The business field is growing rapidly and there is a need to put in place measures to see these businesses succeed. Today, many entrepreneurs have different businesses located in different places. Managing such businesses that are away from your premises can be a bit complex. You might miss tracking the progress of the business, i.e., stock, records, and orders, among many other crucial elements that help run a business.

Apart from business logistics, the administration of the teams, the scheduling of projects, and the management of resources are among the key areas that need extra attention for the success of the business.

For these reasons, the field service industry is growing at a steady pace. Many businesses across the globe are now shifting their focus to customized enterprise solutions to create a seamless working environment and streamline business processes, ensuring everything is on point.

That is why this guide digs deep into field management software and all insights pertaining to the software at large. Read on to have a clear overview of field management software, especially for your business.

What is a field management software?

A field service management software is a platform offering enterprise solutions to enable business people to plan and execute business functionalities to achieve the set objectives.

Through field management software, business owners can collect field data, control stock levels, assign field workers specific responsibilities, assign new tasks, and schedule work orders, among many other functions.

Therefore, a field management software solution is a must-have platform for all business owners to use for easy business management techniques.

Key features of field service management software

So, what defines a fully functional field service management software? Below are some of the priority features you should know:

• Job scheduling

In field service management software, job scheduling is a key element or rather must-have- feature. This feature helps set and track appointments for customers.

The tracking rescheduling options and text notifications are some of the top components of the job scheduling feature, enhancing a seamless workflow environment.

• Billing and invoicing

The billing and invoicing feature in the field service management software is another key feature. It helps leaders in a business environment complete the billing processes once a specific tech task has been done. Again, this feature makes it easy to receive payments from the client side, thus minimizing accounting tasks.

Again, this feature makes it easy for companies to track services offered in case of a yearly contract with service providers. Of course, tracking and updating the services offered are important elements of a business. It provides useful insights, enabling a company to devise a plan for maximizing resources while cutting down on expenses.

• Mobile access

Through the mobile access feature in field service management software, the parties involved can review all their appointment details at any given time, thus saving time and promoting accountability.

Again, the mobile access feature in field service management software enhances the customer service experience. Customer service teams can update job requirements and schedule appointment follow-ups whenever necessary. This makes work easier for the customers, as they don’t need to process the schedules themselves.

• Time and expense tracking

Tracking time and expenses is significant for field technicians. Therefore, when developing field service management software, always integrate the time and expense tracking features for reliability and accountability of the events. Some features of field service management software you should consider are as follows:

• Integration with accounting software – select a software that is compatible with your accounting system, enabling easy generation and processing of invoices for paying the workers.
• Mobile time tracking – to help your employees clock in and clock out, making it easy to track the time they spent working through a mobile application.
• Expense tracking – This is for tracking all forms of expenses, including travel, material, and other related expenses. The receipts should always attach the respective job.

• Analytics and Reporting

You will need to collect, report, and analyze data to make informed decisions. Therefore, you will require analytics and reporting features for seamless management and operations of the business.

For instance, collecting technician’s data on productivity based on their appointments, product types, and the time it takes to accomplish such tasks will enable you to compile reports and make valuable information to enhance business growth.

• Inventory and parts management

With this feature, you will stay updated on the availability of inventory. While you can choose to separate inventory management from your field service management software, keeping the function as part of the bigger system is vital. The details about the availability of parts are equally important in field service management software.

• Customer relationship management

For any business to thrive, good customer relationship is key. Therefore, when looking for reliable field service management software, choose one that can manage customer interactions well. It should have the following features to create a smooth platform for customers:

• Job tracking – Help in tracking the progress of each job, giving customers notifications once the process is complete. This enhances customer satisfaction, thus creating good relationships with customers.
• Customer profiles – This helps store client details and job history for easy retrieval.
• Reporting – The reporting feature helps find solutions that can easily produce client satisfaction reports and other elements revolving around job metrics.

• Asset Management

Based on your business dynamics, you might need the asset management feature in your field service management software. For instance, an asset or equipment business will require this feature to keep all records of asset details, such as warranty details, maintenance history, and service schedules. These details are essential in maintaining the assets.

