The most successful businesses are those that plan for change—to adapt to evolving technologies. For electrical contractors with field service workers, this means giving employees the ability to stay connected, work from any location and remain productive while away from the office. Mobile technology and the use of industry-specific software, such as electrical contractors’ software, is more than just a fad. The International Data Corporation reported in June 2015 that it expects the number of mobile workers to increase from 96.2 million to 105.4 million by 2020. By this time, the organization expects mobile field workers to make up 72.3 percent of the U.S. workforce. With fieldwork not being a new concept in the electrical contracting industry, the most competitive and successful contractors are those that meet customer demands for faster service, enhance the customer experience and implement streamlined processes.
How Mobile Technologies Improve Services Businesses
Improved communications: Cell phones and tablets keep employees connected to the office and customers throughout the day. Rather than wait for a worker to return from the field or respond to a phone call, mobile technologies allow contractors and their workers to provide an instant response. Today’s mobile technologies extend past phone calls. With cloud-based software like 360e’s field service management software, it is simple to exceed client expectations and track work progress with a taps of the screen.
Improved productivity: According to Apps Freedom, 84% of companies that consider themselves mobile-friendly have reported increases in productivity due to implementing mobile apps within their day to day business processes. Wired predicted in 2013 that manual data entry would be a thing of the past and that mobile technologies would make workers more productive and less likely to make errors.
Productivity improvements reach far beyond data entry. Field service management software allows you to track how employees spend their time, tally expense receipts, log miles traveled, receive turn-by-turn directions, stay up to date with the latest details about projects, manage schedules, communicate with others and much more. The productivity increases are so significant that VMWare stated in its July 2015 “State of Business Mobility Report” that businesses that embraced mobile technologies experienced an average return on investment of 150 percent because of the ability to capitalize on new revenue opportunities. Similarly, the AT&T Small Business Technology Poll 2014 found that smartphones and tablets collectively save business two billion hours annually and mobile technologies save nearly 600 million hours.
Enhanced customer experience: In today’s fast paced world, customers want quick and convenient service. Mobile technology allows workers to conduct more on-site visits and improve appointment punctuality, which in turn increases business and keeps customers happy.
Change the scope of work without missing a beat or losing money: Project changes happen all the time. Contractors lose money when field workers forget to track these changes or they go unnoticed on paperwork. Mobile technologies with contractor-specific software and apps let workers immediately input changes, preventing billing errors, such as not charging for work completed.
Empower your work force to know where and what they should be doing: When field workers have access to schedules, directions, special notes and permits, gone are the days of calling the office or a dispatcher to locate these details. 360e provides all of this information within seconds. Further streamlining the process, GPS technologies provide directions and real-time traffic information that enable workers to be on time to appointments, allowing for a better customer experience.
View special instructions and work history: Downtime due to not knowing lock codes, the location of gate keys, client contact information and miscommunications wastes worker time and company money. Field service management software that is mobile-friendly places all this information and more at your employees’ fingertips. When you and your crew have complete information—including access to the latest project notes, order statuses, serial numbers, work histories and other relevant information—your team works proactively instead of reactively.
Embracing mobile technology is necessary for growth and remaining competitive. Integrating CRM or field service management software into your business is guaranteed to place you leaps ahead of most competitors. With companies experiencing high ROIs with mobile technologies, you have nothing to lose by implementing them into your own business. Schedule a free 360e demonstration to learn more.
