Straight from Business Owners: Benefits of Implementing Field Service Management Software

Field dispatch software gives managers total visibility into the field using smart automation. The right software as a service (SaaS) can remind customers of upcoming appointments and payment due dates while removing redundant tasks—and giving you the visibility you need into schedules, upcoming jobs, invoices, and payments.

Do business from anywhere.

You no longer have to be in an office to know what’s going on—you can do business from anywhere. With field dispatch software, managers can stay in touch with both the office and the field using a laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Not only does this free managers from having to work physically in the office or track down field staff, it also eliminates paperwork and all of the administrative tasks that go with it.

The text messages will set you free.

When choosing field management software, real-time communication with your field is mandatory—and that doesn’t mean trying to track them down using various landlines.

Text messages are one of the best gifts that modern technology has given us, and it’s especially true for field service operations managers. Using SMS notifications, you can communicate with field techs and customers in real time about scheduled jobs, provide on-the-way alerts to your customers, and more.

Look for GPS fleet tracking.

GPS tracking will give operations managers more visibility into their fleet than they’ve never had before. Without ever switching between multiple applications, you can track:

• Number of trips
• Total distance driven
• Idle time
• Location on a map view
• Driving behaviors

This will help to:

• Improve driver behavior
• Reduce fuel costs
• Prevent unauthorized use
• Reduce insurance premiums

Pro Tip:

Choose a solution that includes an app for field technicians so they can receive and manage jobs on smartphones and tablets no matter where they are. This reduces miscommunication, paperwork, and office visits. Win, win, win!

We’ll get into more application goodness in the next chapter. Apps aren’t just for field technicians!

The easier it is for employees and customers to communicate, the easier it is to manage teams, and the easier life is for everyone—including your customers. Field applications can help everyone on your team stay better connected and provide a more seamless customer service experience.

Do it all from the app.

Increasing business efficiency and eliminating paperwork are major wins that service dispatch software applications bring to service repair businesses. But beyond that, using a convenient app simply makes everything easier for literally everyone—you, your field staff, everyone in the office, and especially your customers.

Make sure the SaaS you choose has an app that lets you easily:

• Receive job and estimate assignments
• View assigned jobs on a map
• See the equipment assigned to a job and its work history
• Set job progress statuses and updates
• Add activity notes, photos, and custom tasks
• Collect customer signatures on jobs

Make customer miscommunication a thing of the past.

Nothing can ruin a customer’s day—or a technician’s day—like miscommunication. Although communication mishaps have always been a downside to service repair, today’s apps provide game-changing, real-time communication with your technicians and customers. This eliminates scheduling misunderstandings and scheduling overlaps.

The minimum to expect from a service dispatch mobile app includes the following:

• Makes it super easy for customers to contact you (including texting)
• Sends automated reminders to customers before jobs
• Notifies customers when a job status changes
• Provides a map and driving directions to the customer's location
• Accesses customer notes and history (including preferences)
• Processes invoices and payments in real time
• Captures pre-work and post-work signatures

Mobile apps make estimates easy.

Maybe the best thing about a quality field dispatch software mobile app is that it makes estimates and invoices a breeze.

Really—easier than you ever thought possible. Check out the next chapter for more.

If you think someone telling you to create estimates in mere seconds sounds crazy, get ready to love crazy. Today’s field dispatch software applications—the awesome ones, anyway—create and send estimates in actual seconds using pre-populated product and service line items.

This means you can convert estimates to jobs with one click. Plus, you can prioritize opportunities, schedule on-site visits, assign jobs to sales reps for commission calculation, and more.

Choose software with an app that will let you:

• Convert one (or more) options into one (or more) jobs
• Create custom multi-page proposals
• Email, print, or download estimates
• Offer customers the ability to accept estimates online and collect their digital signatures
• Create up to five estimate options within a single estimate
• Rename, duplicate, and archive estimates

Making estimates easy can truly transform field service—and so can making payments and invoicing easier. Field dispatch software can help with that too.

In-person payments? That’s so 2019.

The field service world was moving toward more convenient online payments before the events of 2020, but now online and mobile payments are expected. Today’s customers who have to actually visit an office or mail a payment are simply going to choose a provider with more convenient options.

With the right field service management software, your customers get the credit, debit, and ACH processing they expect and demand when making payments, and you get a more efficient payment flow. Your customers can pay anytime, anywhere, with in-person mobile payments, online payment forms, and over-the-phone payments with your back office—while everything is contained in one system.

Choose software with an app that will let you:

• Convert one (or more) options into one (or more) jobs
• Create custom multi-page proposals
• Email, print, or download estimates
• Offer customers the ability to accept estimates online and collect their digital signatures
• Create up to five estimate options within a single estimate
• Rename, duplicate, and archive
• Store customer payment methods

Put your business finances all in one convenient place.

Maybe the best things that field dispatch software can do are putting all of your business financial information in one place and making invoice management easy. Forget switching between multiple systems to get the simple information you need. With the right SaaS, you can find what you are looking for when you need it most—all from within one system.

Effortlessly find any transaction and review things like:

• Payment status
• Sale type
• Payment method
• Customer payment history

Create progressive and recurring invoices.

Choose a solution that allows progressive invoicing. You can split payments for individual line items or the entire job into multiple invoices. Plus, make sure you can quickly and easily automate recurring invoices to save the time and effort of repeat entry—and you can combine multiple jobs on the same invoice.

Pro Tip:

Choose a field dispatch software solution that easily integrates with your existing accounting software, like QuickBooks. Not only does field dispatch software make accounting and payments easier, it also makes scheduling and dispatching easier.

