Field Service CRM for Service Management

Posted on March 10, 2017January 17, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

A business relies on its customers for its revenue. Therefore, customer relationship management (CRM) is the most important function for any business to survive. For a small business, the customer database can be maintained in spreadsheets, but for the large database, you need an efficient CRM system like Field Force Tracker.

With Field Force Tracker, you can maintain your customers, your past history, their service records, their installed equipment, their estimates, payments and invoices. Essentially you get he complete information at your finger tips.

Customer Relationship Management is Life Blood of an Organization

The key to growing any organization is in building strong and lasting relationships with customers. And in today’s fast-moving business world, how quickly you react to customer requests—from the initial touchpoint throughout the lifecycle of the relationship—ultimately determines the success of your company.

This is the Age of the Customer. Web-based technologies such as email, social media and a plethora of platforms and applications have changed the business landscape, providing more resources to communicate through and respond to customer needs. Those that create an ecosystem of customer-focused tools in their operations are able to better provide the level of service that’s required to keep customers happy and remain competitive.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is one these tools. Coupled with Field Force Tracker’s field service management application, CRM provides the means to keep the business aligned on the needs to the customer through sharing up-to-the-minute information throughout the lifecycle of the customer.

Benefits of Using a Service CRM

Most mid-market and enterprise-level companies with field service teams have some form of CRM in place. These systems enable them to track customer contacts, sales and marketing interactions during the relationship.

Best-in-class CRM providers are leading the way to improve the capture of day-to-day customer interactions. In addition to companies using them to build leads and capitalize on pipeline opportunities, they are also discovering more ways to increase business revenue through them.

Through mobile technology and cloud computing, field service management applications have proven to boost the capabilities of CRMs. When a CRM is integrated with customer-facing field operations through Field Force Tracker on mobile devices, it also functions to collect critical field-related data that’s not captured through the contact center.

Improving Sales Process

CRMs help businesses increase sales productivity, leading to higher lead conversions and thus, increased revenue. The ability to instantly view and track customer data, including key contacts, activity history, interactions, and quotes can assist businesses in making faster decisions—using the most up-to-date information—and closing more deals.

Field engineers who have access to this information on their mobile devices can identify and close upsell opportunities while they are onsite. They can capitalize on the fact that an existing customer is 60-70% more likely to make additional purchases. This improves the average revenue per work order and offsets costs for customer retention.

Field Force Tracker stores work order information, PDFs, photos, videos, schematics, asset information and other data, and of course, field-generated customer history within the application. Through CRM integration, however, this field-based intel is added to the information collective and can be used to qualify customers for sales promotions. This enables a business to solicit their customers according to their needs and interests beyond the contact center and the field, improving the likelihood of additional revenue.

Managing Marketing Communication

No two customers are alike. It’s important to communicate across multiple channels to ensure that each person who comes into contact with a customer has the information they need to provide a personalized, quality experience. Fueled by one-on-one interaction with customer managers and field engineers, CRMs store the collective data businesses need to craft targeted messaging, programs and promotions that will resonate with their base.

They also provide automation of marketing processes across the entire customer lifecycle. Data from prospect and customer engagement can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts. In addition, CRMs may also help companies to manage and monitor advertising and mentions across social media – a critical step in listening to customer feedback, gauging advocacy and understanding the influence a business has on its market.

CRM Integration with Mobile Field Service Management

The integration of CRM with field service management facilitates a system for nurturing of customers. In the field, the engineer is able to deliver a higher level of service by interacting from a better understanding of the customer’s history and their requests.

After a service call is completed, Field Force Tracker automatically syncs the information that has been collected in the field with the CRM in the service center. This creates immediate unity throughout all parts of the business regarding the interaction with the customer and the state of their assets.

This information in hand, a company can then choose to send an automated message to the customer thanking them for their business. They may also preschedule a follow-up for an on-site sale that the field engineer completed or for warranty support. This level of responsive, intuitive service improves productivity through streamlined data sharing, as well as delivers a better experience for the customer, thereby improving customer retention.

From an executive standpoint, the marriage between CRM and field service management produces up-to-the-minute visibility to make key business decisions related to the state of the customers. With the speed at which the business landscape is evolving, having access to this data throughout the full customer lifecycle positions business executives to make more strategic choices based off of facts.

Having insight into all facets of customer interaction enables companies to respond to customer requests with knowledge of what’s important to them. CRMs, especially when integrated with Field Force Tracker’s field service management, deliver the ability to understand customer behavior from the first touchpoint, through the pipeline and throughout their relationship with a business. This affords businesses the opportuntity to truly understand their customers, nurture those relationships and improve their bottom line.

About Field Force Tracker

Field Force Tracker (http://www.fieldforcetracker.com) is a leading global provider of its award winning mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Our solutions enable businesses of all sizes (from 1 user to 10,000 users) to meet the challenges associated with managing and running complex service operations. It helps in improving the productivity of their mobile workforce.

With Field Force Tracker, customers can create service schedule and route quickly, dispatch sooner, collect correct information at once in the field and invoice faster. The field service software makes it easy for users to eliminate waste, get more done in less time and be more profitable.

Field Force Tracker is a wholly owned unit of Rapidsoft Systems Inc. (http://www.rapidsoftsystems.com). Rapidsoft Systems, Inc. has its main office in Princeton, NJ, USA, a US R&D Center in Mercerville NJ, and sales, support and development offices in Palo Alto, CA, USA, Singapore, Dubai (UAE), Bombay, and Noida (India).

