Overcome 5 Challenges with Field Service Management Software

Ever Faced such Problems in Your Field Service Business?

In the dynamic environment of front line work industries, staying ahead requires innovative solutions to overcome the hurdles that often accompany operational efficiency. If you own a field work company, this blog post is your go-to guide for solving the five common challenges that often get in the way of smooth operations.

No matter if your company offers services such as:

• house cleaning, 
• gardening and lawn care, 
• home remodeling and repairs, 
• car fixing, 
• repairing roads, 
• park renovation, and clean-ups.

Managing it can generate enormous headaches for even a well-organized employer and daily pain points to deal with, including frustrated customers, unfounded complaints, clients attempting to extort additional benefits, large teams management costs, and inaccurate work time reporting.

Check how to solve them with the help of data and workforce management software, and set your business on the path to success!

Top 5 Challenges Faced by the Field Work Companies

As a field services provider you have surely faced many of these problems:

Challenge 1: Frustrated and Unhappy Clients

Are your lawn care specialists working around the clock but customer experience is still poor because of the long waiting time? Do you get many calls from customers wanting to reschedule the service last minute? Or maybe your clients get frustrated while waiting all day for your field workers as you are unable to know precisely what time they finish their previous job?

Simple managing solutions work well in smaller field businesses but do not scale well. Using paper notes and phone calls is prone to misunderstandings causing operational chaos. And even introducing shared Excel spreadsheets would not solve the problem as they are not exactly user-friendly when your foremen are in the field.

Challenge 2: Unfounded Complaints

Let’s say your gardening unit cleans up a park. Once they leave, somebody throws garbage on the lawn. Your end client is justifiably angry, thinking your company has not done the job and they may want you to repeat the work or offer them a refund, even though there is no fault at your side.

But actually, there is one: the lack of any proof that the work was done. Of course, in case of front line workers, tracking their standard of work is highly problematic. After all, unlike most production companies or service providers, your employees work in the field and you are not able to supervise them in person all the time. The problem is, many field service companies don’t monitor their employees’ work at all, trusting their foremen or doing only random check-ups. 

Challenge 3: Clients Attempting to Extort Additional Benefits

If you run a construction company or a home remodeling and repairs business, you have probably faced a similar scenario many times before: there is damage to the property, present before your team even started working. Your field workers notice it and the customer ensures them that they are not at fault. After the job is done, the end client accuses your company of causing it to extort additional benefits or a refund. 

Without a solid documentation of the workspace, particularly photos or a description of conditions signed by the client, you may actually be forced to provide additional repairing services or even cover the damages. In case of a lawsuit, your field workers’ statements may just not be enough to win the case. 

Challenge 4: Large Teams Management Costs

Imagine that your house cleaning company has a sudden change in schedule. Maybe an end client cancels the appointment at the last minute or there is an emergency and you need another brigade of field workers on the site. If your firm hires multiple teams, it would be great to reschedule them to other tasks and avoid the costs of downtime. 

The problem is the logistic challenge of managing multiple field workers in different locations is often too overwhelming and you end up losing money. Very often, you just don’t know the actual location of all your teams or the exact time they spend at one client’s house. And without location tracking, it is almost impossible to assign the nearest squad to the job, unless you call each foreman in the field. 

Challenge 5: Inaccurate Work Time Reporting

Are you sure your car fixing front line workers make the most out of their working time? In case of field workers who need to drive to an accident site, there is always a chance they do not take the most optimal route or even make a little detour to run private errands. All that while wasting their working time, company fuel, and generating unnecessary costs.

When your employees work in the field service industry, they may be prone to report their working time inaccurately, be late for the job, or even occasionally leave the site. If you do not track your brigades’ location in real-time, it will be difficult to prove such behavior and optimize their work. No location tracking can also mean that you lose money on unnecessary transportation costs of your fleet.

Impossible to Solve? Check How Field Service Management Software Can Help in Such Problems

All the pain points described above have one thing in common – they result from lack of adequate information gathered by field service organizations and used to improve its operations. But how to get insights in an easy way, without too much fuss or incurring too much costs? 

