7 reasons to give field service technicians a mobile app

As more companies transform to digital operations, service companies must also adapt and move to paperless operations to manage field technicians. To successfully evolve, they must adopt field service management software. With this type of solution, service companies can better manage service schedules and monitor service activities. And they can use a mobile app to put these capabilities right in their field technicians’ hands.   To be clear, providing technicians with a mobile business app only has advantages for companies that manage employees on the move.   If your company hasn’t converted to digital operations and you’re still using paper, here are 7 key reasons to change your mind.

To give technicians all the information they need

As a supervisor or manager in a service company, your number one priority is customer satisfaction, whether you’re providing regular maintenance or emergency services. To ensure customer satisfaction, you must ensure your field technicians arrive with all the information required for successful service from the first visit to the customer.   With paper work orders, the information can be lost, technicians can forget it at home, or spill coffee on it. The best way to avoid these issues is to send technicians all the relevant information about customers and equipment on their smartphone. To do this, you will need a mobile app that gives technicians information about the customer, about site access and contact details, and about the affected equipment and its service history — all in a couple of clicks.

To increase success rates

A mobile field service management app helps you respond more effectively to customer requirements. Whether you’re providing installation, troubleshooting or maintenance services, you must be efficient and meet contractual commitments for guaranteed service and recovery times.   A field service management app helps you increase speed and efficiency. Dispatchers can easily manage schedules and insert emergency service calls between maintenance jobs. And they can immediately send the right information to the right technician to ensure the technician arrives on-site quickly and can resolve the customer issue without having to return later.   By assigning the right service call to the right technician at the right time, you’re putting in place the perfect conditions for technicians to successfully complete jobs on their first visit. And, that’s a major factor in customer satisfaction.

To streamline route planning

The route planning component of field service management software makes route planning more efficient. It also helps you better coordinate and organize service appointments by taking factors such as customer and technician locations and travel times into account. Considering these factors ultimately reduces fuel and maintenance costs for your vehicles.   In addition, with more efficient scheduling, you can prioritize service calls, including last-minute emergencies, in a more logical way.   With a mobile application, such as the one Praxedo offers, technicians can even schedule their own service appointments, simply clicking a button to find nearby jobs if they have a break in their schedule or finish a job faster than expected. When technicians can see pending service calls that are near their location and choose one to complete, you look more responsive to customers. And you increase productivity.

To better manage spare parts stocks

Some field service management applications save technicians considerable time by allowing them to check spare parts inventories from their smartphone and list the parts they used during the service call. The software can also monitor inventory levels and re-order parts at the right time to ensure stocks are always available to technicians.

To ensure all service calls are billed

Every service company faces the challenge of unbilled service calls. In fact, some service requests end up being unofficial and don’t show up in accounting records. For example, a branch office might make an emergency repair for a large customer and tell them they’ll send the invoice later.   A similar problem occurs when technicians don’t list the spare parts they’ve used. At the end of the year, these oversights can have a significant impact on company accounting.   Field service management software brings you important advantages because it allows you to manage field activities and field technicians through a mobile app. Each service call and each part used is tracked and updated in real time in your information system so administrative teams can send customers accurate invoices for the work completed and avoid losses.

To track key performance indicators

Most field service management software includes features that allow you to define and track metrics such as productivity, profitability and other performance indicators. This information allows company managers and service managers to identify the strengths and weakness of company operators by technician, geographic region, customer, service types and other factors.   Managers have dashboards that give them critical insight into the performance levels of their teams and allow them to easily identify areas for improvement to optimize service management operations.

To increase customer satisfaction

On the service side of the business, service calls are billed as soon as technicians complete them. Because technicians are using a mobile app, their field service reports are sent directly to your information system. All of the relevant data is stored in digital format in a central, secure location so admin staff can create invoices and send them to customers within one day of the service call.   On the customer side, thanks to the forms technicians completed on their mobile app and emailed at the end of the service call, customers have detailed information about the work carried out on their equipment. They know which parts were used, and they have before and after photos that provide proof of the work completed and justification of the service costs. In addition, some field service management software, including Praxedo’s offers a customer portal where they can enter service requests directly into the software without having to go through a call centre.