Scheduling and dispatching can be stressful and complex for service repair businesses. Often, businesses are using two or three different systems just to get everything scheduled and everyone dispatched at the right time. (And that doesn’t always work.)

Take the pain out of scheduling and dispatching.

Looking through different files and spreadsheets to see all jobs and estimates is a pain and it’s inefficient—and so unnecessary. With field service dispatch software, you can view all jobs and estimates easily so you can shift times and dates. The best field service management software gives you easy drag-and-drop dispatch functionality, transforming what was once a cumbersome manual process.

Using the right software, you can send job information to your field workers through a call or text without ever switching programs, all from within the field service dispatch software.

Pro Tip:

When looking for field service dispatch software, pay close attention when you’re watching a demo. If you’re confused by the scheduling and dispatching functions, it might not be the easy, breezy solution you’re looking for.

There’s no such thing as finding too many efficiencies. Field service businesses are always looking for ways to do more with less, and ways to find more time to think about business growth and marketing strategy.

That’s why field service dispatch software has truly transformed the way so many service repair businesses operate. Let’s just look at the top three ways field service dispatch software can increase productivity across your entire business.

Field service dispatch software takes the office everywhere.

With features like field technician apps and keeping all business information in one place, operations managers are free to do business from anywhere because it gives them visibility from anywhere.

Think of GPS tracking alone. With the right software, you won’t have to track down a technician who nobody can get in touch with—you can log in to your field service dispatch software and get a bird’s eye view of everything. Just check and see where they are on the app, and send a text. The best part? This means you won’t default to sending the closest tech to a new service request—you can send the most qualified one.

This control and convenience gives the front office flexibility to spend more time on business initiatives and marketing, instead of spending tons of time filing paperwork, tracking down techs, and performing manual payment processes.

Improve customer service by spending less time on customer service.

We get it—it sounds incongruous. But field service dispatch software provides customers with easy mobile payments and communication. Instead of calling a customer to give them a service window, you can set up automatic texts to inform them. The customer doesn’t have to take a phone call, but they appreciate being kept updated on when their technician will arrive.

And never underestimate the power of mobile payments. When your customers can pay for everything from fast food to their mortgage on an app, they expect that from their service repair provider. They enjoy the convenience of paying without leaving the house, and your staff saves time not having to take a manual payment—freeing them to be more productive.

Make sure you choose software that has tools such as:

• Easy-to-use customer web booking portal
• Automated pre-job text notifications
• Touchless communication to ensure safety
• The ability to send and receive client calls, texts, and images

Simplified time tracking gives hours back.

Okay, tracking and monitoring employee and contractor hours is a thankless, time-eating chore. Time tracking is a universally hated part of business. We don’t need to do a poll to know that:

• Nobody likes to track time
• Nobody likes to keep track of the tracking
• Nobody likes to figure out where time tracking has gone wrong
• Nobody likes to explain why and how time tracking is incomplete

Field service dispatch software brings easy automation.

Understanding how everyone—from office staff to technicians and remote workers—spend their hours can be a huge time suck. Unfortunately, it’s necessary to ensure the business operations are efficient. But when we talk about what we hate about time tracking, we’re really talking about what we hate about manual time tracking.

Top-tier field service management software brings easy automation and eliminates tedious time tracking by automatically keeping records of:

• All staff work hours
• Remote workers
• Clocking in and out
• Time-based payroll reports with regular overtime pay

Another great way to increase productivity? Spend less time on the phone. Keep reading to see how.

The days of rolodexes and pink message pads aren’t that far in the past—and for too many service repair businesses, they’re still a reality. These days, there are software solutions that combine the power of VoIP and artificial intelligence with the old-fashioned style customer service experience you’re dedicated to.

Automated call tracking will change your life.

All right ... maybe it won’t change your life, but it will make your work life a lot easier.

With the right field service dispatch software, you can get calling technology that will make you want to throw your book of contacts out the window. If you choose a solution that uses VoIP and artificial intelligence, you’ll see all kinds of benefits.

Be a “call or text” business.

Take the pressure off. Give your customers the option to either call or text. It sounds like a small thing, but a busy customer is more likely to send you a quick text asking for a quote than take the time to call. Having the easy text option can make you the first business they call—and then it’s just up to you to catch and keep the customer.

Know who’s calling before you answer.

If you’ve ever ordered a pizza, you know that the second time you call, they’re likely to answer the phone knowing your name. Although this was a little freaky in the ’90s when it was a warning sign that you ordered a lot of pizza, now it’s all about call tracking and great customer service.

With call tracking, you’ll know who is calling and be automatically linked to their jobs or estimates within your field service dispatch software. No more “Let me check your information” or “Let me look that up” when a customer calls. You’ll immediately know who they are and what job they’re calling about.

Automatically route calls while respecting technician privacy.

If your field service dispatch solution uses Ring-a-Tech, that means you can route customers directly to their technician without exposing any phone numbers. This puts the right people in touch with each other without giving away anyone’s cell phone numbers.

Use call transcription when you can’t listen.

Picture it: It’s Saturday, and you’re at the soccer field watching a really engrossing middle school match. You see that a customer has left a message—you were waiting for their call, but you can’t hear a thing with all of the yelling and the screaming and the soccer goals.

No problem. You can read the call and voicemail transcription directly in your inbox instead of listening to the call. Then you can take action right from your phone, whether it’s to alert a technician, email the front office, or text the customer that you received their message and will call them back.

These are just a few of the conveniences call tracking brings to service repair business. When shopping for field service dispatch software, make sure it has call tracking that includes everything you need.