One idea lies in implementing a field service management software that will solve these problems for you while you focus on doing your job. Usually, such a platform consists of two main components:

• a user-friendly field workers app to gather inputs from your front line workers, and
• a workforce management system to assign and manage tasks between teams and supervisors.

This structure provides you both with location tracking and easy documentation of the projects, and enables you to manage all your company operations in one place.

How to tackle the 5 common field service company changes? 

1. Empower your field workers with an easy way of documenting their job

A field workers app usually includes digital forms with user friendly interface that can help the teams to provide all the necessary field service paperwork in a paperless form. Field service documentation forms may include single or multiple-choice questions, description boxes, or even a possibility to add a photo or a video from the site. They can be used both pre- and post-service to document the state before and after the job is done.

With a field workers app you can gather all necessary documentation in a digital form, with easy access from any device. It means no more organizational chaos or misplaced documents for you, and less work for your front line workers.

2. Manage all the paperwork in one place, in a real-time 

With a user-friendly online form, you can easily add new tasks to the system and update them in real-time when you get new information from customers such as change of the location or time. 

This minimizes errors and paperwork and ensures you have all the documentation in one place, for all involved people to access. Online workforce management system can also help to decrease downtimes and adjust your field services to clients’ specific requirements.

3. Get the most accurate real-time location data 

Modern mobile devices can automatically gather a wide range of data, including field employee location. With GPS tracking technology included, the app can easily capture accurate, real-time data about each front line worker’s location while geo-coded attendance marking tools show the exact time the employee checks in and out of the workplace. The app can also use a geo-fencing technology to send instant notifications when the field worker leaves the site without prior notification.

Managing a field service organization without knowing the exact location of your front line workers can be a nightmare. Luckily, locations tracking can help to better manage your teams’ capacity, ensure their productivity, save time, and reduce the costs.

4. Optimize jobs distribution and safety of your teams 

As you already know, thanks to employee tracking solutions such as GPS, a workforce management software can show you accurate location and movement of all your brigades at all times. 

This feature can show you which team is close, so you can assign a new job to them straight away. It also allows you to keep tabs on your front line workers during working hours, so that you can ensure their safety and your profitability.

Unlock Your Business Potential: 4 Ways to Improve Your Operations with the Field Service Management Software

You know your industry potential issues and how data can give you the ability to solve them. But what exactly is in it for you? The top advantages include:

1. Keep work records neat and easy and your customers happy

All your documentation is gathered in one inventory in the field service management software. Field workers submit work progress reports or documentation of the job completed so that you can easily check their work quality and ensure high productivity. Access to the complete documentation can also save you nerves when facing a dissatisfied client or an emergency situation.

2. Scale up your business with automated management in place

The more brigades in the field, the bigger the logistic challenge. What may get impossible to organize using traditional practices, will be easy and straightforward with a good field service management platform. Tools such as GPS tracking and automated task allocation would be invaluable when organizing your work effectively, preventing staffing issues, and reacting flexibly in real-time.

3. Ensure the highest performance and work quality

Keeping the discipline and efficiency of your field employees may not be easy but with field service management software, it gets much simpler. In a workforce management system, you can have full visibility of your employees current locations and activities and ensure their safety while also preventing unnecessary detours or prolonged breaks.

4. Collect data, automatically optimizing, and saving money

All the data you gathered about your previous jobs and your employees’ activities are kept in one system and may be then used to optimize your future operations. A good workforce management software not only offers you insights about your historical data but also can explore, learn, and automatically suggest the most efficient actions.

Did You Find Field Management Software Interesting? Here’s How to Learn More

If you run a field service company, managing front line workers is a challenge that can give you many sleepless nights. Pen and paper solutions only take you so far. But if you want to ensure a steady growth, a reliable field service management software that lets you manage the complexity of your operations in an easy and user-friendly way can be a good solution.

If you are struggling with this type of problems and would like to find out whether we are able to prepare a solution tailored to your industry specific needs, or just get to know what options are available, we are happy to share our experience in tracking solutions with you.

Are you wondering whether you can afford a workforce management system or how long the implementation process takes? Send us a message and our expert will contact you to answer all frequently asked questions.

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