Mobile Apps Revolution in Field service

Posted on October 17, 2016January 19, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

This is an era of Mobile apps. All areas of life are being revolutionized by the use of mobile applications. Smart Mobile phone are everywhere, and mobile networks have become very reliable. This is the right time to deploy Mobile applications for field service and benefit with increase productivity. This article describes some changes how mobility will impact field service in the future. Using information here, you can develop a case for field service software in your organization.

Moving From Paper Based Solution to Field Service Software

Service companies are trying to move to electronic model of providing services. Paper based operation is too slow to address customer concerns. Field Force Tracker is the most comprehensive software for field service management. It takes care of everything from customer management to the payment collection for a service company. By using this software, our clients can see major improvement in their productivity and the customer satisfaction.

The question is asked about what mobility will look like in future. A recent study in field service technologies states that an interesting starting point for this is to look at what their survey respondents said when asked about why they were investing in field mobility.

The Field Service Technologies survey found that nearly half of all respondents state their primary objective with their field mobility investment is maximizing productivity. This was followed by 35% saying that improving the customer experience is most important.

Benefits of Mobile Apps in Field Service

Whatever your reasons for looking at investing in field mobility this year, You can always benefit by deploying mobile based software. Below we describe four ways to maximize your advantages from any investment that you make in a field service software.

Easy Integration With Existing Processes

Organizations with a team of workers out in the field often use a mix of different solutions and technologies to carry out their work. There are many different parts to the workflow and different systems are used to oversee these. This can often mean that systems are used in isolation and data from one system doesn’t always ‘talk’ to others.

Back office processes are essential to any service operation, so a field service solution which integrates easily with the existing systems is important. This means that all parts of the business and the workflow can be connected. There is visibility of the work and the day’s performance and decisions can be based on real-time information.

Make Better Use of your Existing Systems

Integrating with back office systems (such as accounting systems, ERPs or CRMs) means that the worker out in the field has access to the job history and customer records. They can get information about the job they are going to and also, if they need to, see what has happened before and why. Knowing the details of the job like this can make the difference between being able to sort out the problem first time or not. This means delivering better customer service, as well as reducing the need for further visits to fix the problem.

Get Up and Running Quickly for a Better Return

With any new solution, how fast you can be up and running is key. A solution which integrates easily with existing systems will be far quicker to implement – a great benefit in any technology choice. Being up and running in days, not weeks, months or even years, means your business is not affected and you get a better return on your investment as it starts straight away.

Keep it Simple

Managers and technicians all report that the difference between good and bad technology choices is often how easy it is to use. Taking time to learn new, complicated ways of working can mean that workers don’t like them and may go back to the way things used to be done or patch together their own way of working round it. With a solution that is easy to use alongside existing systems, the implementation is easier and the quicker people start using it, again the better the return on the investment.

Even if you are not 100% sure of your field service technology needs today and where to make that investment, with an easy to integrate solution you are able to future-proof your requirements because of the flexibility it can bring. It is provided via technology you already have – smartphones and internet – and upgrades, changes and adaptions can all be quickly and effectively made as your business needs change and develop.

For the best results, you need a solution that meets your business needs. Field Force Tracker helps field service companies simplify this decision-making of where to invest.

Mobile enabled, cloud-based field service software was designed to provide ease of use with incredible flexibility. Along with the ease – and speed – of our implementation and the ongoing support service that we provide we enable companies to take full advantage of today’s mobile field service.

Field Force Tracker’s power mobile apps for iPhone and Android are available to all new and existing Field Force Tracker customers. They can extend the feature set with the enhanced mobile forms capabilities, and better system integration. Field Force Tracker, a mobile enabled web-based field service management software, streamlines technician scheduling, dispatch, customer management, vendor and employee management, work orders, equipment maintenance, inventory tracking, contracts, estimates, invoices, payments and accounting. It is considered one of the most feature rich software of its kind.

About Field Force Tracker

Force Tracker (http://www.fieldforcetracker.com) is a leading global provider of its award winning mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Its solutions enable businesses of all sizes (from 1 user to 10,000 users) to meet the challenges associated with managing and running complex service operations. It helps in improving the productivity of their mobile workforce.

With Field Force Tracker customers can create service schedule and route quickly, dispatch sooner, collect correct information at once in the field and invoice faster. The field service software makes it easy for users to eliminate waste, get more done in less time and be more profitable.

Making Use of Analytic for Improving Field Service

Posted on September 5, 2016January 19, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

Service managers need to understand the quality and effectiveness of their service delivery. The lack of service measurements is one such area that lacks in paper base or simple home grown systems. This article describes how field service software can help you better understand the effectiveness of your service delivery. Using extensive analytics information of Field Force Tracker’s reporting module, you can measure the effectiveness for field services in your organization.

Service companies are trying to move to electronic model of providing services. Paper based operation is too slow to address customer concerns and cannot provide suitable data analysis. Field Force Tracker is the most comprehensive software for field service management. It takes care of everything from customer management to the payment collection for a service company. By using this software, our clients can see major improvement in their productivity and the customer satisfaction.

