Editor's Note: This post was originally published on May 22, 2017, and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
All field service operations agree on maintaining strong alignment between field workers and the back office. Field teams must be equipped with the most up-to-date information to maximize effectiveness. And to ensure that jobs are completed efficiently and accurately, managers need to know what’s happening.
Many companies still perform this critical operation as it has been done for many years—printed work orders, phoned instructions, paperwork turned in at the end of the day, data entered into desktop computers, and customer invoices sent through the mail. But manually handling and inputting information hinders the efficiency and accuracy that managers value and are so important to customers.
To demonstrate the challenges associated with traditional ways of synchronizing field service work with back-office systems, we’ve categorized the hazards into three distinct areas: quickness, cost, and compliance.
#1 It takes too much time
When done manually, allocating person-hours becomes a bottleneck, slowing the process down to what the service provider can reasonably expect. The result is that the information is never current—from days or weeks ago. How will that help you make intelligent, proactive decisions about what field technicians should do? This leads not only to inefficiencies but also to missed opportunities.
#2 It is too expensive
You can address the issue of speed by hiring additional personnel and temporary contractors. However, this approach makes your budget work against you, pitting the need to move quickly against the need to control costs. Furthermore, all the extra visits required because of low first-time fix rates will lead to higher costs than if you took a streamlined, technology-driven approach to field service processes.
#3 Ensuring regulatory compliance is more difficult
There’s incredible complexity in the ever-changing regulatory landscape. Due to the public’s desire for transparency, compliance will play an increasingly critical role in field service operations. However, when taking a traditional approach to aligning fieldwork with the back office, audits are highly time- and resource-intensive, which circles back to our first two hazards. (And the more countries in which your company operates, the more hazardous a manual approach becomes to the health and vitality of your operation.)
Field service automation; it’s a game changer
Fortunately, field service management technology is available to avoid these pitfalls. Built to integrate into any CRM solution, this technology promotes faster, more accurate operations by sharing information across all departments. Additionally, it drives cost savings by minimizing service hours and improves audibility with quick and intuitive reporting.
Every field service organization needs to close the gap between planning and execution with a solution that allows flawless integration. At Gomocha, we’ve been bridging this gap for years. Our FMP360 solution enables field service organizations, large and small alike, to streamline their processes and improve their operating margins.
Watch this short video that explains our approach to field service excellence. Or call 240-403-6001 to schedule a customized demo. We want to show you how Gomocha FMP360 can be the fuel that powers your engine and help you clear the pitfalls associated with traditional approaches to managing your operations.