A Long-Lasting Partnership: Field Service Technicians and Mobile Apps
5 Performance-Enhancing Features of Field Service App
Service dominates customer relationship management. There has been a consistent rise in service delivery for customer convenience. This has made field operations a mandate for many businesses. More and more customers prefer doorstep service and fingertip access to a company’s offerings. A business organisation has to be competent to meet these demands. And for that, they need to prepare their workforce for field sales and services.
Field service operations have been prevalent in all industries since long. But, technology has made it smarter, more efficient and faster. A tailored field service app caters to all the needs of moving workforce. In our last post, we mentioned the role of artificial intelligence in restructuring the field service industry. The field service app features support AI by capturing, using and sharing the information making every workflow effective.
Why is it becoming inevitable for the mobile workforce to use field service app?
A company would never want their employees doing laborious and non-productive work. To avoid the waste of time, money and efforts, it is necessary to take the help of mobile technology. Field service app is a handy tool for the workforce. These apps provide greater visibility to in-field operations with the clarity of work. Service representatives using field apps on their device deliver a consistent performance.
Field service app includes a set of features to streamline work on-the-go! These modern apps address the requirements of various sectors like waste management, public sector governance, cable fitting and maintenance, telecommunications, plumbing, facilities management, mining, logistics, gas, water and electricity field services, HVAC and industries involving moving personnel.
Consider a day in a service technician’s life. Instead of going to the office to collect his job-sheet in the morning, he receives all the work-orders on the mobile app. A detailed issue report is available with necessary photos and customer notes. He is more confident about doing the work. He begins the day by traveling from his home to the incident location. After completing each task, he updates the status of the job with proof. Rather than wasting time at the end of the day with manual data entry, it is easier to send simultaneous updates. Also, in case of emergency, the app notifies the back-office team for help. At the end of the day, the technician need not go to an office to report his work. This app-synchronised working results in increased jobs, no whitespaces, effective outcome, best possible resource utilization, and cost savings.
Let us have a look at the 5 important features of a field service app-
Task Scheduler
This feature works as a personal assistant to the technician. A technician can pick, accept or reject the tasks using the field service app. All these accepted tasks are then aligned to his schedule. He can browse through each task, look up to the past history, and prepare himself to perform the job. Also, he can access knowledge base for quick answers to any doubts. Task scheduler gives a 360-degree view of a technician’s day!
Auto-Routing
Field service app makes extensive use of GPS and geolocation to determine the best route. It considers all task locations and job priority. This helps the technician to be on the schedule and avoid unnecessary delays. The day is more fruitful with the well-aligned appointment windows.
Offline Access
For situations when there is a network issue, technicians can still use the field app. The app saves the updates and synchronises over the cloud as soon as it connects the network. Offline access is one of the most important features for unfailing work updates.
Proof of Service
Technicians can use the field service app to click and share the images and videos as an evidence of their work. It helps in record-keeping and future analysis. The app also enables customer signature capture to close the work-order. And later, it communicates the message to the customer with proof of service.
Inventory and Spare Parts
Providing the technicians with right tools is vital to job completion. Service technicians can track the inventory and raise a request for ordering unavailable spare parts through the app. Without any clumsiness, there is clear idea of inventory usage and future needs.