We have described in our previous article that an improved understanding of what is happening at any given time can help managers make better decisions. Through the improved visibility that field service solutions deliver, managers and other staff can have confidence that they have the right information and, as such, can make the best decision based on this. Nobody wants to leave anything to chance or to give answers based on gut feel so being able to see at-a-glance the information that is most important to them means they are on top of performance.

For you to track the performance of your service operations and understand your business, in the immediate term and longer term, you’ll need visibility of the right information, when you need it and in a way that is meaningful to you.

Making Use of Reporting Capabilities of Field Service Software

A day in field service operations can often change and be unpredictable as even the best laid plans are affected if emergency work comes in or jobs overrun. On-the-spot decisions need to be made to keep up with and manage those changes and get the day back on track.

Lack of visibility into what is happening out in the field may mean poor decisions are made, which can have further impact on the day’s work. Having access to information can mean that better decisions can be made then and there, keeping the most effective plan for the work. The impact of making changes can be seen immediately and decisions can be based on that, taking into account this impact and any potential outcome on service performance, cost and the rest of the day’s work.

So, field service management technology gives you greater visibility into your field service operations. With that visibility comes a lot of data which is useful to the business, but the amount of data can often feel overwhelming in where to start or how to analyze what is needed. It can sometimes feel so overwhelming that data then sits unused.

Understanding your Business Metrics

You don’t want to be overwhelmed by data, neither have the time to wade through masses of numbers, so let your field service management solution organize the key information for you to identify the crucial stuff you need at any time to make decisions.

With this view into your field operations, you will be able to answer questions like:

Which services are most profitable?
Which are the most productive crews and technicians?
How are changes affecting specific operations?

The visual presentation of data in dashboards needs to be easy to understand and should be easy to filter by service type, individual, crew or any other data point collected.

Business intelligence (BI) dashboards do just that and organize key metrics about your company’s service operation so that you can make fully informed business decisions.

Longer-Term Planning Based on Service Data

Day-to-day access to data is critical to the management of daily performance, but business intelligence is also vital in the longer-term view. Week-to-week or month-to-month comparisons can surface meaningful trends that can help fine-tune a service organization to run at maximum productivity – while maximizing profit.

Identifying business trends is critical to growing revenue, retaining customers and increasing the productivity of field workers. It’s important as a means of discovering problems before they can impact the business.

Improved visibility from field service solutions brings greater understanding of what is happening. Straightforward reporting and being able to access the relevant information easily and quickly is fundamental. This information will then help manage not only the day’s operation, but also feed into the more strategic business planning around budgets, resources, targets and areas to focus on driving performance in the future.

For the best results, you need a field service solution that meets these business needs. Field Force Tracker simplifies field service management to generate a large number of reports.

About Field Force Tracker

Monitoring Business Performance With Field Service Software

Posted on March 22, 2016January 19, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

Every business needs to make money to survive. Therefore it is important to monitor the cash flow and other parameters constantly. Deploying a good cloud based field service CRM software can improve your ability to monitor key performance indicators of you business. This facilitates service managers to better management of your service resources in the most cost effective way. This article describes how cloud based Field Service CRM like Field Force Tracker can help you monitor your business parameters and improve your company’s profitability. A good service software can help everyone in the company to better manage the effectiveness of your service delivery. Using extensive capabilities of Field Force Tracker’s software, you can improve the effectiveness for field services in your organization.

Measuring and Monitoring Business Performance

Customer acquisition is the most important part of any business. The sole reason a business exists is to serve customers and in the process generate revenue. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are critical metrics used by a business to understand whether their tasks and performance are tracking successfully to meet its strategic goals. They expose what is working successfully, help to identify areas of needed improvement, and can reveal opportunities for overall process and business improvement. Field Force Tracker provides outstanding capabilities to monitor your business paramters.

“What gets measured gets done” and “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” are just two of the popular sayings used to highlight the critical importance of KPIs. It’s worth nothing that the power of tracking KPIs lies in identifying those that add the most value to your business.

KPIs are a critical component in companies with field service workers as they enable them to better understand the performance of various lines of business and services offered. This protects the business by providing key components in the evaluation of the ROI of field activities.

More often than not, managers track every possible metric, drawing attention away from those that actually impact operations. As a consequence, they end up drowning in data while thirsting for insight. This can lead to a paralysis in action or worse yet, taking actions that are costly to the business.

To avoid this situation, a company must first begin by identifying the areas where insight is needed. It’s helpful to remember that the KPIs that are the most actionable and easiest to track may not be the ones that provide the best insight. Understanding what the company’s information needs are and which business questions to ask are the first steps to determining which KPIs to track.

Excellent Reporting Capabilities of Field Force Tracker

Business questions focus our attention on what actually matters most and therefore, provide guidance for choosing the most meaningful KPIs. For field service-based companies, this would include questions such as:

How many average jobs are being completed per day?
What is the time period between jobs being completed and their being invoiced to the customer?
How many jobs are being done every day?
Who is the biggest customer of your company in terms of revenue, service hours and more such criteria?
How often are field engineers missing opportunities to upsell or cross-sell?
Are there any indications that field engineers do or do not have adequate training so that the business is both reducing job cycle time while also maximizing the customer experience?
Are we maximizing the number of jobs that can be completed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, or are there opportunities to improve the scheduling process?

