Currently, there are 1374 Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the US. This 3.8% increase from last year reveals that there is high competition. However, not all challenges ISP face come from competitors.
Whether you are a brand new ISP business or a growing ISP company, you are inundated with troubles like managing a growing field team, managing the paperwork, keeping your customers in the loop, understanding the status of a job, and more. The numerous service requests and client inquiries just add to the list of challenges.
Manual methods and human intervention just cause setbacks. To offer premium services to your customers, you need to stay on top of trends, keep up with evolving customer expectations, and connect seamlessly with your tech stack. What if we told you that one solution could solve most of your ISP operational challenges once and for all?
Yes, if you are looking for ways to streamline your operations, make your workflows efficient, and manage your field workforce effectively, then look no further than field service management software.
How FSM software helps scale an ISP business
You may already be using a couple of tools like CRM, ERP, and others to manage your business. While these tools prove useful, they are not sufficient. There should be a more comprehensive module that can handle most challenges on one platform. One such platform that can solve all your problems is FSM software.
And, it is normal for ISP businesses to be skeptical of the benefits an FSM tool would provide. To clarify that, we’ll help explain what an ideal FSM tool can do to upscale an ISP business.
Listed below are some of the benefits of an ideal way FSM software helps ISP businesses scale rapidly.
1. Streamlining ISP installations and maintenance operations
Installation and maintenance are the key jobs of a technician in the ISP business. FSM software streamlines this process with automated scheduling and dispatching. Once a work order is created, FSM software automates dispatching and helps find the right technician with the right skill set for the job. Automation prevents double-booking and scheduling conflicts removing any instances of customer dissatisfaction and employee unhappiness.
Intelligent dispatching can help you find the right technician for a job in a matter of minutes by assessing parameters like skill set, location proximity, and more. What’s more, our dispatch board can accommodate last-minute scheduling changes without doing a complete overhaul. The dispatcher just has to drag and drop the appointment to the new slot, and it’s done!
2. Getting real-time workforce updates
It is imperative that an ISP business knows the real-time location of its field workforce. When you have no idea where your field technicians are, you can face challenges like ETA overruns, time theft, scheduling overlaps, and even dissatisfied customers.
A field service management platform enables ISP businesses to keep an eye on their field workforce without intruding on their privacy. With location intelligence, you can not only track the real-time location of your field technicians but also route them effectively to their next service location.
3. Facilitating third-party integrations
An ideal FSM software must play well with your existing third-party tools. Everything spins backward if there is no network connectivity for just a few minutes. A lot can happen in those few minutes, like miscommunication, failed installations, and canceled meetings. Most importantly, you cannot solve customers’ queries. Hence, the overall workflow gets stagnant and piled up.
In the worst cases, it can lead to customer withdrawal. That’s why enriching customer experience must be the primary goal of an ISP business. An FSM software can help you improve customer relations by integrating with third-party CRM apps and messaging tools.
4. Enriching the end-to-end customer experience
There are a lot of challenges in maintaining customer loyalty, especially for businesses in the ISP industry. ISP must enhance customer satisfaction so that the customer continues their subscription. If customer satisfaction is what you aim to succeed then FSM software can help you. Features like automated ETA alerts keep the customers updated in real time. The customer gets notified when the technician reaches the geo radius.
The detailed work order history maintains the first-time fix rates, saving time in identifying the core problem. Another remarkable way FSM software enriches customer experience is through flexible digital payments. FSM software integrated with a payment gateway gives multiple payment options in one location. Customers can pay directly by scanning QR codes or credit/debit cards.
5. Monitoring assets to ensure safety
The management of assets is yet another crucial duty for ISP. All of the fiber-optic and broadband connections you have installed are considered to be your assets. Be it a commercial or residential user, keeping track of your assets manually is beyond challenging.
But, if you use FSM software, you can quickly remove this load using the Barcode program. The unique barcode allows you to track assets remotely, do asset inspection and take timely action if you notice any problems. As a result, you will be able to identify and correct any problems before they become customer complaints.
Not only that, the detailed work history enables technicians to accurately identify the issue by viewing the detailed report of past issues and solutions. Thereby saving time and ensuring a first-time fixed rate. This greatly satisfies the customer, increasing the performance of service delivery. Also. the work history acts as a platform to record the service costs and warranties, preventing revenue leakage. Besides, you can also manage the service of assets using customer checklists such as adding images and attaching files.
6. Improving collaboration between internal and external teams
The back office personnel and the field technicians must communicate with one another to ensure field service delivery and customer satisfaction. FSM software features enable direct communication between the technicians and the back office staff with real-time tracking, the back internal team receives alerts if the service vehicle deviates from the expected route or service zones or when operates outside usual business hours.
They have an accurate understanding of every agent’s timeline, route, and distance traveled. If the technician requires any help or additional information like customer address, or landmarks, they can quickly and directly connect with the internal team using easy chat options in FSM software mobile app and provide technicians with customer addresses and location-specific information like key landmarks.
7. Overviewing field operations with in-depth reports
Business owners need detailed reporting and analytics to understand the company’s performance fully. In that regard, an ideal FSM software helps with an array of out-of-the-box reports that derive actionable insights from their existing data.
You can generate more than 50 reports which give real-time progress reports on work orders, technician performance, customer retention, and other field service metrics such as first-time fix rate and contract uptime. This detailed reporting and analytics help ISP businesses run more efficiently and effectively.
8. Managing timesheets and processing payroll accurately
Statistics show that 18% of the total revenue of the ISP business goes away as wages. And the problem with wages is sometimes field technicians may become unproductive and indulge in time theft. It is noted that time theft often costs a company 5% of its annual sales. Manual payrolls are not only time-consuming but also misleading. They create problems like employee dissatisfaction, taxation problems, and balancing issues at the year’s end.
The timesheet management module found in major FSM software helps field service businesses capture the working hours of the technician accurately and process payrolls on time. It tracks the punch-in, break, and punch-out times of field technicians without intruding on their privacy. Accordingly, you can set up timesheet approvals and hierarchies to ensure compliance with payroll policies and regulations.
9. Eliminating billing and invoicing inefficiencies
Billing is a hectic job for ISP businesses because it is work that is prone to errors when done manually. Sometimes a customer can end up making a double payment. In some other cases, the customer might have missed the due date. Hence, the billing cycle needs to add up with the necessary charges.
That’s when FSM software features like automated billing reminders, online payments, and void payment options come to the rescue. Payments are made super easy with FSM software integrations with digital payment apps. So, if you have been using Quickbooks, Zoho books, and Stripe payments, you can easily integrate them using FSM software.
Make your decision easy with Zuper
The key takeaway is that field service management software scales up ISP business operations with its top-notch, efficient features. As the business operator, if your goal is to improve the productivity of employees, seamlessly monitor the entirety of the business, tailor up communication operations, and get deep insights into reports and analytics, it means your business requires field service management software.
The right field service management platform will adjust to your business operations and fit around your processes like a glove. Zuper Field Service Management Software is a customizable platform that can adjust to your business operations with customizations. Its seamless integrations with third-party apps make it a go-to platform to help in the long run and keep up with the growing technological advancements.
You don’t have to rush to a decision yet. Feel welcome to go through our customer stories and learn more about the Zuper ISP Management Platform. Zuper FSM platform is certainly the right platform to upscale your business. So, go ahead and schedule a demo with us today.