• Integration and Customization

Finally, you will need a flexible field service management software solution that is compatible with other tools. This will help you update your business operation according to the trending technologies and practices in the field service management industry. What’s more, you will need an easy-to-customize field service management software solution that aligns with your business dynamics.

What are the benefits of field service management software?

So, why would a business choose to use field service management software? Below are the top benefits:

• Automation of work

With field service management software, the automation of repetitive tasks is seamless, and it enhances workflow on offsite premises.

Task automation enhances the maximum use of resources, thus cutting down on wastage and giving more time to focus on other important aspects.

• Improved productivity

Task automation eliminates all manual processes, which can take time and more resources. Since task automation speeds up the workflow, all employees can use the time to focus on doing other tasks that can enhance business growth, hence improving productivity.

• Enhanced event-scheduling

Businesses dealing with field services often encounter poor workflow challenges and dispatching issues, thus leading to scheduling mismanagement.

With GPS, it is now easy to issue tasks to professionals near the clients, thus creating a smooth workflow, customer satisfaction, and saving time and resources.

Again, through field service management software, it is easy for team members to share constructive work ideas, handle the project effectively, and assign tasks remotely.

• Easy systems integration

A field service management software digitalizes all the workflow processes. This makes it possible for all teams to access jobs or specific tasks from anywhere at any given time. The integration of systems enables all team members to access essential details regarding your job operations. Again, being able to manage all business activities under one big umbrella cuts down on costs.

• Resources optimization

Thanks to the field service management software, companies can now control basic aspects of the business. For instance, assigning specific tasks to people according to their professional and location to minimize extra expenses.

• Reduced costs

Field management software helps cut down on costs and increase the earning scale. Digitalization of paperwork enables the team members to perform more tasks on the go. Again, it is upon businesses to create forms for data collection to generate business insights. This cuts down on the need for tech expertise, thus creating a seamless working environment that enables the teams to do more tasks, maximize profits, and cut down on expenses.

• Seamless invoicing processes

An effective invoicing system is one key element in any field setup. An invoicing system is part of the field service management software, and it enables the field service team to compile job details, time used, materials & tools used, the status of the work, and other related details pertaining to the job description.

All these details help generate accurate invoices, calculate actual processes, and identify warranty products automatically.

• Secure cloud data storage

Finally, with field management software, the cloud data storage platform enhances data security thanks to encryption techniques.

Of course, in a business environment, data security is key as it prevents some forms of threats and data breaches of all kinds.

How to build a field service management software

Building a reliable field service management software is a huge task that requires effective time and investment planning. In any case, take the following steps to accomplish the task effectively:

• Have goals and objectives

Before initiating any process, make sure you have a set of goals and objectives you want the field service management software to accomplish.

At this step, you may need to take a step further, do in-depth market research, learn the missing gaps, exploit your competitors and their strategies, and, most importantly, gather customer feedback.

The insights you gather will help you develop a software solution that will stay ahead of the market competition, meet customer requirements, and help you achieve your business goals and objectives.

• Create wireframes

With the insights you’ve collected, it is now time to design a clear wireframe or, rather, a sketch of your main ideas and the results you anticipate. Take more time to determine the appropriate wireframes that align with your target customers and save time and resources for adjusting the processes in the later software development stages.

• Hiring the right development partner

At this point, you have everything at hand, and you can initiate the software development process. However, you will require a highly skilled software development company with a team of professionals; Aalpha Information Systems, will come in handy at this point. Contact us for a detailed overview of your project dynamics, advice, and required actions to facilitate the software development process.

• MVP development

Creating field service management software or any other enterprise solution is a costly procedure. Therefore, it could be draining to work on the initial stages only to realize you need to implement a lot of changes in the later stages of development.

For these reasons, building a minimum viable product – the first version of your software solution with basic features. This is to test the viability of the software solution before proceeding with the processes. In the end, an MVP will help you cut down on the development timeline and build a product that will penetrate the market easily.