In field service companies, these will shine light on the following job and quote performance areas:

Monitoring Processes – Business process and workflows
Monitoring Financial data– Management of revenue, recovery of funds, and financial health
Measuring Technician Utilization– Personnel utilization, skill level and talent management

In addition, there will be other, more focused indicators designed for your particular business strategy or industry. For example, the average response time that’s expected for a particular type of work will differ from that of another industry. The company’s strategic goals may involve exceeding the industry standard to edge out the competition in this area, so tracking KPIs for this will enable you to know if the business is trending in the right direction.

KPIs offer the best value when they’re focused on robust, value-added metrics. These can be the beginning of an actionable plan that’s centered on the delivery and execution of your business strategy.

Remember – management of business operations is not a numbers game. There’s often a real temptation to capture as much data as possible in an effort to understand a business. This practice is not only inefficient, but it can be a distraction from the KPIs that can make a difference in how a business operates, how customers are serviced and how a business can scale as a whole over time.

Taking the time to ask the right business questions to identify areas that will benefit the most from measurement lays the foundation for successfully meeting strategic goals that will empower for growth for years to come.

Why Field Force Tracker

About Field Force Tracker

Employee Safety Management Using Field Force Tracker

Posted on March 20, 2016January 21, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

The growth and adaption of mobile technologies has revolutionized everything, and smart businesses are quickly digitizing their services The use of modern tools is going to reflect on services that they provide. This article describes how cloud based Field Service CRM like Field Force Tracker can help you in increasing customer satisfaction, generate new business, improve job satisfaction and at the same time, improve your company’s profitability.

Field service engineers are life blood of your service business. They represent your company to the customers. Would you like them to use modern tools or like them to use antiquated forms? Would you like them to spend their time doing their jobs or would you like them to spend their time filling forms? Employees are expensive. They’re responsible for all sales, installation, maintenance, support, and other tasks that require direct access to the products and services a business provides. Field Engineers have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction and relationships. Now they want to use mobile devices, mobile enabled software and mobile forms based software. Is your company ready to provide all this?

Live GPS Tracking, Time Tracking and Data Keeping

There are many benefits to a field service management system: streamlined dispatch processes, faster billing and invoicing, visibility into job details, etc. Another important benefit that may not automatically come to mind is better time keeping. A good software provides better time keeping and live GPS tracking of employees. A field service management solution can help in improving field workers safety by tracking them in real time. With software it is easy maintain adherence to corporate and government-imposed safety regulations.

Besides doing a live GPS tracking about the location of field employees, Field service software can help organizations monitor and manage compliance with safety policy and procedures. Safety policies rules can be formed by the company or mandated by OSHA and other agencies.

Good software like field force tracker can improve compliance. It maintains many kind reports that can be used for tracking rules compliance. You can attach custom forms, documents and other data in the jobs. There are many such possibilities for a right service company.

An HVAC Technician can upload a time-stamped photo to indicate proper ventilation. An AC installation for an indoor unit at a job site can be shown to the manager. He can even show video of a work area after it has been cleaned. They can prove that debris and equipment was properly removed after a job was completed.

Managers can also create mandatory task list for each job that include safety-related activities. The tasks can be associated with editable PDF forms. These pdf forms must be filled in and signed off by employees. This helps ensure compliance with safety policies and procedures and provides a safety audit.

Why Field Force Tracker

About Field Force Tracker

Improve Your Field Service with Latest HVAC Service Business

Posted on March 14, 2016March 4, 2023 by Field Force Tracker

HVac companies are trying to move to electronic model of providing services. Paper based operation is too slow to address customer concerns. Field Force Tracker is the most comprehensive software for field service management. It takes care of everything from customer management to the payment collection for a service company. By using this software, our clients can see major improvement in their productivity and the customer satisfaction.

Many HVAC companies we speak to are still relying on paper-based processes to some extent in managing their workflow. This brings additional difficulty to making changes to schedules and allocating work to technicians as those in the office may not be working with all the information they need.

Challenges of HVAC Service Business

HVAC companies often also cover a lot of different areas of work. These are highly complex and require the right skills, parts or tools for the individual tasks. Workflows may have a number of dependencies which need to be stuck to, to complete the job. Many companies cover everything from design to install, renovation and service work, meaning each day is different to the last.

The use of paper-based processes can mean that up to date information is not available until a few days after the work has been completed, so delays occur in checking stock, re-ordering parts and getting out invoices.

HVAC companies face some unique challenges in field service. For many, some or all of their work can be emergency calls which come in that day. These then need to be prioritized and worked into the day’s schedule as soon as possible, but this then means changes to the planned work and it is understandably difficult to make on the spot decisions about what should give.

A further issue that HVAC companies face is how fast the industry is evolving. Equipment is becoming smarter with HVAC units becoming much more complex and more connected and intelligent buildings are growing in their popularity. Customer expectations increase alongside this technological evolution and service delivery must keep pace with these advancements.

Here we look at how some of our Field Force Tracker HVAC customers overcame the issues they faced in their evolving businesses and see the benefits and results they achieved.

Eliminating Paperwork For Better Operation

One of our customers had a paper-based work order system they’d been using for decades that was inefficient and expensive. Technicians had to visit the office every day, so travel costs were high and technicians had less time for jobs. Processing the paperwork meant significant administrative overhead and time as it took 7-10 days to invoice customers from the job completion.

Field Force Tracker solved the paper problem. All work orders are now generated and submitted electronically. As a result, the company:

Significantly reduced the number of office trips by technicians, cutting travel costs and increasing revenue-producing hours.
Eliminated the need for administrative overhead dedicated invoicing.
Decreased the time from service completion to invoice from days to minutes.

