, then get added to the technician’s queue of work orders for the day. They’ll show up between the hours of 9 to 5, and possibly must return if they need to get a part.
For some customers, that isn’t acceptable in 2018, and they want a smaller waiting window, faster service from their technicians, and a near Uber like experience where they can request service promptly, and track where the technician is, if they are driving to their call or where they are in their work. Mobile apps offer that ability to open the lines of communication to customers and empower the technician in the field with plenty of features that will improve how they conduct service calls. Customers simply want better service and if they don’t get it from one company, they will search it out somewhere else.
Increasing the Volume of Service Requests
The second reason field service organizations are moving towards a mobile field service solution is because they want to increase the number of service requests they can handle. Mobility helps dispatchers optimize technician’s schedules and assign them work orders. With mobile apps, dispatchers can have work orders pushed to the field without having to communicate any changes to the technician. Technicians simple access their mobile app, check their next service call that appears on their mobile device, and proceed to the next call. This allows dispatchers to make real-time changes to schedules without having to communicate to multiple technicians over the phone. Routing tools also help technicians get to their job site faster, cutting down on driving time, and by completing work orders on a mobile app, administration work is done through the app, as opposed to manually, drastically reducing the amount of administration work needing to be completed after a call.
Need To Operate With Reduced Service Workforce
With a shortage of technicians in the field service space, service organizations are trying to find ways to operate with a reduced team of technicians. Mobile field service software offers a solution, either by allowing for optimization of the reduces workforce’s schedules to meet the needs of the customers, or by allowing the business to hire subcontractors and manage their activity through a mobile app. Subcontractors would use a mobile app to review work orders, and with advances checklists, they can maintain the standards of the field service organization, while still reporting all necessary information back to the head office.
When you consider the first statement, that 80% of service organizations are using mobile devices in their field service work, it should be clear that the industry is heading towards a full mobile solution, and that a mobile field service software is what the industry is demanding. If you’re still doing things the manual way or struggling with optimizing schedules and a reduced workforce, turning to a mobile field service software could be the solution to meet your customer demands, and push your business forward.