FieldAx provides some practical tips that will change the way you see your field operations and your technicians. By taking these simple steps and using the right tools, you can quickly transform field service from a cost center to a source of profits for your company.
Stop giving gifts to your customers:
No free service. Selling a service contract is not complicated. On the other hand, the contract and its timelines must be followed. If a maintenance contract has expired, renew it before the technician goes to the site. There should be no question of working for free. If you want to start making money on technicians’ service calls, eliminate paper and go digital.
Optimize technicians’ schedules:
The move to profitable field service starts when you plan your technicians’ journeys. Schedules must be accurate and logical.
The first objective is for your technicians to spend as much time as possible on the service activity and as little time as possible in their vehicle. This helps to maximize their billable rate.
The second objective is punctuality. Customers should not have to wait for technicians to arrive on-site.
To fulfill both of these objectives, you have to draw lines between service calls to create schedules. Doing this manually is very complicated, especially if you have to coordinate numerous service calls. Use field service management software.
Providing your dispatchers and technicians with access to field service management software gives them a useful and effective tool that will quickly create real business benefits. You can increase first-time-fix rates, optimize service calls and technicians’ working hours and, ultimately, improve customer satisfaction.
Get better control over spare parts:
At FieldAx, we talk to many companies that complain they are not able to track their use of spare parts. Technicians are using bolts, seals, valves and other parts, but all too often, they forget to include those details in their service reports. But those parts weren’t free. The company purchased them and they must be billed to the customer. Otherwise, year-end losses can be high.
You must be able to accurately track spare parts. Again, this is much easier to achieve with FieldAx.
Equip technicians with a mobile app:
This is a perfect transition from the previous point about mobile apps. To keep up with your competitors and make field service profitable, think mobile. The field services industry is, by definition, mobile, so mobile solutions are an obvious choice.
From smartphones and tablets to business software that lets you adopt paperless processes, there are any number of specialized hardware and software solutions to help your technicians achieve their goals at customer sites. They can also customize quotes and invoices and send them back to the office in real time to accelerate billing.
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