More Efficient Service Calls and Improved Cash Flow

Another HVAC company realized that cloud-based technology was the best way to make their business processes more efficient, and maximize profits. They have both residential and commercial customers, so wanted a solution that could handle both. Through using Field Force Tracker they now can connect with a specific technician or multiple technicians to assign jobs or alert them of a new/changed job, which they can see on the mobile app.

The dispatch capabilities provide alerts, location tracking and GPS routing. It also works as a time sheet to ensure that work is being recorded. The price book in the app means that an estimate can be emailed, which the customer can sign off, saving time as well as keeping an accurate account of what has been done.

They estimate saving 40-60 hours a week. “No time is wasted, the technicians get jobs faster, and we can track the job status so they can immediately go to the next job. Jobs are completed more quickly, so we can schedule more jobs per day with the saved time.”

The highest praise comes for the accounting features. “The easy sync with QuickBooks or Sage 50 eliminates double entry of invoices in our accounting system and we can simply e-mail invoices to customers.”

Better Customer Service

One of our HVAC customer was looking for ways to reduce paperwork and increase the profitability of their business as well as deliver even better service to customers. Prior to Field Force Tracker the dispatcher would receive calls and dispatch jobs to the technicians through manual text messages. Technicians would write out paper estimates on site and then return completed work orders to the office at the end of day, causing extra drive time and lag time.

They also use Field Force Tracker reports to predict customer needs. “If I see that 20 of our customers have the same furnace model, it makes sense to start carrying replacement parts for that model.” That means faster service since they no longer have to order parts through their distributor when the need arises. Instead the trucks are fully-stocked with the proper parts.

Now, the dispatcher can quickly review each technician’s status using the scheduler and assign new jobs to the next available technician. On site, technicians can collect more information with the mobile app. For instance, the tech can record the model and serial number of each piece of equipment. “With this type of information stored in the customer’s record, we can easily determine what parts are needed to complete the job.”

Field Force Tracker leads the way in simplifying field service for HVAC companies. Our solutions let you automate your field work – from dispatching work to updating job info on site and instantly sending electronic invoices – all from our easy to use mobile app.

About Field Force Tracker

Cloud Technologies Change Field Service Software

Posted on March 12, 2016January 21, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

Cloud software is the in thing. Deploying a good cloud based field service CRM software can improve your ability to manage your business. This facilitates service managers to better management of your service resources in the most cost effective way. This article describes how cloud based Field Service CRM like Field Force Tracker can help you in running your service business and improve your company’s profitability. A good service software can help everyone in the company to better manage the effectiveness of your service delivery. Using extensive capabilities of Field Force Tracker’s software, you can improve the effectiveness for field services in your organization.

Cloud Computing is Everywhere

New technology continues to create opportunities for how data is managed. The cloud, fueled by the ever-expanding landscape of mobile technology, is moving IT from a standard of on-site data centers. As a result, the world of IT is changing and companies are being pushed into a new era where IT is being redefined around the cloud.

Cloud computing is making it more cost effective to securely disseminate information throughout a software ecosystem. Companies with a dispersed workforce, including those with service workers in the field, can now move beyond email and paper-based systems to provide these workers with valuable customer data in real time, delivered through their smart phones and tablets.

As companies realize that competitors are becoming more agile in how they manage operations, organizations are being forced to evaluate their existing IT strategies and look for more efficient and cost-effective methods to keep pace with their competitors, their customer needs and market demands. As a result, the required skills and service experience needed for IT-related roles are changing to include an understanding of the cloud and how to best leverage its benefits for the company.

No Need to Set Up Your Own Data Center

Migration from local hard drives to on-premise storage to hybrid storage and now to cloud computing is happening right now. Processing power and data storage has evolved dramatically over the past two decades in keeping step with this evolution. Programs require more memory and more speed to operate, putting pressure on the computing industry to keep pace. Demand is steadily increasing and more companies are hungering for increased capacity to operate their systems. With this, they also require more space to store company and customer data, and the flexibility to scale with growth. As a result, the cost of memory, storage and hosting has dropped dramatically..

When computing power was reliant upon the local hard drive, memory and storage were very expensive. The moving parts of the drive could fail costing the loss of valuable data. Now, cloud computing has resolved many of the vulnerabilities of hard drives and improved the technology exponentially, resulting in faster more affordable computing with power that could hardly be imagined in the past.

Rather than concern for the failure of a single drive, redundancy has created layers upon layers of integrity, often through a network of multiple, dispersed locations. The result is computing power that’s incredibly efficient and infinitely more powerful and more secure than previous options. Valuable customer data is secure and because of the connectivity provided through the Internet, the cloud helps to make accessing that data through secure applications easier for field service teams than ever before.

Ability to Provide Software Updates without Disruption of Operations

It’s imperative that companies with field operations make it possible for their field workers to access the information about a job or a customer at all times. Interruptions can delay the completion of work, which has a domino effect on all other jobs scheduled for the day. This is not only costly from a revenue perspective, but it can also cost valuable customer satisfaction and impact the reputation of a business.

In the old world, IT was responsible for taking systems offline so that applications could be updated. If there was an issue during the workday, this downtime could impact operations and the ability to service customers. Today’s cloud technology has made it possible for backend system changes to occur without disrupting the business. Updates and bug fixes either run in the background or happen overnight when customers are not affected. This is very important so that business operations, particularly those in the field, are not disrupted.

