The field service industry is rapidly growing at a historic pace and is expected to grow to $10.81 billion by 2026. This is a 16.9% increase from 2019 to 2026. Even with the rise in demand, field technicians have numerous challenges—some tasks still require manual entry and data access is limited in many cases. The solution is using field service management software. It is both cost-effective and efficient for your business.
What is a Field Service Management Software
A field service management, or FSM, software provides visibility into operations, effectively manages personnel, and tracks all requests in one platform. Many of the leading FSM software products, such as Azuga, include the following features:
- Scheduling
- Fleet tracking
- Work order management
- Inventory management
- Dispatch
- Analytics and reporting
These features aid the coordination between field technicians, warehouse staff, vendors, customers, and your company’s base office.
5 Ways Field Service Management Software Can Lead to Business Cost Reduction
An FSM tool doesn’t just improve your business's productivity. It decreases spending across multiple sectors in your business, such as inventory, assets, training, and the need for manual labor.
1. Reduce Costs on Training and Recruitment
Finding talent, recruiting, and hiring the right employees is an incredibly challenging task for any HR department. In a survey performed by Harris Interactive Research, about 41% of respondents claimed that a bad hire may cost a company upwards of $25,000, while 25% of respondents claimed it can cost your business over $50,000. With FSM software, managers can build a performance profile for each technician to evaluate and personalize training based on their weak points. This includes tracking the following:
- The number of work orders finished in a day.
- Validation and inspection of the task.
- Current status and type of task assigned.
- The number of calls made by a field service representative.
- The number of work orders assigned in a day.
Set the optimal performance metrics needed to perform at a highly productive level. Evaluate each individual’s performance based on these standards. Managers should determine the appropriate rewards and compensation when certain metrics have been achieved. This helps reduce costs on useless training that doesn’t solve the root cause of the issue.
2. Eliminate the Need for Manual Labor and Reporting
About 52% of field service organizations still operate using manual methods. This is not only inefficient, but also an unnecessary monetary cost in your business. If you still have your employees gathering data and reporting information, switching to digital methods will be a game changer for your business.
A field service management software enables you to gather critical information such as contracts, warranties, invoices, signatures, and attendance. Instead of hiring employees to do low-value tasks, you can hire skilled employees to work in departments or divisions that require technical skill and creativity. This software will review your field service management process and lifecycle to remove any redundancies.
3. Improve the Effectiveness of Your Technician’s First Visit
About 54% of field technicians have reported that they usually have minimal information or go into initial visits blind due to a lack of data with their client’s service history. If you notice that your follow-up trips occur more frequently than the number of issues resolved per day, then it means your team’s first visit is relatively ineffective. The extra trips will cost your business in fuel and other resources.
An FSM software will help store customer service history similar to a CRM database, so that technicians can refer back to it at any time. It also assigns work orders to the most qualified technician in the area with the appropriate equipment to resolve the issue in the first attempt.
4. Optimize Inventory to Reduce Stockouts or Overstocks
With a push of a button, FSM software enables users to reorder parts on a regular basis while viewing in-stock inventories. This feature saves your business from arriving on-site without the necessary parts and helps to avoid rush hours. A study performed in 2017 revealed that reducing stockouts and overstocks decreased inventory management costs by about 10%.
FSM software will provide users with out-of-stock and in-stock alerts. In addition, you can view the inventory count so that technicians will be in-the-know about their equipment. This tool will provide the visibility needed for inventory and cash flow management. Users can ensure the following:
- Schedule field technicians once the right equipment is available.
- Reduce expensive investments in non-critical requirements.
- Save on storage costs and manage relationships with vendors.
5. View Real-Time Analytics to Cut Unnecessary Expenses
Most FSM software will display real-time data to help users make sound decisions for their business. This tool should answer the following questions, so that upper management can make tough decisions to eliminate costs that aren’t driving your business to success:
- Where does a given technician spend the least and most amounts of their time?
- What areas are you capitalizing the most on in your business?
- How long does your technician take to complete their task?
- How long does it take for field service technicians to respond to client queries?
- Are technicians wastefully using fuel on idling, hard braking, or speeding?
Take Control of Your Field Service Operations with Azuga
Switching your processes to a digital method by utilizing a field service management software will significantly cut expenses in multiple areas of your business and direct the flow of your company’s earnings to a more automated, leaner, and error-free process.
Using Azuga’s field service management solution, you can run your entire service business under one platform. Users can track their crew’s location, manage work orders, optimize routes, respond faster to customer requests, view analytics, file reports, and integrate with Azuga Fleet and Azuga Dashcam to ensure driver safety. The Azuga fleet tracking feature alone can save you, on average, $9,462 annually by reducing insurance costs and avoiding expensive repairs.
