7 Tips for Field Service Providers to Improve Productivity and Profits
Every field service provider wants to deliver improved service at reduced costs. Here are our 7 tips to make your company more productive, competitive, and profitable, and better equipped for growth.
1. Don’t Let High Fuel Costs Burn Up Your Profits
Driving paperwork back and forth to the customer site can send profits up in smoke. Instead, have your field service technicians complete work orders in the field, entering data through their mobile app. This allows the job to be invoiced right away. You save on technician time and fuel costs while speeding up the billing cycle.
2. Have a Clear View of Your Inventory
Field service technicians need ready access to the right parts to be effective. But an overstocked warehouse can be money down the drain. Knowing ahead of time what services are scheduled in the next few days and what parts are most commonly needed can dramatically affect the first call success rate. Customers may pay you for travel time and labor on the first call, but if the technician does not have the right part, that’s often on your dime.
Also Read: When is the best time to implement a new field service software?
3. Share Information to Work Smarter
Enter information once into a service software system so it is instantly available to your team. Customer updates, service history, notes, documents, and more can then be easily accessible from anywhere. When you have real-time data and visibility into your operations, you’ll always be informed.
4. Boost Worker Productivity
Even small efficiency gains add up to big savings. When service call takers have up-to-date customer and service history information at their fingertips, it allows them both to process calls faster and to ensure more efficient scheduling of technicians and crews. And when workers can click a button in their app to track travel and labor start/end times, it increases accuracy and efficiency, reduces paperwork, and minimizes visits to the office.
Also Read: Streamline Your Invoicing and Service Billing with TEN4 Software
5. Don’t Let Billing Slip
Invoice every job promptly. The most reliable way to do this is by creating the invoice directly from the job or service estimate. Old manual approaches are error-prone, leading to payment delays or even failure to invoice at all. It’s easy to overlook an invoice, especially when the job is small. Those small mistakes add up. When you generate invoices automatically, your billing stays ahead of the game.
6. Pay Attention to Existing Customers
A customer in the hand is worth two in the bush. In a field service business, oftentimes a service technician is the only company representative the customer sees after the initial sale. Therefore, the technician’s ability to successfully deliver the service in a timely manner goes a long way to winning the customer’s approval and loyalty. Service software will help you to anticipate your customers’ needs, automate customer notifications, and improve responsiveness so you can grow your solid customer base.
Also Read: Importance of Field Service Management Reporting
7. Know Your Team
Do all your team members work as effectively as they could? Weak performers can drag the company down. Service software will give you valuable data about the productivity of each technician, including technician activity, service volumes, and parts used per technician. Experienced technicians are hard to find, so having such information helps you determine the strengths and weaknesses of your staff to provide additional training, make needed changes, and generate improvements.
