Using Mobile FSM Solution to Minimize Paperwork and More
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.
Going paperless with a mobile FSM solution:
Is Better for the Environment: Producing 17 reams of paper (average yield from a tree) typically releases 110 pounds of carbon dioxide into the environment. Using your mobile phone does have a carbon footprint, yes. But in general, a shift to paperless in your business is positive for the environment.
Makes Retrieval Easier While on the Go: This is the intersection point of mobile technology and cloud technology; you can pull up almost anything from anywhere as long as your device has some connectivity. Paperless documentation also makes the transport of data more effective, because you don’t need couriers or portable fax machines.
Allows for Automatic Backups: If you throw away a crucial piece of paper, it’s usually gone forever. (Or you’re going to spend a long time looking for it and involve many other employees in the process.) Mobile FSM software does regular automatic backups, so you won’t lose the important business documents stored there.
Enables Security Measures: Paper documents in a filing cabinet are only as secure as the building and the employees who interact with them. Mobile FSM tools often have bank-level security on them.
Encourages the Transformative Shift: This reason is a bit more psychological. It’s very hard for your company to become ‘digital’ and ‘in the modern business era’ if you’re still rooted in paper-based, on-premise type solutions for business challenges. You need to be moving to mobile and cloud because it will change how you internally think about your business and processes.
Those are five business value-add reasons to shift over to a mobile FSM solution. There are dozens more, but there’s one we’d like to especially highlight: work-life balance.
On the surface, you might think that always being connected is actually bad for work-life balance. If you’re always connected, it means clients and other employees can reach you whenever they want. That could be during work hours, but it could also be at 11 p.m. or 5 a.m. Wouldn’t that negatively affect work-life balance?
It can, yes. But the advantage of a mobile FSM solution is that it makes business easier. The resources you need are right there. You can see an email with a request, go into the app, attach whatever the request was for, send the email, and you’re done. In a previous situation, you’d have to remember where the resource was, answer the email and say you’ll get on it when you’re back in the office, get another e-mail, potentially have to go to the office, etc. A mobile FSM solution streamlines the ability to deal with issues, concerns, and problems. You can spend more time with friends and family.
The other aspect here is ‘The Great Paper Hunt.’ When your business is paper-driven, ‘The Great Paper Hunt’ can happen at any time. It often seems to happen as you’re trying to leave for the day. You know the drill: there’s a crucial piece of paper related to a customer, and no one can find it. Now everyone is looking for it. Instead of getting home at 6 p.m., you don’t get home until 8 p.m.
We fully believe in work-life balance — so much so that we wrote an entire eBook about how it factors into running or working for a FSO. You can download it now — and trust us, if you want a better work-life balance, consider adopting a mobile FSM solution. You’ll save paper and get home to your family sooner.
