How to Expand Your Business With Field Service Software
Most home appliance businesses rely heavily on word of mouth as they grow. In a competitive...
Colan Beare
Many appliance repair business owners don’t think that they need field service management software. They ask, what are the benefits of a field service management system? What does field management software even do?
If you haven’t made the switch yet, it can be hard to understand how much time you can add back into your day using field service management software. Here are six of the best features available in field management software.
Fleet Tracking
The Feature
Fleet tracking is a feature that uses GPS to track the locations of all of your company’s field technicians, helpfully displaying all of this GPS-supplied information on a color-coded map.
The Benefit
Fleet tracking and fleet management facilitate the seamless and effective transference of information between field site workers and those in the office.
Inventory Management
The Feature
Inventory management is a tool that tracks what parts you have in stock, as well as where they’re stored. If you have multiple warehouse locations, you can search for a part’s location.
The Benefit
Inventory management is a useful organizational tool that’s particularly valuable for companies with multiple warehouses. You can avoid issues like duplicating stock or unnecessarily leaving customers waiting on a delivery for a part that you didn’t realize you already had in stock.
Purchasing
The Feature
A purchasing tool inside a piece of field service management software allows you to place orders for service calls, re-order commonly used parts, make returns to vendors, and view shipment tracking and delivery information all in one place.
The Benefit
A purchase management system streamlines ordering by compiling everything you need to order parts in one place, making the purchasing process faster and minimizing the amount of associated paperwork.
Customer Management
The Feature
A customer management tool compiles and cleanly displays customer information. For each customer, you can view information like their contact details, service history, and past payments. You can also perform functions such as merging duplicate contacts to clean out your system.
The Benefit
A contact management system improves a business’s ability to effectively serve its customers. Remembering information about customers makes them feel like they’re receiving a personalized service experience, and having all of their details and histories laid out in front of you makes providing that personalized service easy. Contact management tools are also incredibly useful for recordkeeping and organization.
Scheduling
The Feature
Having a scheduling tool within your field service management system allows you to view a live interactive map of your service area. From there, you can block off time when technicians will be unavailable, calculate drive time, sort routes by technician, or lock routes into place.
The Benefit
Using a scheduling management system ensures that your field technicians will be operating on an accurate schedule, avoiding dead time between calls and too-tight scheduling that causes them to be late to (or even miss) appointments.
Reports
The Feature
With all of the information you’re managing between inventory, fleet tracking, scheduling, and on, you’re collecting considerable quantities of valuable data about your business and your customers. The reporting feature utilizes data analytics to pull reports on all the different facets of your business covered by Walkabout’s field service management software.
The Benefit
Data analytics and reports can provide previously untapped insights into your business that allows you to adjust your processes and services to be as efficient as possible. They offer you a deeper understanding of every element of your business.
The common theme across all of these features is that they offer your business information and resources that allow you to become more accurate, more effective, and more structured.
If you’re interested in doing things a new way and upgrading your business with Walkabout’s field service management software, schedule a free product demonstration with a member of our team.