Digital Certificate Based Security

The in-house data center or warehouse used to be the most important component of the technology framework because it served as the central hub through which information was collected, shared and stored. Companies that are used to this type of system often struggle to adopt the idea of a cloud-based technology. They find more comfort in what they see and hold within their facility as opposed to what they cannot see that may be managed by an external service.

Cloud computing companies, however, are now at the forefront of data warehousing and application hosting. Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example – the hosting company for Field Force Tracker’s data, is one of the leading cloud computing and storage vendors. Their clients range from small businesses through enterprise organizations and government organizations. These organizations understand that hosting companies like AWS are held to the highest of standards for data security.

Better Data Storage and Management

Also, note that hosting companies like AWS do not own the data that they manage and store on their servers. While some software companies retain ownership of that data, Field Force Tracker holds no customer’s data hostage. Anything data through our application belongs to our customers.

Cloud computing has created new possibilities for data storage and hosting. Now companies have access to a network that provides more capacity and is more secure than what they’ve experienced with on-premise solutions of the past.

Companies like Field Force Tracker that provide field service management applications that operate through the cloud combine its benefits with the flexibility of mobile technology extending office operations into the field. This delivers valuable customer data to the fingertips of service workers through a smart phone or tablet, helping their customers to remain competitive, agile and deliver a higher level of service.

Why Field Force Tracker

About Field Force Tracker

Advantages of Deploying Cloud Based Field Service Software – Part 1

Posted on July 17, 2015January 21, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

Until recently, field service organizations seeking to take advantage of a mobile environment often found they had to choose between an on-premise enterprise software solution and a ‘best-of-breed’, specialized field service solution. The on-premise solution delivered numerous and all-encompassing capabilities but was expensive and lengthy to implement. A cloud based solution provided unique features, flexibility and cost advantages but wasn’t easy to integrate into existing systems.

The choice was therefore often difficult as the advantages – and disadvantages – of each were fairly even. Two innovations however, have shifted this balance – and the benefits – to the side of the best-of-breed application:

The Cloud which allows companies to implement applications in weeks – not years
The ‘API Economy’ (Application Programming Interface) that enables best-of-breed, cloud-based applications to integrate with legacy applications – and other cloud-based applications – quickly and easily.

The flexibility and speed of the cloud, along with the APIs have in fact, virtually eliminated the main advantage of the enterprise solution suite – integration of all components into a central data store.

APIs can be delivered by the application provider or through third-party services and enable companies to implement a modular approach for their field service solutions. They can choose the best field service application, then integrate the data across their organization with APIs. As a result, field service organizations can leverage all the benefits of a best-of-breed approach while seamlessly integrating data across the organization.

Here we look at the ways that field service organizations can benefit by choosing cloud-based, made-for-mobile, best-of-breed applications.

IMPLEMENT FASTER

Cloud-based, best-of-breed solutions can be implemented in just weeks – not the months, or even years that are required for a complex, on-premise application solution. Cloud-based applications can be implemented much faster because they:

Eliminate the need to purchase, or make changes to, existing data center server, storage, security and network infrastructure.
Impact the operations and processes of the field service organization only.
Reduce data back-up and recovery requirements (delivered as part of the service by the cloud-based field service automation provider).
Require a smaller, more finite set of data for import into the new system.
Use subscription-based pricing (pay-as-you-go) that enables a phased approach (installation by group or geography)

GET THE LATEST FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS

Cloud-based, best-of-breed field service automation solutions are focused on one thing – delivering the features and functions that field service organizations need to be more productive and profitable. Additionally, these solutions are flexible and can be adapted to incorporate a company’s existing processes and procedures.

A cloud-based, best-of-breed solution:

Is designed specifically for field service organizations
Includes features and functions that are unique to field service organizations – like mobile work order management, field-based quote and estimate creation, customer asset management and field-based inventory management.
Continues to add new features and functions – without requiring customers to purchase software upgrades or invest in expensive software maintenance contracts.
Offers flexible features like custom fields and a standards-based API that allows the application to adapt to almost any existing process or procedure – and readapt itself as processes and procedures are altered in the future.

LEVERAGE INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE

The companies, and people, that deliver cloud-based, best-of-breed applications have extensive experience in and with the field service industry. They’ve implemented solutions for hundreds of organizations and helped thousands of end-users to become more productive – and the company more profitable. As a result, companies that provide best-of-breed applications are often able to help their customers uncover additional ways to leverage mobility within their organization or manage customer information more effectively.

Cloud-based, best-of-breed solutions enable customers to:

Leverage the knowledge and experience of the provider to improve their organization’s productivity and profitability.
Discover new ways to manage work orders, satisfy customers, improve processes, increase efficiency – and mobilize their workforce.

PROMOTE BUSINESS FLEXIBILITY

Cloud-based, best-of-breed applications enable companies to implement the capabilities they need – when they need them. They can be ‘plugged-in’ as they are needed, which enables companies to meet the needs of their customers more rapidly and expand into new geographies more aggressively.

Best-of-breed applications:

Can be implemented quickly, enabling companies to adapt to shifts in markets or customer preferences.
Are, using today’s API technologies, ‘plug-and-play’, allowing companies to address the needs of specific groups, organizations or even specific individuals, quickly and cost-effectively.

