How to improve efficiency and collaboration in your field service business

You, your tech­nicians and your cus­to­mers want the job done in the most efficient man­ner. If you run a field ser­vice busi­ness, it’s impor­tant to have a fra­mework of proces­ses in order to inc­rea­se your busi­ness’ per­for­mance whilst ensu­ring the safe­ty of your tech­nicians. Their skill­set forms the core of your ope­ra­tions; it’s crucial for you to ensu­re that they have a sup­port sys­tem and sys­te­ma­tic approach towards their projects.

Your field technicians are the core of your business

Befo­re you com­mit to a pro­ject, you need to ensu­re that your tech­nicians have the adequa­te skill, know­led­ge and tools to per­form their jobs well. To pre­pa­re them for the pro­jects of your busi­ness, you need to start from the roots when you hire them.

• Whet­her you deci­de to hire an expe­rienced tech­nician with simi­lar skill sets or a fresh appren­tice, you must int­ro­duce the sco­pe of their duties speci­fical­ly and thoroughly.
• Trai­ning will also give you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to obser­ve and cor­rect any nuances in their tech­nical abilities. 
• Ask your expe­rienced tech­nicians to show your new team mem­bers the most efficient way to con­duct and under­ta­ke their duties. 
• It is also bene­ficial that the­se new team mem­bers are eased into your com­pa­ny’s sche­du­le, to be sure not to over­load them with stress and workload ini­tial­ly to avoid bur­nout and mistakes. 
• We’ve also noticed that new team mem­bers, who are assig­ned to sha­dow a men­tor around their work prac­tices, can per­form their tasks bet­ter when they start inde­pen­dent tech­nical work. 

Better collaboration with field service software

As they start on pro­ject work, you need to set up a conc­re­te fra­mework for them to work with. This is whe­re Emvi­sa­ge Field Ser­vice Softwa­re offers real­ly prac­tical fea­tu­res to ease your tech­nicians’ job. We have con­sul­ted cur­rent clients of ours, inclu­ding Tes­la, AGL Ener­gy and Jetc­har­ge, along with other busi­nes­ses wit­hin the field ser­vice industry. This is how they use Emvi­sa­ge to empower their field tech­nicians to get the job done in the best pos­sible way.

Use automatic job notifications & information

It starts with the noti­fica­tion sys­tem in Emvi­sa­ge. As a job is assig­ned to a tech­nician, they’re noti­fied with an email that will con­tain the brief details of the job. They can click the embed­ded links and it’ll take them into the softwa­re whe­re they will have full access to the details of their pro­jects. This is an inc­re­dibly help­ful fea­tu­re since your tech­nicians must con­duct their due dili­gence befo­re they com­mence a job.

Ensure your field technicians’ safety by providing information in advance

The safe­ty of your tech­nicians is para­mount, and they need to adequa­te­ly men­tal­ly pre­pa­re befo­re they com­mence any pro­ject. Especial­ly in field ser­vices that have a sepa­ra­te ins­pec­tion and ins­tal­la­tion pha­ses, details from the ins­pec­tion pha­se allow tech­nicians to plan their pro­ject. Some pos­sible cha­rac­te­ris­tics to con­si­der are for ins­tance double sto­rey houses (do you need an exten­dable lad­der to access roof), near gas mains or piping, con­fi­ned Spaces etc.

We belie­ve that empowe­ring tech­nicians by giving them know­led­ge on their pro­jects in advance will allow them to orga­ni­se a ‘game plan’ to tackle their pro­jects, whet­her that is through the under­ta­king of more equip­ment or run­ning through their work process beforehand.

Transform the collaboration between your back-office and field team

The grea­test bene­fit of con­so­li­da­ting all the infor­ma­tion onli­ne is the flexi­bi­li­ty it pro­vi­des to your staff. Now, wit­hout the need for back-office staff to manual­ly wri­te emails or call to your tech­nicians, it frees your team to focus on deli­ve­ring the best pos­sible cus­to­mer ser­vice. Also, it will save them time, which in return will save you money.

But also, Emvi­sa­ge ele­va­tes and prio­ri­ti­ses eve­ry issue rai­sed by tech­nicians to back-office staff. It remo­ves the mun­da­ne distri­bu­tion of infor­ma­tion and marks the inte­rac­tion as a genui­ne problem that needs loo­king at, whet­her that takes the form of input from back-office staff or con­sul­ta­tion with you, the busi­ness owner.

Switching field technicians? No problem!

Some­ti­mes, your tech­nicians might not be the first ins­tal­lers on site. A mul­ti-sta­ge or sizable com­mercial pro­ject might have 2 pha­ses of ins­tal­la­tion, per­haps one for the East wing and anot­her for the West Wing. In such sce­na­rios, the “His­to­ry sec­tion” allows your tech­nicians to see the progress of a pro­ject in a lis­ted for­mat. This is especial­ly essen­tial if tech­nicians are pic­king up a job from anot­her col­lea­gue. The abi­li­ty to track a colleague’s pre­vious actions, along with any com­ments will reduce miscom­mu­nica­tions and allow both par­ties to easi­ly sha­re information.

At Emvi­sa­ge, we advoca­te that tech­nicians should leve­ra­ge all infor­ma­tion about job sites befo­re com­mencing pro­jects to allow them to comple­te pro­jects efficient­ly and safely.

We’d love to show you how you can inc­rea­se efficiency and col­la­bo­ra­tion with Emvi­sa­ge Field Workflow Sofwa­re. Request a per­so­na­li­sed demo today.