Managing business assets that aren’t physically located on your premises can be challenging at times. You must keep track of shifting inventory, file orders, record everything, and so much more. Apart from logistics, resource management, scheduling, project scheduling, and team administration are major pain areas as well.
Over the last few years, the field service industry has seen a massive shift. Companies are now investing in getting custom enterprise solutions developed to streamline their businesses. As a business owner in the internet age, it is essential that you implement the best field service management software to smooth out your operations and boost productivity. Companies nowadays are hiring companies that provide top-tier software development services at cost-effective rates to build their custom field service management software solutions.
But,
What are the benefits of field service management software for your company? And how can you develop one for your business?
To address these questions, we’ve written this blog that provides information on the primary benefits of developing field service management software.
So, let’s start!
What is Field Service Management Solution?
Field service management software is a type of digital enterprise solution that assists you in achieving your company objectives and increasing productivity. For your employees, field service management software is a must-have.
Processes including allocating and scheduling work orders, sending personnel to new tasks, connecting with field workers on the job, controlling inventory levels, and collecting data from the field are all part of field service management solutions.
According to IBISWorld, the field service management software market will generate $2.3 billion in revenue in 2022, with a CAGR of 10.1 percent. Massive, isn’t it?
Moving on, let’s check,
Who can Use Field Service Management Software?
Before you invest in developing a field service management software solution, you should consider talking to experts who provide business analysis and Devops consulting services. A developer will thoroughly inspect your business and in-house processes and will then not only tell you if you should develop a field service management software or not, but also what features and technologies would be best suited to meet your goals.
Some of the industries and sectors where field service management software can be used are:
- Healthcare industry
- Construction industry
- Telecommunication industry
- Property management services
- Real estate industry and various others
Now, let’s move on and check,
Why must Businesses Use a Field Service Management Platform? Top Benefits!
Below are all the benefits of using field service management software to improve your business operations:
1. Improves Customer Experience
Field service management software enhance customer support by eliminating the guess-work and the risk of human mistakes. With field service management solutions, you can improve your workflows, thus ensuring a first-time fix and giving your customers a better experience.
2. Lowers Overhead Expenses
Overhead expenses are reduced as planning, dispatching, inventory management, and communication are becoming more efficient, thanks to field service management software. These cost savings are passed in the form of greater benefits, lower pricing for customers, and increased profitability.
3. Enhancing Job Scheduling
Field management software aid in the efficient creation and management of various jobs. To ensure a seamless working procedure, a field service company relies on its timetable and dispatch staff. By using a sound system, the company enhances its scheduling criteria.
4. Automation
Field service management software is important for automating several activities that work as a series of events outside of the office in a very streamlined manner. The task coordination procedures are made more accessible by FSM software’s dynamic scheduling component, which is exclusively responsible for maintaining all planning and scheduling variables and their related dependencies.
5. Ensures Easy Invoicing
Any field service organization’s most valuable asset is invoicing. Once all of the data has been painstakingly recorded and processed, it usually takes several weeks to complete the work. Field service technicians use field service management solutions to communicate all job-related information, such as time spent, tools and materials used, work status changes, client’s digital signature, and sometimes even job end images. Such software generate bills fast on the data given, find products available under warranties, existing commitments, and discounts, and determine the cost.
6. Ensures Easy Data Management
A field service management software can examine many aspects with the help of artificial intelligence. With data like machine history, client location, availability, and availability of services, this system can calculate results in a millisecond. Manually performing these tasks can take hours.
Apart from these, some other benefits of field service management software are:
- Faster response and job completion times
- Contractor and supplier management has been strengthened
- Ensures that audit trail is 100 percent correct
- Eliminates repetitive administrative duties and accompanying human errors
- Improves inventory management
- Improves business’s operational efficiency
- Enhances cross-departmental communication
- Increased satisfaction among customers, suppliers, and contractors
Moving on, let’s take a look at,
What are the Key Features of Field Service Management Software?
While building a custom field service management software for your business, you have the opportunity to add as many custom features you like according to your business needs. Most software development services providers offer industry experts who can help you decide whether a feature will be beneficial for your business or not.
Given below are some of the most essential features that every field service management software must have:
Work Management
Users can use this functionality to expedite their work orders, technicians can make invoices, and employees can access system data. It increases transparency in the workplace and eliminates ambiguity. Contractors can update their work with images and even collect client approval signatures from the field after it’s completed, thanks to this feature.
Reporting & Analytics
Reporting and analytics features are critical if you want to improve your productivity and revenues. Field service management software allow managers get the most granular data about their businesses and based on various type of data visualization methods, figure out trends and projections. Reporting includes, among other things, providing information on customer reception, how specific assignments were handled, and the timeline in which a task was finished.
Interactive Dashboard
Businesses can use the dashboard module to keep track of their progress and updates. A dashboard gives a snapshot of the entire organization. Based on the data you need and your customization, various charts, numbers, etc. are available to you right on the opening screen of your software. Dashboards give data on progress and a customized picture of ongoing procedures. They provide a quick glimpse of the top revenue source, customer loyalty, and many other metrics.”
Employees Tracking
This feature allows operational managers to track the real-time position of all their technicians. An FSM software also allows managers to monitor their field staff’s performance and ensure that they work their given hours and complete their tasks. On a daily basis, allocating work orders and managing task allocation are quicker and easier.
