4 Things You Should Consider Before Implementing Field Service Management Software Solutions

Did you know that 40% of organisations experience growth using field service management software solutions? By modernising and streamlining your processes, you can eliminate inefficiencies and spend more time concentrating on business-critical tasks instead. 

However, you must ensure that you’re choosing the right solution for your company.

In this article, we’ll explore the top four things you should consider before implementing a solution and share how BigChange can help field service businesses reach their full potential.

What to Consider Before Implementing Field Service Management Software Solutions

There are many field service management software solutions on the market. But they’re not all created equally. To ensure you’re implementing the right one for your business, you should consider the following:

1. Your Pain Points

The first step to figuring out what solution to implement is to think about your pain points. Currently, only 52% of organisations are using field service management software solutions. The remaining businesses continue to rely on error-prone manual processes and antiquated legacy systems to manage their operations, which leads to a host of challenges. 

Here are some of the most common issues field service businesses encounter:

• Job scheduling issues
• Poor first-time rates
• Inadequate communication methods
• Lack of visibility over operations
• Inconsistent cash flow
• Inability to track performance

You should look at your current ways of working to figure out where the weaknesses are and what you can do to alleviate any problems. For example, if cash flow issues are plaguing your company, you may want to consider a solution with an inbuilt invoicing and payment feature. 

For more insights on the top field service management challenges and ways to mitigate them, click here.

2. Team Requirements

The next most important aspect you must consider is your team since they will use the system daily. Remember, your back office employees will have different requirements to your field technicians, so it’s worth getting both teams’ opinions.

Back-Office Staff

If your business currently relies on outdated systems and manual, paper-based processes, chances are you’re missing out on the opportunity to boost productivity. Workers who have to complete repetitive, mundane tasks on a daily basis are likely to be less satisfied with their jobs, leading to more errors and slowed workflows.

However, companies that go paperless notice that team productivity rises by nearly 30%. By eliminating the monotonous aspects of the job, your team will have more time and feel more motivated to focus on activities that directly contribute to business growth.

Therefore, you should take time to identify where processes could be streamlined and modernised. Once you’ve determined what you can do to improve your working practices, you can look for the right field service management solutions to help you achieve your goals.

Field Technicians

45% of technicians report that their current tools aren’t fast enough, and a further 38% say they can’t access all the information they need. Aside from being frustrating for your technicians, lack of correct tools or information leads to delayed work, confusion and dissatisfied customers.

Because your team spends most of their day off-site at customer jobs, you should consider using a cloud-based field service management software that includes a mobile app. With access to all the information they need at their fingertips, your technicians will be able to focus on getting the job done. Plus, they can instantly provide real-time updates to your back-office staff and complete digital documents on their mobile devices, making for a more seamless and rapid workflow.

3. Customer Needs

In today’s client-driven market, customer experience (CX) is king, and more field service businesses will need to consider how to make their operations meet expectations. In fact, 92% of field service executives want to transform their service models to meet customer needs.

Fortunately, improving customer experience needn’t be challenging or costly, thanks to cloud-based field service management software. Using a platform with an inbuilt CRM (customer relationship management) system allows you to anticipate your customers’ needs using real-time data and deliver an outstanding service.

State-of-the-art CRMs allow you to easily manage each customer’s case in the system, allocate and dispatch workers, provide personalised updates using templates and instantly issue important documents for speedy invoicing and payment. As such, your customers will appreciate the swift and convenient service and may be more likely to use your company again in the future.

4. The Future of Your Organisation

Processes that currently work for your business may not work in the future. Using inefficient methods to manage your operations could result in errors, delays, and burnt-out staff. According to University College London (UCL), overworked employees report more health problems, and as a direct consequence, are less productive and use more sick days.

Therefore, you must find software that can scale alongside your operations. With BigChange’s cloud-based field service software, you’ll have access to five helpful workforce management systems all on one, easy-to-use platform. 

Get the most out of your existing staff without hiring extra resources to keep up with increasing business activities by streamlining processes and going paperless. Your team can complete various actions, such as scheduling jobs, dispatching workers and updating your customers, at the touch of a button. As a result, they’ll have more hours each day to target more meaningful tasks.

Grow Stronger on the BigChange Complete Job Management Platform

BigChange is the complete Job Management Platform that’s helping field service businesses across the UK to win more work, take control of their operations and deliver winning customer experiences.

Bringing together customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, field resource management, financial management, business intelligence into one simple to use and easy to integrate platform your business can run on.

Want to find out more?

Discover how BigChange field service management software can make your business grow stronger here and arrange a free demo today.