Field service businesses today are constantly looking for an advantage over the competition.
While it is essential to stay up to date on the latest and greatest technology and practices, the success of most businesses comes down to whether or not they can keep their customers happy. However, maintaining positive client relations is sometimes easier said than done.
One of the best ways to improve your client relations is by implementing field service management software. Field service management software will improve your communication, increase efficiency, and make for smoother overall business processes, all of which will enhance your relationship with your clients.
Whether you are a one-man shop or operate a service business with dozens of employees, improved client relations are the best way to increase your business.
While personal contact and communication are great, most business owners don’t have the time or resources to maintain client relations. Therefore, turning to field service management software is much easier and more practical.
What is Field Service Management Software?
Field service management software is automated technology that helps you streamline all the different aspects of your business.
Field service management software allows you to do everything from scheduling jobs and processing payments to communicating with your technicians in the field from one application. Field service management software can also significantly improve your relationships with new and existing customers.
Best of all, you can handle all field service management software operations from your phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.
How to Know if Software Can Improve Your Client Relations
Regardless of how big or small your business is, your success will primarily come down to how happy your clients are. If they dislike how you communicate or handle projects, they’ll simply find another vendor.
Here are a few ways to know whether or not you need to improve your client relations with field service management software.
1. Ask Your Customers
The best way to determine the status of your client relations is to go directly to the source – your customers. You can quickly determine how happy they are with your services by talking to them in person on the job site, or by asking them by phone or via email.
2. Ask Your Technicians
Aside from asking your customers directly, the best way to evaluate your customer relationship is by asking your technicians. Your techs are the ones that will handle most of the interactions with your clients, and they’ll have a good feel for how the client is feeling.
Your technicians will also have the most significant impact on the status of your relationship with your client. As such, you should make sure they know how to handle challenging situations when the client disagrees with them.
3. Check Your Online Reviews
While personal communication with your clients and technicians is essential, a critical way to evaluate customer satisfaction is by checking your online reviews.
According to a recent study, more than 90% of people are influenced by online reviews. This means that if a new customer is looking for your services, whether or not you have positive reviews will play a huge factor.
Reading reviews about your company will show you how and where you can improve. It will also show you whether or not you should invest in field service management software to boost client relations.
Benefits of Field Service Management Software
How can field service management software help you? Here are the benefits of field service management software for your business:
1. Clear, Consistent Communication
If you are a plumber, electrician, or contractor, your clients want to know what is going on, how the job is going, and when you plan to show up.
According to recent polling, communication is one of the main things customers look for when enlisting services from a business. In fact, 85 per cent of customers prefer to have ongoing, proactive communication throughout a job.
Clients have a very short attention span regarding unanswered questions and unresolved issues. If you don’t communicate with them to handle these problems, they will be one-time customers who leave you a negative Google review.
Field service management software allows you to send automated messages by text SMS messages or email to your clients to keep them in the loop and satisfied.
2. Helps Form a Personal Relationship
No matter what type of service you are performing, your clients want to feel like you are their partner. They want to feel like you genuinely care about their project and want what is best for them.
When using field service management software, you can send automated and personal messages to your customers. Field service management software also allows for sending automated promotions and offers to your customers and will maintain a steady stream of positive communication.
On top of that, you can add personal notes to a client’s work history when you use field service management software. This will help your technicians in the future by giving them historical knowledge of all the work your business has performed for the client in the past.
3. Service Agreement Optimization
field service management software is a great way to optimize your service agreements if you own a business that performs service work.
Service agreements are one of the best ways to build recurring work from clients, so it is crucial to have clear, concise, and documented agreements. Otherwise, you’ll lose customers if they feel like you are not holding up your end of the service agreement.
Rather than rely on paper documentation and a client list in your archives, you can utilize field service management software to keep track of your service agreements. Field service management software acts as your CRM allowing you to maintain a growing list of service customers, keep track of the work you perform for them, and document the agreements.
4. Makes for a Smoother Contract Process
In addition to service agreements, field service management software is also a great way to handle quotes and contracts between you and your customers. You can easily create, edit, and send quotes to your customers and keep track of contracts you have with your clients.
When your customers know exactly what they are paying for because of a precise quote and documented contract, it will improve your relationship and their satisfaction.
5. Streamlining Tasks
Customers really dislike when technicians show up at their homes, business, or job site and waste time uncertain about what they should be doing. If this becomes an ongoing issue, you’ll start getting complaints about wasted money and paying people to stand around to do nothing.
In most cases, your employees aren’t being willfully lazy or negligent. They likely don’t have clear instructions about what they should do. Field service management software allows you, as the boss, to provide clear job instructions to your team, which streamlines tasks and keeps your customers satisfied.
6. More Payment Options
field service management software is also a great way to increase the number of ways your customers can pay you. Rather than having to come to your office or send a check in the mail, customers can pay you from the comfort of their homes or on the job site.
As soon as your technician is done performing their work, the customer can pay them via a credit or debit card or with third-party payment sources like Stripe, Venmo, or Paypal.
7. Increases the Knowledge of Your Team Members
In another recent survey, customers were asked what the one thing is that makes them willing to pay one company more than another for the same service. Aside from efficiency and convenience, nearly every customer said they value knowledgeable staff above all else.
Because field service management software offers clear instructions and communication between team members, they appear more knowledgeable. Field service management software also allows your employees to look at a client’s work order history, so they know exactly what was done previously for the client.
8. Better Documentation
The only way a work order history will be any good to your workers is if they can document their work clearly and concisely.
While field service management software also makes it as easy as possible for your employees to be thorough and accurate in their documentation. You’ll be amazed at the profound effect that accurate documentation and work orders have on your client relations.
9. More Security
Your customers also want to be assured that their personal and financial information is secure. Field service management software allows for safe and secure cloud storage of all these documents and more.
It makes it so that only those with the proper administration rights can access these documents, ensuring that your client’s personal information isn’t accessible to the wrong people.
Grow Your Business and Improve your Sales
There are many ways that field service management software can improve client relations. As your client relations improve, your business will grow and increase sales courtesy of keeping current customers and attracting new ones.
In addition to customer relations, field service management software will also help increase your workplace efficiency, improve the morale of your employees, and help you build your business faster than you ever imagined.
Garrett Wilson is the President and Co-Founder of FieldBin. FieldBin is a Field service scheduling software designed for trade business owners. The software allows professionals in the fields of Plumbing, HVAC, Electricians, Roofing, and Commercial Cleaning to solve their back-office nightmares with ease. Garrett has expertise in Marketing and Project Management, with experience in multiple industries including cyber security, healthcare, and manufacturing.