The challenges small business owners face are similar to those who run massive operations. However, these challenges can be crippling to a small business, who may not be able to keep up with demand without a solution. Field service for small business relies on simple solutions, greater visibility and better communication in order to succeed. And that’s where small business dispatch software steps in to overcome the challenges they face in the field. Let’s look at the most common challenges small field service businesses face every day.
Effectively scheduling a small workforce
With a limited number of technicians, field service for small business owners can be challenging. How do you not only complete all your daily service calls but also add new business? It’s difficult to grow out of the small business operation into a larger one without continuous growth. So, small business owners have to be better than anyone at finding more time to fit in new customers. Small business dispatch software helps to prevent issues of job incompletion, overtime costs and dysfunctional route planning.
In a small business operation, every moment a technician is idle is money being lost. That’s what makes route optimizing so important. Rather than having your technician cross the same paths to go from one job on one side of the city to the other, plan their route better. Have them spending less time in their vehicles and more time using their hands to fix equipment.
The benefits of small business dispatch software include:
- Optimization tools to reduce travel time
- Greater visibility into the position of technicians and service calls
- Ability to locate the nearest technician to new service calls
- Increased customer satisfaction
Not capturing accurate information
One area where field service for small business is the same as their enterprise-level counterparts is in their need to capture information. Information is critical to the success of any field service operation, and small business field service teams are no exception. But having support staff to manually enter data into a computer, spreadsheet or support system can be costly and timely. And it does make the information accessible to everyone who needs it.
Field service for small business needs the same mobile field service apps that are used by larger organizations. Information needs to be recorded accurately and captured in a way that not only gets it to the back end fast but makes it useful to the business. Within small business dispatch software, data collected can be turned into useful analytics that a small business owner never thought they needed. More importantly, it takes away the manual processing of paper-based work orders and gives the technician a mobile app to complete jobs with.
What benefits do field service for small business teams see with better data collection:
- More accurate capturing of time, parts needed and expenses
- Important information is stored for future use by technicians
- Remove mounds of paperwork and processing time
- More organized work order management, with pictures, checklists and customer signatures
Your technicians are not prepared for the job
With a small workforce, you can’t always book the same technician for the same customer. So, different technicians will be working on equipment at different times. Technicians need to be informed of the job they are heading to. And they can only do that by reading past work orders and contacting the technician who has done the work before. With the mobile field service app, technicians can search for work order history in the small business dispatch software to read old solution notes. They can get up to speed on the customer’s equipment, so they aren’t walking in blind.
How do mobile apps assist in being more prepared?
- Reduce the diagnosis time
- Have more insight into past repairs
- Provide onsite information to customers
Spending too much time chasing down paperwork
Paperwork is a staple of any small business. There is plenty of paper to manage when it comes to field service for small business. Things such as work orders, invoices, quotes, preventative maintenance contracts and project plans can be all scattered around. Piles of paperwork can drastically slow down a field service operation, especially when you need information immediately.
With so many different operational components to track, using paper just doesn’t make sense, even for small business owners. By using a small business dispatch software with a mobile field service app, all the paperwork can be put into one complete system. Search your system for contracts, quotes and work orders, not your filing cabinet. Become a more organized operation with a software system.
- Small business dispatch software makes it so:
- You can eliminate paper from your organization
- Have a better search ability to find the forms you need
- Improved billing process with integrations that remove the need for paper invoices
Field service for small business needs software
The challenges for small business owners in the field service industry can all be managed. But only if they are willing to look at their counterparts and use the same solutions they are using. That doesn’t mean it has to come at the same price tag, however. Small business dispatch software brings in plenty of functionality that small business service teams need to run a smarter, leaner and overall better business.
Don’t sell your service department short. Grow your business, optimize your service team and conquer the challenges that small business owners face every day using small business dispatch software.