subject: Service Management Software to Automate Your Business [print this page] Service Management Software to Automate Your Business
What if your technicians could take your service software on the road? What would this mean for your organization? To your company's profitability?
Most likely, this would mean better communications between key personnel, the dispatchers in the office and the technicians in the field. Your technicians would experience less downtime and more billable hours. Invoicing your customers for service work would happen immediately upon completion of the job. And your customer service would improve, leading to repeat business and referrals.
Wireless, mobile service management software is not a futuristic capability. There is technology available today that gives technicians the ability to share information with your office in real time. This technology gives them access to their schedules from your dispatch board (including any changes that are made throughout the day). It also gives them access to other service software features, such as the ability to view, complete or update their work orders.
Incoming service calls still get routed to the dispatchers, who schedule the work on the dispatch board. But now, instead of coming into the office to pick up their schedules for the day, the technicians retrieve their schedules simply by turning on their wireless laptop, home computer, or PDA.
Technicians have real-time access to their work orders. They can drill into the details of a work order, review a jobsite's work order history and read notes relating to the currently scheduled work.
Improved Communication - Communication between the office and the field is no longer a challenge. Changes made to the dispatch board at the office are immediately available to the technicians in the field. Instant messaging between the two offers a clear course of communication, without phone tag or downtime.
Streamlined Billing - As technicians finish jobs, they complete the work orders using a laptop or PDA. Hours, materials, notes and any additional work recommended all are recorded. This real time data entry changes the status of the work orders on the dispatch board and lets the dispatchers know when the technicians are moving from one job to the next. It also allows them to intercept the technicians and change their destination if warranted.
Increased Productivity - Mobile service management software can increase staff productivity all around. For the dispatchers, this is accomplished via real-time communication with the field all day, every day. For the technicians, increased productivity is due to less downtime, better job information and the reduction of paperwork. And for the accounting staff, mobile service means the elimination of duplicate data entry and faster invoicing.