Client’s Management
Client management is critical for every business, but especially for field service companies. The basic goal in any industry should be to delight the client. As a result, having a professionally built enterprise software to handle customer database is essential.
Messaging
This functionality allows all personnel who work in the field to connect with each other on a single platform. By integrating the messaging feature, all the technicians and managers can remain in perfect sync. It keeps track of communications and will enable users to identify workers in order to send them information about a job.
Integrations
To keep track of the complete workflow and internal operations, you can combine your field service management software solution with tools like CRM and ERP. The ERP software will allow you to connect to the system to assist you in automating tasks like inventory, purchasing, and invoicing. You may concentrate on improving the response rate and analyzing the areas where you are falling behind using the integrated CRM tools.
Stock/Inventory Management
When organizations install expensive equipment or work with a diverse set of items that would be difficult to store or track, this capability comes in handy. Inventory optimization enables organizations to keep track of their stock.
Contract Management
Field service management software centralizes all client data, allowing operators to learn from previous task requests and make changes in the future. Clients can also use parts of field service management software to edit their personal details, update their appointment times, or submit comments. This enhances the quality of field services provided, assisting in the achievement of profitability.
Track Equipment
This feature helps businesses track their various equipment. The system collects critical information on the equipment’s maintenance status, condition, and users. With its location monitoring capabilities, the system can also tell if an asset has been stolen or is being used without permission.
Vehicle Tracking
This function allows you to check where your engineers are in real-time, minimize theft, and even retrieve your vehicle if it has been stolen.
Contact us if you’d like a list of further field service management features.
How to Develop Custom Field Service Management Software for your Business?
Developing a field service management software solution is a big undertaking that requires a lot of financial and time investment. So, it is not prudent to dive in head first without doing your due diligence in the software development services spectrum.
Many businesses choose to develop their own FSM solutions using in-house teams. While it means that they have more control over their project, the stupendous investment makes in-house development unfavourable for mid and small-scale businesses. If you want to develop an app in-house, then you will have to hire a complete team of developers, designers, network and QA engineers, etc. full time. You will also have to arrange for adequate infrastructure for your team to use and you will also have to invest in its maintenance and security. Adding to this is the energy consumption and other expenses. As you can see, in-house development is a costly affair that is best left alone unless you have some great backers.
Read More: A Complete Guide To Staff Augmentation for Startups
Most companies choose to look for software development services from other experts. There are many firms that provide excellent development services that are scalable and cater to businesses of all sizes. Most of these custom software development firms also provide software testing services, which are great for people who just want to hire external help to test their software. Whether you choose to develop your FSM solution in-house or hire developers to do so for you, the following points will help you either way.
1. Define a Goal
The first step in creating your software is to determine why you want to make one in the first place. As every software has a goal to serve, you must first determine its purpose before asking how to begin the software development process in order to create successful software. This step will significantly simplify the procedure.
Also, an in-depth market analysis will reveal information about your competitors, their strategy, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. This information will be beneficial because you will be able to avoid making the same mistakes as your competition. Customer reviews are frequently overlooked by researchers. These reviews can offer you an idea of what customers like and hate about specific software. As a result, you must make a note of the painful areas and strive to solve them in your software.
2. Prepare Wireframes
A wireframe acts as a link between your initial ideas and the final result before you begin developing an app. Your objective should maximize the quantity and order of software screens to meet each goal. You may also establish different software screen flows for the same job to see which one gives customers a better experience. Investing time in wireframing early on potentially saves you countless hours of development time and later along.
3. Hire the Right App Development Company
Leading software development companies like Matellio hire highly skilled, talented, and knowledgeable developers in their field. They know the industry in and out and can help you develop the best possible FSM solution for your business. Most companies provide great software development services. But your job is to find the one that has a lot of experience creating the solution you want. It is also a good idea to look for companies that provide post-launch support and next-gen integrations. In the coming years, all solutions will have to be next-gen enabled if they want to remain relevant. So, hiring a company that offers IoT development services and other such next-gen services is a good idea.
4. Consider MVP Development
As we discussed earlier, enterprise solution development is a costly endeavor. So instead of going all in during the initial stages, it is more prudent to develop an MVP first. The development stage is where you start writing the code for the software’s “final” version. This is when you apply the input from the wireframes to make some final, perhaps significant, decisions. Starting with an MVP (minimum viable product) makes sense. This is the first version of your software, and it just has the most basic functions. It enables you to get started with release and evaluate the viability of your concept. MVP aids in reducing development time and allowing you to enter a market segment before your rivals.
5. Testing
After you’ve completed the software development process, test your software to guarantee no issues and that the user experience is as straightforward as the wireframes you generated and tested.
Conclusion
Field service operations present a unique set of challenges. Today, companies and businesses need FSM solutions to effectively manage orders at scale and reduce the risk of making mistakes.
Undoubtedly, such enterprise solutions can improve your business by increasing efficiency and giving people the tools, they need to do their activities better.
More efficient client interactions, lower operational expenses, and improved cash flow can all be achieved by investing in a field service solution. There are various alternatives available. Make a list of functionalities you’d like in your field of service management software solution.
If you are looking to develop an field service management software for your business, then Matellio is the right technology partner for you. Our customer-oriented software development services have been designed to cater to businesses of all sizes. Our developers are experts in their respective fields and we go above and beyond to make sure that we provide them with the latest infrastructure to do the best job they possibly can.