In Part Two of The Eight Advantages of Cloud based Applications we look at the following ways that organizations can benefit by choosing cloud-based, made-for-mobile, best-of-breed applications:

REDUCE RISK
INCREASE SYSTEM RELIABILITY
BOOST COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
IMPROVE PROCESSES

Field Force Tracker simplifies field service management. The seamless integration of our mobile and web-based field service solutions, speed of implementation and ease of use will mean you are up and running immediately, so your business doesn’t standstill.

About Field Force Tracker

Choosing a Mobile Device for Better Field Service

Posted on May 17, 2015January 25, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

Field Force Tracker is designed to manage your mobile Field Workers Using Mobile apps. The mobile apps let you manage your work order in the fields, invoice customers, update the job status and do many other things.

Mobile Field Workers can use their mobile Phone to manage entire cycle of the job. They can change the state of the job; they can invoice a customer in the field and they can create new estimates.

Field Force Tracker Mobile Apps For Field Service Management

We provide Field Force Tracker Mobile apps on iPhone and Android phones or tablets. So you can use your favorite device to use the mobile app.

Field Fore Tracker Mobile apps are designed for the ease of use. You can use them without much training. Features are well laid out. Graphics user interface is easy to use and self intuitive.

They are the most powerful apps for the field service operation.

How to Choose Mobile Device For Field Service

With so mobile device out there, how do you choose the right one for your field technicians? Above all else, you need a mobile device that will work for your technicians in the environments they are working in. You will also need to make sure that your software and mobile apps operate seamlessly on any device. This ensures that they can get the most flexibility and productivity out of the device.

Best Mobile App for Field Service — Best Mobile App For Field Service

Key to Mobile Selection For Field Service Operation

Every one has a mobile phone these days so it is better to use what your employees already have. It can save you cost of new devices. But, if you are planning to buy new field service devices for your field force here are some ideas for mobile device selection.

UNDERSTAND IMPORTANT TASKS FIELD TECHNICIANS NEED TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THE MOBILE

Every Field Service Business industry is different because every equipment requires different tool set, skills and operating paradigm. The most important criteria is to understand what you need from technicians or what you expect them to do in the field.

Mobile devices can be used for many useful applications.

Do they need to do a lots of data entry in the field? Capture signature from the customers at the end of field service? Calling the customer sites and supervisors? Are they familiar with the service area or do they need to relay on hands-free navigation in the phone? Do they need Bar code scanning for the equipment identification or they need ? Do they need Camera capabilities to capture after or pre-service photos? Do your field technicians need GPS/hands-free navigation? Having a full list of these tasks is key, and confirm with both your hardware and software vendors if those capabilities are available on the device.

For your information Field Force Tracker mobile apps provide all these capabilities and more.

If there is a lot of entry or more complex use required, your technicians may prefer the extra real estate of a tablet versus a smart phone. If traveling light is a goal, have a technician or two test out doing the data entry/debrief process on a smart phone (and don’t forget about the voice-to-text feature).

UNDERSTAND THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT FOR YOUR FIELD SERVICE OPERATION

Some field technician’s work involves visit to air-conditioned offices and buildings. Some technicians need to go to dusty construction sites.

The important to consider is the service environment. Is there any place safe to put down a laptop or tablet? Or do your techs need to keep the device in a pocket? Will they be operating from a tight ladder or in a tight space? What kind of durability is needed? Are there any rules about using certain devices (for example, no cell phones near hospital equipment, or only non-sparking equipment near a gas pipeline).

Smart phones are the obvious choice in a tight environment, but certain environmental requirements like these may require specialized equipment or a ruggedized laptop.

Despite some initial hesitancy about how brittle iPads might be in the field, many field service users report very little breakage both with and without cases like the Otter Box. Techs love iPads, treat them with great care, and the majority of users report that replacement costs are less than they budgeted for initially.

KNOW WHAT ELSE THE TECHNICIAN NEEDS TO ACCESS

A device that can be used for things other than field service can do multiple roles.

Most organizations want to move to smaller devices and free the technician from having to carry a full load of equipment like a laptop, but sometimes other applications (often for calibration or schematics) are a requirement. If this is the case for your organization, you have two options – put everything on the laptop together, or utilize a two-device strategy. Laptop for some apps and any heavy duty data entry or complex tasks, and a smartphone (which they probably need to carry anyway) for simple tasks like driving directions to the site, signature capture, calling the customer, light debrief, or parts lookup.

“Smartphones are the obvious choice in a tight environment, but certain environmental requirements may require specialized equipment or a ruggedized laptop.”

About Field Force Tracker – Field Service Dispatch Software

Field Force Tracker (http://www.fieldforcetracker.com) is a leading global provider of its award winning mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Our solutions enable businesses to meet the challenges associated with managing and running complex service operations. It helps improving the productivity of their mobile workforces.

With Field Force Tracker customers can create service schedule and route quickly, dispatch sooner, collect accurate information immediately in the field and invoice faster. The field service software makes it easy for users to eliminate waste, get more done in less time and be more profitable.

Field Force Tracker is used for service management in a wide range of industries including HVAC, Property Management, Cleaning, IT services, Contractors, IT management, and Maintenance service firms.

