6 Reasons Why You Need to Manage Your Fleet with GPS

The quality of your field service can be a strong differentiator for your business, as well as a powerful revenue-generator. Staying ahead of industry trends is a sure way to improve your field service — and customer your satisfaction. There are a number emerging technologies that offer the potential to drive the productivity and efficiencies of your field techs and the services they deliver. Perhaps the biggest and most impactful of these is the connected mobile device, a smartphone or tablet that becomes a powerful tool for increasing customer satisfaction and getting job referrals and repeat business.

While industry studies show that over half of field service companies are still managing their field services and field techs manually, increasing numbers are turning to GPS-based field service management systems and connected mobile devices. Here are six reasons why:

1. Mobilizing Your Field Techs

Equipping your field techs with smart mobile devices, or letting them use their own on the job, can mean a dramatic increase in efficiency and productivity. With a mobile-ready field service management system in place, field techs will be able to check on job status, receive alerts and new job notifications, get routes and maps, share quotes and photos with customers, log hours, get customer approvals, and more — all with a smartphone or tablet. No calling into the office, and no paperwork to fill out. For the customer, this means faster response times, more on-time appointments and less paperwork.

2. Better Scheduling and Routing

The right field service management system will dramatically improve the way you schedule jobs and route techs. With connected devices installed in your vehicles and an intuitive web-based dashboard, you’ll be able to see which jobs are on tap for the day, view jobs status, as well as quickly add jobs and check them off as completed. You’ll also be able to see where your field techs are at any given time and direct them to the most efficient routes. What’s more, you’ll be able to redirect the nearest field tech on the fly when a job opportunity pops up. In addition to faster service delivery that keeps your customers happy, you’ll see an increase in jobs completed per day, which means more revenue. You’ll also see a reduction in drive time, fuel consumption, and vehicle wear and tear — all of which translates to increased savings.

3. Proactive vs. Reactive

Connected devices are able to capture a wealth of data about your customers, their systems, and the jobs your field techs perform. A field management system translates this real-time data into actionable information and puts it all at your fingertips. You’ll know when customers are due for their next appointment, servicing or delivery, allowing you to be proactive instead of waiting for their call. Customers will appreciate the exceptional service, and you’ll benefit from building ongoing, loyal relationships with them.

4. Keep Customers in the Loop

Connected devices allow you to share important information with your customers including job status, estimates and quotes, estimated arrival times of service techs, reports, and more. Imagine being able to send a report to your customer that shows just how well you’ve stuck to your SLAs. That’s a powerful customer satisfaction tool. And by giving your field techs mobile access to customer information, they’re better equipped to serve customers on the spot without having to call back to the office and wait for information. This also goes a long way toward improving customer satisfaction and repeat business.

5. Software-as-a-Service

More field service companies are accessing these tools and benefits over the cloud with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. SaaS allows you to take advantage of powerful field service management software using simple web-based tools with no complex technology to install, learn or maintain. But be careful to select the right SaaS solution — one that’s built on a reliable, secure platform that will keep you connect to your vehicles and service techs while also keeping your data protected and secured.

6. Increase Fleet Safety

By implementing GPS solutions on your fleets, you can protect the two most sizable resources that keep your business running; your assets and your drivers. Having a field management system can help with operational cost-effectiveness of your fleet by providing fuel-efficiency (or inefficient) alerts or sending notifications to field techs of any preventive maintenance that needs to be done so your assets can stay on the roads longer. With driver behavior monitoring, alerts can pinpoint guidance opportunities for drivers like speeding and hard braking. This means you can measure drivers’ compliance with safe driving metrics with accurate, real-time data so you can reward safe drivers.

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