• Testing

Finally, once you finish the process of developing field service management software, you will need to test it to ensure all the functionalities are effective and that the entire system doesn’t have issues before releasing it to the users.

Field service management software challenges and solutions

While field service management software offers a lot of benefits to the enterprise industry, it has a set of challenges that can’t go unnoticed. These field service management challenges include the following:

• Scheduling conflicts

Such conflicts occur when two different events intertwine in the same slot. When such conflicts occur regularly, then your field service business could face some threats, hence the need to find lasting solutions.

The common scheduling conflicts in field service management are as follows:

• Unavailable time slot – This happens when a person booked to accomplish a specific slot is engaged somewhere else, thus causing a conflict.
• Overlapping events – When two events are processed on the same timeline.
• Double-booking – when two employees are booked for the same task.

Solution: create a reliable scheduling model available on-premises and off-premises to enable all the teams to stay updated with the scheduled events and avoid all these conflicts. What’s more, you can renovate your scheduling feature to give you real-time alerts whenever a conflict occurs and have backup solutions depending on the nature of the conflict.

• Effective communication measures

In most instances, messages and phone calls are reliable means of communication between the field reps and the field service managers.

However, network issues may arise and halt the communication processes. Again, if the nature of the fieldwork requires more details, it means spending more time communicating with the people in the office and getting them informed of the progress, thus wasting more time and resources.

Ideally, real-time communication is not always effective on personal devices. This leads to a lack of accountability issues among the teams. Again, not all team members use their devices in the same manner.

Solution: to streamline communication matters, implement the use of customized software that helps field companies overcome communication challenges in all aspects.

The software solution can help in sending, receiving, and sharing real-time information between the teams, thus solving the communication mystery.

• Overhead Cost

Overhead costs can make all the work and resources you’ve invested in making the system meaningless, hence the need to minimize overhead costs.

The big problem comes in when you cannot overview or evade some overhead costs. For instance, you must hire professionals like CTO in the tech space to ensure the quality is top-notch. Of course, you can’t overview this requirement, and it will increase the overhead cost. So, how do you go about this?

Solution: Focus on increasing the ROI. You can achieve this by cutting down on new hiring and maximizing the use of resources.

Again, you can choose to execute all the processes online as a measure of increasing your ROI. Of course, you will need to integrate digital tools to make this process effective. Yes, the overhead cost will be high, but the ROI will maximize profits and enhance customer satisfaction, hence making the whole concept viable.

• Travel Expenses

Of course, you want to maximize productivity by sending your field workers to specific areas. This calls for extra travel expenses. Now, here is the dilemma: you need the work done but spend less on traveling expenses.

Solution: Cutting down on travel expenses while maximizing productivity is quite simple. You only need to manage and control route planning.

Start by knowing the exact location your technician needs to go, then guide the technician to the best route that will cut down such costs.

Of course, you will use technology integration that will guide you on the best, safest, and cheapest routes based on different metrics.

Again, you can advise your technicians to use optimized routes to save costs and time, track their activities in the field, and minimize the number of visits to the sites.

Which industries can use field service management software?

In many cases, field service management software offers reliable solutions to the following industries:

• Real estate
• Property management
• Telecommunication
• Construction
• Healthcare industries

How much does it cost to build a field service management software?

The cost of developing field service management software varies depending on the following metrics:

• Required features
• Location model
• Number of users
• Customization options
• Industry type
• Number of technicians
• Total number of jobs per month
• Extra services

Ideally, the cost of field service management software may range between $5,000 – $1400 for small businesses excluding installation & implementation fees, $1500 – $2999 for medium businesses excluding installation and implementation costs, and $3000 – $5000 for bigger or established businesses excluding installation and implementation fees.

Conclusion

A field service management software is a solution to most enterprise setups. With such a system, you can manage your business effectively while ensuring communication is seamless, and business processes and scheduling are in order.

Although the field service management enterprise solution has a set of challenges, you only need to plan and execute the processes in a manner that will cut down on costs while improving productivity.

Take advantage of digital tools and integrations to customize the system to align with your business dynamics.

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