With the growing adoption of IoT (Internet of Things) and software, automation is available to save time and streamline processes in an increasing number of ways. Field services will not be left behind, as field service automation offers many opportunities to improve your operations. Under constant pressure to get the job done well or deliver products quickly and on time, field services are ready for the improvements and support that field service automation brings. Furthermore, field service automation offers benefits from improving safety and decreasing costs to a better customer experience.
What is Field Service Automation?
Field service automation goes above and beyond your regular field service management. It involves converting certain field service workflows, processes, or procedures to an automatic system through the use of technology, such as software. Automation saves you time by reducing data entry and streamlining processes that may have taken several steps before. Furthermore, when you implement Field Services & Dispatch software, you are able to centralize all of your field services information. Instead of having data on paper, spreadsheets, calendars, and/or whiteboards, you have all of your data in one location.
Dispatch: A Perfect Example of Field Service Automation
While we’re talking about field service automation, dispatch is one of the biggest tasks for field services companies. Trying to dispatch a team of technicians using only a paper calendar or a whiteboard comes with some big limitations.
- Data Silo – You can only access your schedule data at the location of that piece of paper, spreadsheet, or whiteboard. If something changes when your dispatcher isn’t in the office, they don’t have access to the schedule. Additionally, if you have multiple locations, there is no coordination with paper processes.
- Data Entry – If you’re writing the schedule out on paper, you’re most likely doing duplicate data entry to share the schedule with the technicians via email, text, or a digital calendar.
- Notification of Changes – Dispatching field services employees involves a constant juggle of various factors and reacting to changes and new information. So, if you have to manually notify everyone of changes, that adds up to a lot of unnecessary time.
Redlist’s Field Services & Dispatch software is a cloud-based mobile app, meaning it is accessible from any device, anywhere. It comes with a visual calendar that allows your dispatch team to easily coordinate your people, assets, service tickets, and more. Additionally, you can configure automatic alerts and notifications to save you all the time you spend notifying your team of changes to the schedule.
Benefits of Automation
That example should start to give you an idea of the benefits of field service automation. Some of the benefits you’ll experience after automation include:
- No more paperwork to manage or keep track of, it’s all digital.
- Better communication between field and office employees.
- Improved service ticket or work order data from technicians using the mobile app in the field.
- Shorter time from job completion to invoicing, as field employees don’t collect a pile of paper service tickets and turn them in once a week. Service tickets are submitted digitally immediately after job completion.
- Increased visibility into your field services and dispatch data with auto-populated reporting on real-time data at your fingertips.
- Automatic mass notifications of the schedule or last-minute changes.
- Dispatch scheduling that helps you better forecast your people, jobs, and resources.
- Eliminated duplicate data entry.
- Provides a remote work option for technicians to receive service tickets, complete work, and submit information with fewer office visits.
- Time savings from centralizing all of your data in one system instead of being spread out across paper, spreadsheets, and whiteboards.
Put Field Services Technology to Work for You
Several different industries have field services operations, so our software can work with your specific needs. You don’t have to adapt to workflows that we pre-load in our software. Instead, you can configure the software to the workflows that you already know work for you. The potential savings from field service automation’s impact on your invoice time alone can be massive. Wagstaff Crane recovered over $1 million in annual revenue after implementing Redlist’s Field Services & Dispatch software. Read their case study to learn more, or schedule a demo to see how Redlist can increase efficiency, reduce errors, and save you money.
