In today’s world of mobility and connected interactions, there is a constant need for service providers to be on site and providing solutions or troubleshooting in the field. In doing so, service managers are required, more than ever, to help keep their organizations operating smoothly. Meshing the customer’s expectations with the work of technicians on site can be quite challenging. Making sure the organization is turning a profit through the entire process is also one of many elements that has to be considered, and poses the most significant challenge for many ISVs.
Having software solutions to effectively manage business needs is wonderful, if you have the proper application. Rarely do you find a “one size fits all” solution, so you’re often left dealing with multiple applications that fill a unique void. We’ve come up with a list of three challenges that a software application should address when out in the field.
Businesses don’t know how they’re performing or where to improve
In business, you need to know how you are performing from multiple perspectives. Customer service, business efficiency, and sales are just a few areas that can help you better understand what is happening on a daily basis. Effective analytics that help direct your efforts and areas for improvement allow you to target strategic issues within your organization. Small issues can not only grow over time, but they can have a trickle-down effect on other areas of business. This can potentially cost your business more money and valuable hours away from the core focus of service and business growth.
If you have a robust analytics solution, you’re able to quickly access key organization-wide metrics on business performance indicators, forecast issues and help mitigate them, and even enable notifications to trigger certain actions when an issue arises. Real-time analytics on business issues can help you gather data to quickly make decisions to improve issues or react to trends.
Solutions that allow businesses to effectively schedule their workforces
Challenges manifest themselves in many forms; however, one of the more common ones is managing and scheduling the workforce. Because unforeseen circumstances arise, the unknown has to be accounted for. Meeting every customer’s expectation can be challenging on its own. So, when you have a number of workers that have run over the forecasted job time then you are forced to juggle schedules.
Scheduling optimization helps reduce gaps in productivity, gives increased visibility into the job progress, and increases job completion and customer satisfaction. Workforce scheduling, while a basic function, can become an optimized functionality that reduces costs and customer dissatisfaction.
Businesses aren’t capturing accurate information from the market
Information and data are the lifeblood of business today. There is desperate thirst across the business marketplace to gather valuable information of customers to better understand their evolving needs. Long gone are the days of extensive manual data entry, and the era of cloud-based software has been ushered in. Being able to capture accurate information that syncs directly into back-end systems allows for streamlined, optimized data.
Recording accurate and timely information allows for increased, real-time job management. Recording and documenting job information into a streamlined project management system eliminates the need for masses of paperwork, loss of precious hard copies, duplicated entries, and human error.
As software applications evolve with the shifting business marketplace, so will the obstacles to increased mobility and functionality out in the working field. Only working with partners that have a sense of what the market requires, and are at the forefront of producing solutions that have helped organizations achieve growth, will be the ones to facilitate solutions to these challenges. 
