Featured

If you think about the last 20-25 years of business in any industry -- but definitely within field service management -- one of the most interesting things that’s happened is that challenges to business growth have moved from “external” to “internal.” What does that mean? Well, 20-25 years ago, you had a lot of external challenges, mostly around available technology. If you wanted to monitor your technicians in the field as they moved through appointments, you could maybe call them (if they had a mobile phone) or page them. GPS might have been around in some academic environments then, but it wasn’t a standard in business. Most of your challenges to growing and sustaining a business came from external factors, then -- elements beyond your control.

By some research, 37 percent of field service organizations are still primarily using a pen-and-paper model for record-keeping, business decisions, and essentially running their entire businesses. That’s 3 in 8, despite the fact that it’s 2016 and we’ve managed to develop games where augmented reality can put Pikachus on your smartphone relative to your location.

Even if your field service operation is a small business, there still might be “silos” within it. One person might focus on scheduling, and another might focus on bills and invoices. Small, family-owned FSOs can have silos – separate departments -- just like enterprise-level companies can.

Running an electrical field service management operation can be among the more challenging FSOs to manage. (No offense to any others, of course. All have their challenging days.) If a client calls needing an electrician on-site, there’s a good chance that hours of lost productivity could be on the line. For an enterprise-level organization, having faulty electricity for 5-6 hours could potentially represent millions of dollars in losses.

In terms of your financials and accounting, what’s most important to your field service organization? Some might say (maybe with a hint of humor) “Making sure we make a lot of money.” That’s a good goal! (Although in all honesty, your real goal should be good customer service -- and the money will flow from that.)

By some measures, the productivity app market is growing about 150% per year. Everyone wants to be more productive. In an era where “busy” can pile up quickly (tasks, responsibilities, and checklists), it’s often hard to navigate from “busy” over to “productive.” (They don’t mean the same thing, although many people fail to understand this.)

We’ll be honest with you upfront, although sometimes it’s tough to hear: your small business (or larger business) field service organization is not perfect. (**Ducks as you throw stapler at us!**) No business is perfect, whether you make a lot of money (i.e. Apple) or are constantly seen as a great place to work (i.e. Google). Every business has challenges, flaws, process adjustments, and pain points.

One of the biggest time drains in small businesses can be e-mail. Globally, it’s costing organizations billions in productivity. While one of the benefits of rapid mobile adoption is that it made everyone more connected -- so it’s easier to do business with people who aren’t physically near you -- there are also drawbacks. It can lead to this sense that people need to “always be on,” and that sense is pervasive in a small business. There are limited resources, limited staff, and many things to be done.

We’re now into the busy season for HVAC service management: the summer months. In much of the first world, the summer is pretty hot -- to extremely hot in certain areas. With global temperatures rising, this trend is most likely to continue for years.

Mobile FSM tools have many logical benefits, including accessing business information regardless of where you are. They are massively important to field service organizations because they allow for quick contact with both technicians and customers. There are a few benefits people often forget about the idea of going paperless, though.