10 Sure-fire Field Service Scheduling Optimization Tips

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If you’re in the field service business, it’s no surprise to you that field service scheduling is one of the major pain points to running a business efficiently. According to a study by Software Advice, 81% of the respondents prioritized scheduling as one of the upgrades they’d like to see in their field service scheduling software. There is a need for an effective way to streamline and improve the whole process.

One small scheduling mistake can leave you with unsatisfied customers, a frustrated workforce, and a dwindling bottom-line due to operational inefficiency. Therefore, automating manual processes and integrating information from different systems can be helpful in refining field service management.

Here are our top 10 field service scheduling tips to get the most out of your business:

  1. Automate All Processes

Scheduling on paper or Excel sheets is time-consuming and prone to errors. To simplify the process, deploy automated processes like creating work orders for the entire team, assigning technicians, adding services, creating invoices, and establishing two-way communication between the scheduler and the field team. This will reduce manual labor drastically, in turn reducing turn-around times, redundancy, and operational costs.

  1. Use Professional Solutions

As the world becomes tech-savvy, professional field service scheduling solutions like SaaS-based tools, mobile devices, and distributed computing are coming in handy. Selecting the right technician for the right job requires a checklist based on skills, availability, location, customer preferences, etc. If this has to be coordinated over calls for every job, you might lose good business.

Thus, by using a professional solution, you can streamline the scheduling process effectively. Multi-tasking becomes easier, and you can also enable your technicians to handle more appointments by giving them real-time updates on their schedules, routes, and job alerts.

  1. Invest In Smart Mobile Apps

Join the mobile workforce revolution by harnessing the power of data-based mobile applications to seamlessly disseminate information to your field technicians. Your technicians can easily accept or deny requests, see optimized routes, stay up-to-date on team news, and much more through such mobile apps. Consider reimbursing a part of the technicians’ smartphone bill or providing inexpensive company phones to give access to the CRM app.

  1. Deploy Artificial Intelligence

Need to manage a large number of service calls with numerous operational constraints? Say hello to AI – Artificial Intelligence, an expert system with features like speech recognition and machine vision that can combine all scheduling criteria, travel times, and workload distribution to make an informed decision in seconds.

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You can take advantage of AI to successfully get the most optimized service schedules and routes while managing constraints like approvals, reassigning calls, overtime, emergencies, etc.

  1. Balance Technicians’ Workload Effectively

While it is good to have your scheduler manage emergency service calls, managing certain recurring service requests like regular maintenance tasks with known duration and frequencies is also elemental for a fully optimized field service scheduling process.

Find an automated way to check the progress of already scheduled service calls while leaving time for emergencies that may arise, for example, complete downtime at a manufacturing unit due to an incompetent machine.

  1. Organize Field Operations

There can be many unforeseen events like untoward leaves or accidents which means pre-planned maintenance activities need to be postponed, resulting in deviated SLAs. A few things that need to be focused on to organize field operations are:

  • Responsiveness
  • Visibility of all field activities
  • Progress report of service requests
  • Involvement of technicians in scheduling

  1. Improve Your Response Time

For customer delight, one of the biggest scheduling tips is to try and improve your response time. As soon as you get a call from the customer, you should have a field technician take up the job and help the customer as fast as possible. Therefore, you can find a way to shorten appointment windows or provide self-service options’ to customers to resolve easier issues.

  1. Analyze Patterns for Better Planning

The success of your field service business isn’t all up to your technicians. It involves you crunching numbers in the back office and deciphering patterns to create forecasts for optimum scheduling.

On a monthly, quarterly, yearly basis, take a look at your client database, their location, and which of your field service agents has a good customer relationship with them. This allows you to anticipate issues and prepare for them as you go along.

  1. Power It Up with Analytics

A good field service scheduling process does not depend on theoretical considerations. Its decisions are based on meaningful data analysis that helps understand the customers and the workforce better. Record key numbers such as first-time fix, emergency calls, delays, response time, closure time, etc. You can also track the days or seasons when service calls are the highest to identify peak business times and schedule work accordingly.

  1. Align Schedules with the Technicians

Your technicians must be aware and comfortable with the field service schedules. So, take them into confidence and involve them in the decision-making process as per their availability.

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Every employee has different skill sets. For example, some are good with the machines while some are better at interpersonal skills. For an optimized process, you must listen to the preferences and ideas of your technicians and arrive at a consensus so that everybody is on the same page.

Optimized field service scheduling is imperative to higher business productivity. The right field service scheduling software can make it much easier for you by managing complex tasks in a short period, thus delivering a standout customer experience.

 

 

 

 

Akhil Rajan
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