Seven Benefits of a Modern Field Service Management Solution

Posted on April 5, 2015January 25, 2022 by Field Force Tracker

With over 10 years’ experience of continually developing and delivering fully integrated business solutions and committed to utilizing the latest technology, Field Force Tracker offers seven of the most achievable benefits obtainable through use of a modern Field Service Management system.

Field Force Tracker is a new generation of field service software. It is designed with mobile first philosophy and provides strong field job tracking and employee tracking, job management and customer management features in the native mobile app

1. Better Field Employee Satisfaction

Field Force Tracker is mobile enabled Field service management software. It enables employees to get all the information in their hands using their mobile.

The ease which they can manage their field job improves their job satisfaction. This means that they can do their job better and feel less frustrated.

2. Optimum Use of Field Employees with Smart Job Scheduling

The most important task of field service management software is to allow you to optimize your field service resources. So, when a customer calls, you want to quickly assign the available technicians to them.

Now, a Field service management system has to be smarter than just pulling the calendar and putting the name of person there. While this works in a small business, it is not going to work in a medium size or larger businesses. Larger the business is more sophistication is needed in the software.

The promise of effective job scheduling lies at the heart of most Field Service Management systems and they all have some scheduling capabilities.

In reality, scheduler in Field Service Management have traditionally can be considered to belong to two main categories. At one extreme is the simple ‘Call Allocation’ model which does precisely that – simply allows an operator to decide which field engineer or field technician gets what job based on their own judgments.

At the other extreme is the ‘Intelligent’ or ‘Dynamic Scheduling’ or “Smart Job Scheduling’ model. These advance schedulers permanently juggle a large amount of prescribed complicated rules and other data to continually generate an up-to-date schedule. Whereas the former places entire reliance on the operator and is mostly used in smaller companies where options may be relatively limited, the latter relies on having data relating to every possible permutation and scenario which is far too costly in terms of finance and resource for all but the very largest customers.

Field Force Tracker uses a third approach that combines the best of the both worlds. It combines the two approaches in a meaningful way.

Our Job scheduler combines the ease and benefits of the two older approaches. It is a Called ‘Operator Assisted Scheduling’. While an operator can assign a person of his choice, it also allows for the system to determine a range of options based on rules based logic. However, it also allows for this to be fine-tuned and tailored by the unique knowledge of the operator.

In addition to the obvious advantages of being the best of both worlds, it also allows the system to be used equally effectively by a greater number of people. Less skilled operators can rely more on the system recommendations while higher skilled operators can bring their own insights and understanding.

3. Real-time Inventory Management & Parts Availability

A modern, state-of-the-art Field Service Management system offers levels of stock visibility across a mobile workforce who would simply be impossible with either a manual system or a solution based on an older technology platform. Take just one example, managing replenishment levels and setting minimum/maximum stock levels. Not only should a modern Field Service Management system provide complete visibility of the breakdown of stock each mobile engineer is carrying in real-time, it should also identify which are fast and slow moving items, thereby extending ‘Lean’ thinking into your mobile workforce and avoiding unnecessary costs tied up in inventory.

4. Reduce Time to Invoice and payment Collection

While it may have come as no surprise a decade ago to hear of 6-8 week time periods between an engineer visit and invoicing the customer, the painful reality is that a number of companies still reliant on manual systems aren’t doing much better. Even those reliant on earlier Field Service Management systems may well be still restricted to weekly batching. Modern, fully integrated systems however offer the ability to invoice on a same day basis, often when the engineer is still on-site.

5. Quick Estimates for Field Service or Installation Jobs

One of the key requirements of service business is to generate quick cost estimates for repair and installations to new customers. The field Force tracker allows estimates to be sent in minutes and not in hours.

6 Proper Costing of Service Contracts

Keeping costs to a minimum is vital to all companies but in the world of Field Service Management, it can be surprisingly difficult to determine exactly what those costs are. And it’s not just the exact costs of each engineer; it’s also visibility about whether a contract is financially viable, and if so, by how much. Workload does not always equate to profitability so unless you have a system which provides real-time visibility of costs as well as powerful job and business-wide reporting, you may never be able to keep on top of your costs.

7. Better Customer Satisfaction with Better Services

The adage may well be that ‘the customer is always right’, but one thing is for certain, knowing and understanding your customers is the most effective way of doing business with them. A manual system or earlier, older Field Service Management system simply does not have the means to retain and provide the unique information relating to each customer, which is essential to maximizing that relationship.

A modern system combines all the widely accepted benefits of a CRM system with the unique information relating to each Field Service Management interaction for every customer. Most importantly, this information is then available to each and every engineer or member of your mobile workforce, enabling the most consistent, well informed interactions with every customer. And, by having access to the entire historic record of each customer, future needs and opportunities can be developed and tailored to maximize and grow that relationship.

Field Force Tracker is One of the Best Field Service Software

In Field Force Tracker’s experience, many companies recognize an area of need in their Field Service Management system capabilities. They want to improve services to their employees, clients and customers, but they do not know what best software is for their requirements. Some of them are stuck with poorly designed software that does not meet their needs at all.

Field Force Tracker is a new generation of field service software. It is designed with mobile first philosophy and provides strong field job tracking and employee features in the native mobile apps.

By looking at each of the above areas as potential opportunities to gain competitive advantage, a company can see that it can greatly improve its services and benefits with some of the great features in the Field Force Tracker software for the field service management. It is designed to suits your own business needs now, and into the future.