Managing Mobile Work Orders in the Field Service Industry

How do you provide enough information on work orders when your techs spend all day out of the office?

Life in the field service industry can get hectic. Many moving parts must come together seamlessly on a daily basis in order to provide smooth and quick service to customers. Even when focusing solely on what a technician must do out in the field for a given job, things can become overwhelming. Pieces of the process can get forgotten in the ensuing jumble.

Work Order and Problems in the Field

While simple things such as job notes and proof of work completed represent general industry standards, field service work is often so personalized to the customer and their needs that many other required tasks can overshadow the basics. Then, when a technician gets a chance to review their work at the office, they may realize they did not properly notate the job or attach any proof of work. Moreover, the simple delay between when a tech finishes a job and when they return to the office to turn in their paperwork can cause numerous issues.

This delay prevents technicians from fixing simple mistakes or filling in forgotten fields until full hours have gone by. While those fields can always get filled out at the end of the day, a mind fresh from the job will have a more precise and complete picture of what got done.

Another less common (but potentially more bothersome) issue that can come up involves a lack of parts or tools to do the work required by the customer. This situation may occur less often, but every time it arises costs time, money, and customer satisfaction.

With many field service companies setting up recurring jobs (such as for ongoing maintenance checks), you can’t always send the same technician to a job site they worked before. A new technician can waste valuable time as they work through the standard process for the job and give a less than favorable impression compared to the efficiency of the usual technician.

Potential Work Order Solutions

This list of issues may seem daunting, but fortunately many solutions can help address them. Proper note taking and easy access to service records can prevent confusion and rescheduling. Ensuring that technicians review notes on the job before heading to the site greatly reduces any confusion for new technicians. Other companies will have the technician take the relevant information with them to have on hand for additional review.

Both of these options have their own benefits and shortfalls however. Only having documents available at the office provides a secure and easy means for review, but becomes far less effective when working back-to-back to jobs. On the other end, having those records accessible on site allows technicians to head straight to their next job. This works great for industries with many stops in a day. However, it doesn’t ensure technicians have all the tools and parts required. That’s where good work order software comes in.

Smart Service: The Work Order Software

One such software solution? Smart Service. With Smart Service, technicians will have access to all their job’s information and can submit data from out in the field as well. Simply schedule the job through Smart Service and send the information to any Android or Apple device (tablets offer greater visibility and control, phones provide better accessibility).

Not only does Smart Service give techs access to current job information, it also can supply service histories for recurring jobs, giving that new technician an easy point to start from. The benefits go beyond just simple notation, though. Smart Service provides equipment tracking to ensure arriving at a job without proper tools or parts becomes a thing of the past. With all the benefits provided to technicians out in the field, Smart Service can truly become the one-stop solution for connecting your field and office teams.