Besides delivering a quality installation, one of the most important things installers must do is to schedule the installation. Asking the customer for the best time to do the installation is step one; however, that is far from all the information you need to consider. Below is a list of five things your field service application must do so you can be awesome at scheduling installation jobs.
- It lets you see a map of all the work you have in the customer’s area
When scheduling a job, you want to consider what other work you have in the customer’s area. Helpful map tools, such as routing lines and job icons can help you decipher what type of job you’re seeing on the map (measure, estimate, install, etc.) and where it is. You can minimize your crew’s travel time by finding the most effective routes to travel and maximizing the number of stops along those routes. No one wants to spend precious labor hours driving to the next job and passing by another one just blocks away. - It shows you technician availability by TYPE of installation
The customer’s availability is only half the battle. You also need to know which technicians are available who qualify for this type of installation. A great job scheduling tool will allow you to see which technicians with the right skill sets are available for the installation and it will show you where they will be at any given time. - It allows you to schedule ALL work in one place
Whether your work is coming from Lowe’s or The Home Depot, or any other sales channel, you want to schedule and see all work in one master schedule, rather than toggling between multiple systems to see each individual schedule. - It automatically shares scheduling information with retail partners
Even better is a scheduling tool that integrates with Lowe’s and The Home Depot portals to automatically share scheduling information between systems – so you only have to enter the data one time in one place. - It keeps everyone informed about the job
Once you committed the job to a schedule, you will need a method to keep everyone informed – from the salesperson who sold the business to the customer who purchased the installation and everyone in the fulfillment process. And when the unexpected occurs, you want a system that can alert everyone to the change in plan. Speaking of customers, wouldn’t it be great to send them automatic reminders and notifications that contain a photo of the technician assigned to their job?
If your current job management software doesn’t offer this level of insight, control, and flexibility in your scheduling process, then you have an opportunity to improve efficiency. Take a look at CiO’s scheduling features, which provide these and many more capabilities for scheduling and order management.
