This is the third article in a nine part series about the role that software plays in the field service industry. It’s focus is on work order management processes and how software can help you run a better service business by managing your work orders. We’re passionate about software and the service industry, and we want to help you find the right software for your business, whether it’s our product or a competitor’s.You’ll receive the next white paper in the series next week, but if you can’t wait we encourage you to use the links at the bottom of the page to read the rest of the series now.
How Can Software Improve Work Order Management Processes For The Service Industry?
Work Order Management Requirements
The day to day routine of a service business is best summarized by the work orders they perform. With a network of customers in place, the majority of what a service business does is receive work order requests, assign a technician to the order and then complete the order. It sounds pretty simple (and it can be, for some businesses) but there is a lot of potential for greater detail and more requirements. We’ll look at a few work order scenarios, then see how they can become more complicated and lastly we’ll look at how software can simplify and streamline work order management processes.
A Simple Work Order
In the simplest, most ideal case, a work order will arrive in the form of an email or a phone call from a customer with their request that a technician perform some action for them. The entire work order process might look something like this:
1. Receive email/phone call requesting a work order
2. Enter the request in your files and create a work order form
3. Assign a technician (one happens to be available right then, how lucky!)
4. Give the technician the details of the work order
5. Technician goes to the site and completes the order
6. Technician returns to the office, notifies office staff that the order is complete
7. Invoice is sent to the customer and the work order is closed
That’s a pretty simple process and probably doesn’t require any complex software. Spreadsheets might be a useful way to achieve some of the action items, though paper work orders would also probably work fine.
Potential Work Order Complications and Solutions
Receive email/phone call requesting a work order
1.This remains pretty straight forward, though wouldn’t it be great if incoming emails with work order requests were automatically converted into open work orders for that customer?
2. Enter the request in your files and create a work order form
This probably means manually filling out or copying and pasting the customer address, site info, contact info and more standard information from your CRM database for that customer onto the work order for that customer. It’s an example of double entry at its worst. If your processes have you re-entering or copying over customer information onto your work orders you should look into making changes.
Software Solution: When a work order is created for a customer all of the customer, site and contact info is automatically filled in, along with tracking important customer equipment, site notes and more info that could be relevant to the work order.
Furthermore, are you printing the work order form or creating and storing it electronically? How do you enter that into your customer’s work order history? Probably a bit more double entry.
Software Solution: A new work order is automatically linked to the customer’s order history.
3. Assign a technician (one happens to be available right then, how lucky!)
Uh-oh, there are no technicians available right now. You need a way to log and keep track of this unassigned work order until a technician is available.
Software Solution: All work orders should be searchable and viewable through filters. Useful filters are by customer, by status (assigned, unassigned, opened, closed, etc), date created, date closed, technician assigned and more.
Good automated email tools make this possible – watch the video to see how easy it can be
If you want to assign an order to a technician right away, rather than logging it to be assigned later when you know a technician is available, you’ll need access to all of your technicians’ schedules. Obtaining the right view of all of them at once might make assigning a work order difficult.
Software Solution: Dispatch and scheduling calendars track all company work orders and technicians and can filter according to the work order status, technician, day, week, month, etc, so that you can assign work orders to the right people.
Furthermore, how do you know if a technician is qualified for a work order? Perhaps some of your customers occasionally request work that requires OSHA certifications or some other mandatory qualification to legally be permitted to perform that job.
Software Solution: Flag customers who require that your technicians possess certain certifications, then when an order is opened you’re notified of that status and will only be able to assign technicians possessing that certification. Certifications and qualifications can be entered in the technician profile in the software user database and are automatically checked against the requirements of the work order.
4. Give the technician the details of the work order
Hopefully your technician is in the office, because if not it’s going to be difficult to get a paper work order to them. Or you could email it to them, but they’ll likely not have access to all of the information you have in the office. Plus if the order changes or the customer closes the request themselves your technician will be out of the loop if they’re already in the field. Communicating changes and updates via email or phone is wasting your time and your technician’s time.
A good dispatch calendar is crucial
Software Solution: A mobile app, hosted in the cloud, is a great way to let your technicians view their work orders in real time, so that if a change is made to a work order in the office software it is automatically pushed to the technicians mobile app on their smart phone or mobile device. All the information from the office is immediately available to the technician, without wasting time on email or on the phone. Good software will help your technician navigate to the job site in addition to simply supplying them with the site address.
5. Technician goes to the site and completes the order
Completing the order could be very straight forward, but if your technician isn’t prepared for the job at hand it could become a problem. How prepared your tech is can depend heavily on your work order software, especially as work orders become more complex and demanding. If an order requires many special inventory items, specialized knowledge or certifications, among other things, and the work order doesn’t list those items the entire process can run aground easily.
Software Solution: Work order software should use work orders that you can assign items to, list any special circumstances, access restrictions, special contacts, certifications or qualifications that are required and custom documents for blueprints, inspection sheets and much more.
Work order management app lets techs work from any mobile device in the field and syncs all info back to the office
6. Technician returns to the office, notifies office staff that the order is complete
Relying on an email or word of mouth to notify office staff that a work order is complete slows down the turnover rate for jobs.
Software Solution: Mark the work order as completed using the work order management mobile app from the technicians smart phone or mobile device. That way the office staff know right away when an order is completed.
7. Invoice is sent to the customer and the work order is closed
Oftentimes the invoicing process can be streamlined using software.
Software Solution: The technician can use the mobile app on his phone to generate an invoice for the job and capture the customer’s signature and credit card information while they are on site.
Work order management processes can range from very simply to incredibly complex, and work order software will almost always improve those processes. It decreases double entry, increases automation and smooths the entire process while making sure that your technicians have access to the information they need to provide great service, whether they’re in the field or in the office.
We hope our software fits your work order needs since we’ve been designing software specifically for the service industry for over 25 years, but we’re quick to acknowledge when the fit isn’t right and we’d be glad to point you to one of our competitors who might suit your needs better. If you have any questions about work order management systems and how they relate to your specific business processes please feel free to give us a call at 360-293-3000.
This article is the third in a nine part series of white papers designed to inform you about the role that software plays in the field service industry. You’ll receive the next article in the series next week, but if you can’t wait until then we encourage you to check out the entire series using the links below. Thanks for reading!
The Team at High 5 Software
The Whole Package
Read The Whole Series
Part 2: Customer Relationship Management
Part 4: Sales, Leads and Proposals
Watch a video overview of Service Management Enterprise (SME) from High 5 Software
