As a field service provider with technicians, you might always wonder about the efficiency of your field service teams. More than just fulfilling customer demands on time, analyzing the performance of field service technicians is also a major factor to consider when it comes to growing your business.
With so many moving parts, it’s not uncommon to have some inefficiencies in your field service operations. Maybe your technicians take too long to complete jobs, or you need help to streamline your field service operations. But once inefficiencies become problematic, it will lead to missed appointments, customer complaints, and lost revenue.
Imagine if your technicians could complete more jobs in a day but without sacrificing quality—you could attract more customers, increase revenue, and grow your business. It’s a win-win-win situation for everyone involved. By achieving long-term improvements in the efficiency of your field service technicians, your business can reap the benefits for years to come and achieve sustained success.
What are some of the other benefits of enhancing your field service technician’s efficiency?
Below we will take a look and see how we can employ simple strategies to improve the efficiency of field service technicians.
Why should you enhance field service technicians’ efficiency?
Improving service technician efficiency can positively impact both the profitability and success of your business. But it’s not just about your business success. You can also increase your customer satisfaction rate, gaining you even more customers.
To meet KPI metrics
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), including the average time to complete a work order, are all closely related to the efficiency of field technicians. Higher KPI scores indicate that field techs are responding to service requests quickly, resolving issues on the first visit, and completing work orders faster.
It also includes how they reduce the need for revisits, ultimately improving the efficiency of the organization. Individual technician efficiency is central to organizational efficiency. The individual KPIs of any one tech may seem trivial, but in the aggregate, they have drastic effects on the KPIs of the organization as a whole. Knowing who is performing well and who isn’t is critical and the first step in improving your organization’s performance as a whole.
To increase revenue
Improving the efficiency of field service technicians plays a major role in increasing your business’ revenue. If you have ten field service technicians who can complete an average of five jobs per day, with an average revenue of $200 per job—then when you improve the efficiency of your technicians to complete an extra job per day, that would be an additional $1,000 in revenue per day or $20,000 per month.
At the end of the day, the key to increasing business revenue is not about increasing the team size but finding ways to unleash your team’s true potential and increase their contribution. Boosting field workforce efficiency will not only ensure that your service delivery quality is uncompromised but also improve customer satisfaction considerably. So, you can look forward to receiving additional service requests and hopefully more repeat business!
To improve customer satisfaction/service experience
When a customer submits a service request, they may expect a quick response and effective resolution. With improved field service technicians’ efficiency, your business can respond quickly to customer requests, give accurate repair estimates, and complete jobs in no time.
Efficient field service technicians show up on time, complete jobs quickly, and don’t cause additional inconvenience to the customer. All of this leads to satisfied customers who feel respected and valued. Satisfied and happy customers become returning customers, speak well of you, and ultimately grow your business.
To reduce downtime
When your technicians can work more efficiently, they’ll be able to complete a larger number of jobs in the same amount of time. Additionally, efficient service technicians can respond more quickly to customer requests, assess the issue in less time, and complete jobs in the field promptly.
To minimize downtime, standardize workflows and utilize mobile field service tools. Adopting standard practices and using automated work orders helps technicians to reduce errors when addressing service requests. With the help of mobile field service tools, technicians can access work orders and communicate with the back office in real time, improving overall efficiency.
To improve technicians’ utilization
By making the most of your technicians’ skills and expertise, you can maximize your field service business’ profitability. When your team of field service technicians can complete their jobs efficiently, they’ll be able to perform more preventive maintenance or repair calls in a day.
This means generating more billable hours, making better use of technicians, and increasing revenue for your company. Consider investing in field service tools and strategies to help your technicians work more efficiently and complete more jobs in less time.
7 methods to boost the efficiency of field service technicians
In our technological world, there’s a lot you can do to help field service technicians be more efficient. So they can provide better customer service on the job site, improve customer satisfaction, and boost your business’ revenue.
There are also operational considerations when optimizing your field service operations; keeping these in mind with help boost field service technicians’ efficiency. Here are seven methods you can start implementing today that will enhance your field service efficiency and boost your business growth.
Eliminate paper-based work orders
Paper-based work orders are a thing of the past. Paper-based work orders are outdated and inefficient—and they have a real impact on performance. Digital work orders, on the other hand, streamline the reporting process by allowing technicians to access work orders from mobile devices and make updates as required—no matter where they are.
Automating work orders with field service management software can help you streamline your operations and reduce the time it takes to complete tasks. When you automate the process of scheduling appointments, sending reminders, and generating invoices, your technicians can focus on delivering quality service instead of getting bogged down with paperwork.
Streamline communication and collaboration
Streamlining communication and collaboration between field service teams and back office teams is one way of improving the efficiency of your field technicians. By using a centralized platform, everyone can have access to relevant information, making it easy to stay on the same page—addressing customer requests will become quick and efficient.
Using mobile field service apps, techs can get complete details of a job, including information about customer service requests, travel routes, and customer information from the back office, without calling every time they need updates. As technicians update their job status, availability, and location remotely, dispatchers can schedule and dispatch technicians efficiently—ensuring that technicians avoid long travel times to get to their next job.
Optimize route planning and management
Adopting field service management tools that offer route optimization capabilities allows you to pre-plan the most efficient routes for your field service technicians. Route optimization tools consider a number of factors that can affect travel time, such as traffic patterns, the current location of the technician, and the destination locations of customer service calls.
Route optimization helps to reduce travel time and fuel costs, allowing your technicians to complete more service calls in a shorter amount of time. The best part is that optimized routes can reduce the risk of missed appointments or delays due to traffic, ensuring that technicians arrive on time and can complete their work efficiently—leading to a satisfied customer experience.
Empower with field service mobile apps
Using field service mobile apps can make a huge difference in the efficiency of field service technicians. If technicians can access all the information they need while on a job site—such as work orders, customer history, and inventory details—it will save a lot of time and minimize errors.
Your technicians can now manage scheduling, work estimates, checklists, and work order data about a job while on site. They can easily account for their work, follow assigned steps for a task, enter requested information while on-site, and be prepared to answer any customer inquiries—they have everything they need right at their fingertips to get the job done efficiently and effectively.
Help generate and share digital estimates and invoices
Technicians don’t have to wait for the back office team to generate estimates or invoices for customers. With the mobile app, service technicians can enter what services need to be performed and what equipment is used, and a digital estimate can be generated automatically.
The mobile field service app can help technicians to streamline both estimate and invoice creation, generating them on-site and sending them to customers via email or SMS messaging. Digital estimates and invoice creation allow for better collaboration and substantially reduce errors due to manual entry. Additionally, technicians are able to work closely with the back office team to ensure that everything is up-to-date and accurate.
Manage inventory, assets, and contracts on the cloud
Moving inventory, assets, and contracts onto a cloud-based platform helps improve the efficiency of your field technicians. Using a mobile field service app, technicians gain real-time access to inventory, assets, and contract information from any mobile device. Technicians can check their inventory, locate required assets, and review contract details before heading to a job site.
Facilitate online payment collection
Online payment collection can boost your field service technicians’ efficiency. With the option to pay online, customers can pay for services using their cards or through consumer financing options. Seamless integration with third-party payment processing tools enables your technicians to collect payments on the spot and speed up the payment cycle.
Conclusion
The field service industry is evolving rapidly, and it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve. As field service technicians are the cornerstone of your service operations, it’s important to make ensure they are effective when on the job. Start implementing software solutions today to maximize the efficiency of both your field and operations teams. So, if you’re ready to level up your customer service with improved technician efficiency, consider investing in field service management software. Got any questions? Explore our field service management solutions and get a demo here.
