Imagine this: It’s a hot and humid day in July. The temperature is hovering around 95 degrees, and you can almost see the steam rising from the pavement outside. Just at the peak of the day’s heat, your company has an influx of phone calls. Countless customers are expressing their woe — their HVACs have given out. They’re pleading for help to get repairs ASAP.
As a field services organization, this is an ordinary day. To keep customers happy (and cool!), you need to find available employees who can get out to these customers’ homes stat. Within a few moments, thanks to field service automation, your team has scheduled all the appointments. They’ve assigned the appropriate available employee to each job. And, they’ve drafted a work order and noted the essential parts needed to fix your system.
Sounds amazing, no? As a member of the field service industry, I hope your ears have perked up. Field service automation of your back-end processes is the future, reducing the manual work your team has to juggle. So, let’s explore exactly how it works and how field service automation could transform your organization.
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The many moving pieces of field service work
Field services manage and optimize equipment in the field. As a result, the industry has to manage many moving pieces. So, let’s consider a few. Field service orgs have to manage:
- The installation, service, and repairs of customer systems or equipment,
- The work and schedules of employees out and about in the field,
- Customer appointments,
- Customer service and field complaints or issues,
- The delivery of accurate invoicing,
- Repair equipment to ensure it’s entirely usable,
- Inventory and parts.
Many of these organizations — like construction groups, utility companies, and property management groups — have, for years, done all of the above manually. Some have even just used pen and paper. Therefore, large-scale field service operations can face difficulties due to outdated manual processes. This leads to needing additional administrative staff and provides less time for employees to interact with customers.
However, field service management software has empowered companies to abandon pen and paper to track their employees, inventory, and customers better. Automation then takes that software to the next level.
How does field service automation fit into the industry?
Field service automation allows businesses to automate tasks that are typically time-consuming for employees. Software is helping staff automate many of their everyday tasks. In the end, automation creates a more efficient and effective operation.
Let’s consider exactly how automation can help with these five use cases for field service automation:
Customer data management
Field service companies have to keep track of a lot of customer information. They have to know exactly which equipment customers have onsite and what parts are needed to support that equipment. Additionally, they need to see customer history and financial information. Automated customer data management helps field service organizations to identify customers more quickly, reducing time spent manually searching for information a team needs to help a customer.
Scheduling and dispatching
Scheduling and rescheduling appointments for repairs can be a total time suck. No one wants to play phone tag with the internet company to get their Wifi router fixed. By automating the process, field service automation can reduce the time needed to match technicians with jobs. Automation can locate the available employee with the proper skill set and generate exact times when they’re available, making scheduling and dispatching jobs far easier and faster.
Invoice generation
Automation streamlines the invoice creation process, helping get customers invoiced quicker. Field service automation software can pull in data from the work order, generate an invoice, and send it to your customer — all without human intervention.
Inventory tracking
There are a lot of assets — big and small — to keep track of in a typical field service organization. If your team isn’t on top of managing inventory, it can lead to some real sticky situations with customers. With field service automation, you don’t need to manage that inventory alone. Instead, automation can track inventory, allowing your team to stay on top of your parts levels in real time, reducing the likelihood of stock-outs.
Customer service automation
Field service automation tools can automate your customer service work, freeing your internal team to handle more complex tasks. With virtual AI-powered chatbots, your team can maintain healthy, proactive communication with customers. Send customers order numbers, schedule reminders, and updates ahead of time. Use automation to respond to simple customer queries, giving time back to your office employees so they can assist customers with more complicated problems. Automation can also help your service team track customer complaints and feedback so you can better track employees’ performance in the field.
The top 5 benefits of field service automation
So, as you can see, automation has the power to transform your industry. We can fit the top benefits of this technology into five buckets. Let’s dig in:
1. Improved customer satisfaction
Automation can streamline the customer experience, ensuring customers get speedy responses to their queries, faster help, more accurate invoicing, and proactive engagement. In the end, you get happier, more satisfied, and more loyal customers. It’s a win-win!
2. Increased efficiency
Automation can reduce manual labor, allowing field service teams to focus on more complex tasks and complete them faster while reducing costs. To run a field service organization, you need employees who can juggle a lot simultaneously. When you can cut down on the number of repetitive or manual tasks they’re handling, you can help more customers faster. The result? More business and more revenue!
3. Reduced errors
Automation helps reduce human error by automating mundane tasks and ensuring accuracy in data entry and processing of information. We’re only human! Your team, if they’re doing everything by hand, is bound to make a typo or communicate something inaccurate every now and then. But with field service automation, you can rely on bots to pull only accurate data, reducing errors.
4. Increased productivity
By automating routine tasks, field service teams are free to concentrate on more important or creative projects, leading to increased productivity overall for the business. You want your team to innovate, solve big problems, and grow professionally. When you let automation take on routine tasks, your team can be more productive with big-picture work. Drive innovation and improve productivity when you add automation.
5. Cost savings
Field service automation ultimately helps to reduce operational costs associated with manual labor. You can save money on wages with more accurate scheduling and dispatching. Cut down on overtime pay, training expenses, and more. By automating your asset management, save money on unnecessary repairs and prevent future maintenance. Over time, your team will save costs significantly – a huge benefit!
See how an automation platform like Capacity can help your team. Try it for free today!
