There are many benefits to introducing Planning or Scheduling options to your business, for back-office workers, mobile engineers, managers, customers and ultimately shareholders too.
The most profound benefits can come from the fully optimised solutions, but these are also understandably the most costly to implement and run and it is questionable whether they provide businesses with sufficient return on investment (ROI) to make them worthwhile.
Some of the most significant benefits include:
Rather than having to be reactive to particular situations, Schedulers and other back-office staff can use the scheduling solution to predict any complications that may arise. They are able to monitor jobs that may fall into jeopardy and work to counteract the problems, whilst being confident in the fact that all other jobs are going ahead as planned without any input from them.
Processes can be fully automated, allowing engineers to get on with their job in hand. For example if an engineer is running late, the software can automatically generate a notification to the customer to inform them of the new estimated time of arrival. This means that the engineer doesn’t need to worry about having to contact the office or the customer and the office staff don’t need to be informed. The notification could be via email or text message and aims to provide a better, standardised level of customer service; also ensuring that the engineer is not greeted with hostility on arrival for being late.
With the cost of each appointment determined by a number of correlating factors, a scheduling system can guarantee that the most efficient option is selected wherever possible. An engineer’s jobs can be mapped in order to provide the most cost-effective route and criteria such as engineer location, skills or experience can also be taken into account to improve first-time fix rates. Implementing such an efficient system can also support significant growth without the need to recruit.
By choosing a single system that combines business management with scheduling, businesses can have all relevant information in one central place. From a customer’s perspective this provides an end-to-end solution, rather than having to be transferred between departments or staff members.
For staff this means that all departments can have access to information stored as part of job details or customer information.
Engineers can work efficiently and maintain their autonomy with the assistance of scheduling software, and back office staff can concentrate on being proactive rather than reactive to situations, improving their overall job satisfaction. Customers are more satisfied with the level of service they are receiving, and ultimately shareholders feel the benefits of a business that effectively delivers a service at the most competitive price.
Solarvista is the UK’s leading independent provider of cloud-based field service software and mobile apps. We develop all the products required to enable you to get the right person to the right customer at the right time. Our products are in use by some of the UK’s best known brands as well as many lesser known but leaders in their industry. All our products are available as cloud based software-as-a-service with simple monthly fees.
Solarvista is software that helps people who run field service oriented businesses. It enables our customers to deliver exceptional service levels whilst increasing efficiency and driving revenue growth. It is the only complete solution that manages customer assets, service levels, contracts/agreements, job scheduling, job task control, parts, billing, and quotations. Solarvista is cloud-based so no hardware is required, it's accessible via every device type and available to suit any business size via simple all-inclusive per user pricing.
To find out more about scheduling options, book a demo and see the scheduling tools available within Solarvista.