As a business owner in the service industry, do you experience pain points such as miscommunication, mixed-up schedules, and fully booked technicians?
With a large customer base, there are times you don’t have enough staff to dispatch. Sometimes the reason isn’t that you lack technicians, but the job orders weren’t efficiently scheduled. Aside from scheduling, there are also times you encounter issues that can’t be solved quickly because you had to locate where it went wrong in your complex process.
There is a way to organize and manage your business better, but it won’t be by using a spreadsheet and you also don’t need to go on site.
With modern technology, you can now have an eye on your operations and processes. Owner-operated businesses or companies in the service industry organize and manage their business with field service management software.
What is a field service management software?
As a business-owner or field service manager, you are responsible for all of your technicians or staff, scheduling and assigning jobs, tracking equipment and parts inventory, and client relationship services.
The field service management software was created to help people in your position manage these responsibilities. It comes with tools that help support businesses as well as offer a seamless experience to clients. This was specially made for businesses who offer services such as installations, repairs or have onsite employees.
Field service management software features
With this software, you can receive job orders or have an online booking system, track requests, schedule and assign your technicians, and view the activity and status of each job. This will improve your communication and make it easier for you to coordinate with your onsite technicians from your office or home.
This software lets you efficiently schedule and immediately know who to dispatch when there’s an urgent job order. You can easily check each staff’s availability, location, and their tasks for the day. With this software, you can synchronize your whole team, allowing you to reschedule and re-assign instantaneously, especially since appointments change quickly in the service industry.
These features are just the bare minimum. Advanced field service management software can help you organize your books, manage inventory, create invoices, run payroll, and track leads and sales. Some even offer CRM services so your client can easily communicate with their service technicians, rate them, and reschedule their appointment.
What’s great about making everything digital is that everything happening in your business becomes data which can be analyzed. Most of these software programs generate reports which will help you determine what went wrong or what went right, helping you find ways to improve your business.
Reviews on 2019 Financial Service Management Software Programs
Each software is different and has its pros and cons – sometimes it can be too complicated or it could lack features. To help you determine which one will work best for you, here is a review on some of the popular field service management software today.
Jobber
With all the tasks you need to do and different aspects of your business that you need to oversee, using a software program like Jobber can simplify these for you. It will help you manage and run your business at the office, your home or even when you’re out of town. You can use it on your phone, tablet, or computer, whether you have an iOS, Android, Windows or Linux system.
You can also generate quotes with the integrated application Responsibid. With Jobber’s client hub, your clients can easily approve these quotes as well as request for service.
Scheduling is difficult, especially if you have a lot of clients and a few manpower to deploy. With Jobber, you can generate a job or view a service request and then easily assign the work to an available technician. Your staff will get a notification so you don’t have to add “inform employee” on your to-do list.
With this software, you can manage and track your onsite employees. If there are any changes, you can send a notification via the mobile app. It also offers a feature where a pin automatically drops in the map tool every time your staff clocks in, creates an invoice, edits a job order, and update a request’s status.
You can also use this software to remind you to create and send invoices. It won’t be a hassle since there are multiple invoice templates you can choose from and you can do batch invoicing. With Jobber, you can also track payments and get past due notifications. But you might not get these notifications as much thanks to the direct payment feature. Your clients can easily pay using the client hub. If it’s easy to do, then chances are they’ll do it right away – this means you can get paid faster. This software also supports integration with PayPal, Braintree, Square, Stripe, and Authorize.Net. It also syncs with Quickbooks online and Xero so you don’t have to worry about accounting.
Jobber needs to work more on their mobile app or at least get the extra features the web-version offers. It would be great if users can send multiple quotes via email and can create different job routes for the in-app map. They should also add an option to track who created the job tickets in the reports.
They offer a free trial for 14 days with no credit card required. For their pricing:
- Core – $39 per month or $29/month for an annual plan (1 user)
- Connect – $129 per month or $99/month for an annual plan (7 users) *Most popular package
- Grow – $249 per month or $199/month for an annual plan (30 users)
Kickserv
Kickserv organizes your processes and operations into a simple platform. It provides an overview of everything in your business. You can use it on mobile, tablets, and computers with iOS, Android or Windows system. Kickserv works for small businesses as well as enterprises.
This software collects and organizes all your sales opportunities and estimates, so you never miss a lead. It also provides a customer database that includes all their information and past transactions. You can set reminders for follow-ups and attach notes for each client in the system.
If you have several technicians, then using this software will help you manage them and plan complex schedules. You can view their time entries and see what they’re doing for the day. Easily assign jobs with the drag-and-drop tool in the calendar.
After dispatching them, you’ll be able to track their progress and their location. Your onsite staff can use the mobile app to update job status, as well as receive alerts and get directions so they will get to the site on time. They can also capture photos and store them in your system using the app.
Once the job is done, you can instantly create and send an invoice to your client via email. This software will inform you if they have seen the invoice and remind you about unpaid invoices. Clients can pay using the software or your technician can use the app to scan their credit card. This software supports integrations with QuickBook desktop and online, and other systems. It has an Open API which allows users to develop their own code to integrate with Kickserv.
Get insights about your business from the built-in reports on your work, invoicing, and sales, which are also customizable. Find out what you need to improve and continue doing to grow your business.
It’s a great software overall, but they should get an inventory management feature. This software also needs to allow users to change the date on the estimate when updating it. If you take a photo on the mobile app, they should include an option to save it on the phone because if the network is lost and the picture doesn’t upload, it will disappear.
They offer a free trial for two weeks and you don’t even need to give your credit card information. For their other pricing:
- Solo – $59/month (1 user)
- Starter – $99/month (5 users)
- Business – $199/month (unlimited users) *most popular package
- Premium – $299 per month (unlimited users)
Note: you can get 20% off if you get an annual subscription.
mHelpDesk
mHelpDesk has the tools to help you in every step of your process in service management – from the first contact to payment. This cloud-based software can be used on your mobile, tablet, and computer, and their app is available on both iOS and Android systems.
This software has a lead management feature that contains your potential clients, their information, and the status of your business with them. You can also use this to send estimates to them. It also has a customer database that includes information about your past clients and a record of their invoices and payments. This software also supports integrations with HomeAdvisor.
mHelpdesk helps you easily track all your service requests. Job orders are categorized based on their status – if they are unassigned, in-progress, and for billing. When you open a ticket, you can see the current activity such as the location of the client and the technician working on it. This software can get your work orders from email and convert it to tickets in the system.
For each job order, you can track the time spent on it and can store photos and the signature of the client, if there are any.
To help you assign your staff, it comes with a map feature to know where your client is located and see which technician is nearest to them. It’s time-efficient and reduces your fuel expense.
You can also view everyone’s schedule and availability, which will help you properly maximize each technician’s time so they’re not overbooked nor underbooked. You can also link your Google Calendar to this software.
Getting paid is easier when you get mHelpDesk. Clients can pay online, or technicians can use a mobile app to scan their credit cards. This software supports integrations with financial systems such as Paypal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and Square. Accounting is also easier since you can sync with Quickbooks Desktop and Online.
If the UI is too complicated, they have training videos and customer service representatives at your disposal.
This is a great software program, but it would be better if they can link to other third-party financial systems. It’s also too bad that you won’t be able to limit what your employees can see since there’s no setting to change an individual’s access to different sections of the software. If you’re big on analytics, it provides reports but you won’t be able to filter certain fields like customer details.
They don’t have standard rates, so you have to get a quote. You can also get a free trial and request for a demo.