6 Things Your Competitors Know About Field Service Management Software

If your commercial service business isn’t already using field service management software, it means the competitors who are using it have a huge advantage. (Huge!)

So many commercial service businesses already know that field service management software can:

1. Make operations more efficient
2. Improve customer service and management
3. Make creating estimates easier
4. Provide easier scheduling
5. Take payments and invoicing online
6. Improve field communication

These are six things that all commercial service businesses should want, and actually need if you’re going to grow and flourish. Let’s take a deeper look at how these six things your competitors know benefit their business, and how you can get the same benefits, too.

1. Make Operations More Efficient

With the right field service management software solution, you can complete a 30-minute task in 30 seconds—and you can do it from anywhere. Using a single software as a service (SaaS) platform to manage operations, you can make day-to-day tasks easier. You can also ensure everyone is working together toward the same goals.

Think of it as a total simplifying solution that can make nearly every part of your service business easier.

Get time tracking and payroll reports.

Top of the list for most commercial service businesses is making time tracking and payroll easier and more informative. Any company—like your competitors—that uses field service management software is able to monitor:

• Daily office activity
• Staff hours
• Your remote workforce
• Clocking in and out

Additionally, the right SaaS solution can offer populated time-based payroll reports with regular overtime pay. You get both a bird’s-eye view and detailed findings for all things related to time tracking and payroll.

2. Provide Superior Customer Service and Management

Commercial service businesses using field service management software can better manage customer information and relations on several different levels. (It might even get you a great customer review.)

With the right solution, you can:

• Create multiple customer contacts and service locations
• Set communication preferences
• Keep track of billing terms
• Track references
• Store notes, both public and private
• Easily keep track of all documents and images

Read up on the best ways field service management software solutions can keep you as efficient as possible.

Level up your marketing.

Not only does field service management software help commercial service businesses better manage and service customers, but the right solution also helps with marketing.
Some field management software options can create marketing email distribution lists, along with providing custom communication templates.

Provide contactless solutions for customers.

Your competitors are likely using contactless electronic documents—especially after the events of 2020 that everyone’s still dealing with. Not only do contactless solutions keep everyone feeling safe, but they also accelerate agreements, eliminate back-and-forth manual tasks, and increase convenience and safety for your customers and teams.

Plus, you can send and sign agreements securely in minutes, rather than days. You can turn any custom single or multi-page document into an electronic document, and send electronic requests directly from within estimate and job screens.

On top of all this, you can customize! The right SaaS will let you create custom electronic request email templates. Additionally, you can preview and download electronic documents as a PDF, and customers can sign electronic forms from their personal devices.

All of that work, and nobody has to get in a car and go anywhere.

3. Make Estimates Easier

Who doesn’t want to make estimates easier? With field service management software, you can create and send estimates to convert them to jobs. The right solution will do this in seconds, even using pre-populated product and service line items.

Imagine converting estimates with just one click! No more stressful estimate converting, with field service management SaaS. Beyond the convenience, this allows you to prioritize opportunities, schedule on-site visits, assign jobs to sales representatives for commission calculation, and more.

With the right field service management software, you can:

• Measure good/better/best; option one/two/three; or repair/replacement
• Give your customers immediate options with just a few clicks
• Rename, duplicate, and archive options
• Create custom proposals
• Email, print, or download estimates
• Offer customers online estimates with online signatures

4. Simplify Scheduling and Dispatching

If you choose the right field service management SaaS, you can do things like view all jobs and estimates to easily shift times and dates. To the uninformed, this may not sound like a big deal—but commercial service businesses know this is huge.

Scheduling and dispatching is both a science and an art, and field service management software makes it so much easier. Some software options can even send job information to your field workers through a call or text without ever switching programs, all from within the field service dispatch software.

Plus, you can schedule and dispatch from anywhere—nobody will be tethered to the front office or a landline. This means your front office can be someone’s living room or someone’s car, if necessary.

5. Take Payments and Invoicing Online

Did you know it’s possible to convert single jobs and consolidate multiple jobs to invoices in a snap? Or, in this case, a click. Your competitors are doing exactly that with field service management software, and they’re finding efficiencies you’ve only dreamed of.

Provide progressive invoicing and accept multiple forms of payment.

Let’s look at progressive invoicing. Imagine being able to split payments for individual line items or put the entire job into multiple invoices. Additionally, field service management software makes it possible to accept credit cards, debit cards, and ACH within a secure integrated payments solution.

If your business can’t already take all of these types of payments, you’re behind your competitors. Customers today expect to pay however they want, and if you don’t take credit cards or debit cards, they will move on to someone who will. SaaS makes it so much easier to offer customers what they’re looking for.

Get SaaS that integrates with your account software.

When looking for field service management SaaS, make sure it integrates with your accounting software, like QuickBooks. The solution you choose should automate synchronization of job deposits, invoices, and payments.

6. Create Better Field Communication

Do your field technicians have a mobile app that keeps them all connected?

Your competitors’ field technicians likely do.

Improve mobile connectivity.

A field service management app can let field staff receive and manage jobs on smartphones and tablets, reducing paperwork and the need for office visits. Plus, field service management software can bring real-time communication with and among your technicians and customers using SMS notifications about scheduled jobs, on-the-way alerts to your customers, and more.

Choose easy call tracking and routing.

Look for field service management software that has a VoIP service. This helps your company to easily track and route calls. VoIP can show you where new customer calls are coming from, and route your existing customers to the right team. This makes life easier on everyone—the tech, the customer, and the front office.

Ready to Level Up? Check Out Your Field Service Management Software Options

Now that you know what your competitors know, are you feeling a little FOMO?

We have a cure for that.

First, make sure you know what to ask when narrowing down your field service management software choices. Then, take a look at what one of the most affordable and comprehensive SaaS solutions has to offer. Schedule a demo now.