On average, employees waste around 26% of each day on burdensome administrative chores and outdated ways of working. Consequently, field service businesses are losing out on opportunities to improve their customer experience, complete more work, boost their bottom line and grow their company.
That's where BigChange comes in.
Martin Port, Founder and Chairman at BigChange, commented:
"I founded BigChange in 2013 to liberate businesses of all sizes from inefficient, manual processes. With our innovative platform, we have democratised the industry, creating a simple, scalable platform that lets any business manage its whole operation all the way from quotation to invoice on a mobile or tablet."
Read on to learn more about BigChange's field service management software and how it can help grow your business.
How BigChange's Field Service Management Software Can Benefit Your Business
BigChange is a field service management platform that enables you to handle all aspects of running a field service business in one place. Modernise your ways of working and experience the following benefits when you deploy our system:
1. Advanced Back Office and CRM Processes
Research shows that 52% of field service businesses still rely on manual methods to keep their operations running. Although tried and tested processes may eventually get the job done, they're terribly inefficient and could cause several problems, including:
Dissatisfied Customers
61.5% of marketing professionals agree that poor customer experience (CX) leads to a loss in clientele. Modern customers are used to straightforward, digital experiences, and they expect the same from your company, so you must consider ways to make your processes meet their standards.
Unfortunately, sluggish, manual workflows aren't going to cut it in today's world of instant gratification, and businesses that don't stay ahead of the curve run the risk of becoming obsolete.
However, with BigChange's fully integrated CRM, customers can easily book and reschedule appointments via an online portal. You can then instantly log all interactions with each client for simple case management and create templates for automated communication, which keeps your customers in the loop.
Plus, you can digitise all your paperwork, meaning that your field technicians can immediately send forms to your back office once they have completed a job. Customers won't have to wait several days to sign documents as they'll be able to sign straight away from their mobile device and receive an invoice the same day.
Demotivated Workers
Did you know that happier employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy ones? Therefore, to get the most out of your people, you must ensure that their work is fulfilling and exciting.
Teams that have to carry out laborious, repetitive tasks will become dissatisfied, leading to lowered productivity, poor communication with field engineers, more errors and, in some cases, resignations.
Instead, when you arm your back-office employees with BigChange's state-of-the-art field service management software, you eliminate several monotonous administration tasks and free up your team's time to focus on business-critical projects.
Irregular Cash Flow
Typically, it takes 11 hours for an AR (accounts receivable) team to manually process an invoice. Your customer then has to wait several more days to receive the invoice in the mail before they can write a cheque and mail it back to you, provided there are no errors that could inadvertently stall the process further.
Since manual processes are slow and inherently error-prone, they often lead to late payments, which can be detrimental to field service businesses. A poor cash flow may prevent you from taking on new projects, meeting operational expenses, maintaining supplier relationships, and growing your business.
In contrast, BigChange's CRM software significantly reduces the risk of human error by making the entire invoicing process digital. You can produce all documents directly in the system using pre-populated customer data to ensure the information is correct.
According to Helen Carrison, Company Secretary at Kingston Cleaning Solutions:
BigChange is the perfect CRM solution. We don't need delivery notes anymore, which saves us time and money. Now, customers can sign off jobs on the BigChange computer, and we can invoice straight away."
2. Superior Job Scheduling
With so many organisations depending on outmoded processes to maintain their job schedule, it's easy to see how scheduling and dispatching difficulties present one of the top challenges for field service businesses.
When you don't have complete visibility over who is working for you, where they're working and when, it can be tricky to ensure the right resource is always in the right place.
But, with BigChange, scheduling issues can be a thing of the past. Our smart scheduling software enables you to do the following:
- Account for location, traffic information, job constraints and vehicle type
- Optimise technicians' routes to reduce time spent on the roads and lower costs
- Create rules for unscheduled jobs and automatically allocate them to custom categories
- Produce custom pricing models for each job type, with customer-specific prices and rate tables
- Check parts, equipment and stock availability in multiple locations and assign them to jobs
- Design step-by-step workflows that mandate work against your standard processes
- Create and share electronic certificates, reports and job cards instantly
As a result, you'll be able to improve communication, boost first-time fix rates, complete more jobs per day, and offer better service to your customers, all of which help grow your business.
According to David Robbie, Managing Director at McDougall:
"BigChange has fundamentally impacted the way we operate. By automating job scheduling and routing, we have increased the number of jobs we can do with the same resources. Productivity has been boosted by 17 per cent."
3. Real-Time Vehicle and Asset Tracking
Shockingly, 43% of businesses cannot track their inventory and assets effectively because they still use traditional methods such as paper-based tracking sheets.
Although, in theory, it may make sense to ask your technicians to sign equipment and assets in and out, it doesn't work in practice. Whether the engineers' writing is illegible, they forget to sign the sheets, or they accidentally take too many items and store them in their van for future projects, numbers will soon become skewed.
At worst, inconsistent numbers could eventually halt your projects because you may not have the right equipment available, despite your tracker showing that you do. You may also end up ordering replacement items needlessly, putting a dent in your profits.
BigChange's job tracking software is designed to prevent inconsistencies and give you visibility over your assets, regardless of location. Also, with the system updating in real-time, you can track the location of all your vehicles and assets on the road to allocate resources rapidly throughout the ever-changing workday.
Marty Collins, Office Manager at CMT Wood Flooring, commented:
"With BigChange's software, we now have complete visibility, enhanced productivity, better customer service and improved driver behaviour. It's also helped resolve disputes regarding times and locations."
4. Easy-To-Use Mobile Workforce App
Although field technicians are off-site for most of the day, mobile technology is still not standard in field service businesses. However, 80% of field service technicians say that mobile technology is critical to increasing their efficiency and effectiveness at helping customers.
With BigChange's mobile workforce app for iOS and Android, you and your technicians will have access to all the necessary information in one place. Furthermore, you can manage the entire end-to-end process, from appointment booking to invoicing, in the palm of your hand.
The app synchronises new jobs, completed jobs and those in progress between technicians' mobile devices and your back office in real-time. Subsequently, your team can send job cards and certificates directly to your customers as soon as work is complete.
Not only can the app free up more time for your technicians to focus on doing an outstanding job, but your customers will appreciate the more rapid service and excellent communication.
5. Revolutionary Collaboration Network
Historically, field service businesses that want to grow have had to hire more staff to keep up with increasing workloads. But, with the skills shortage presenting a threat to the industry, companies will need to think of other, innovative ways to expand without needing to take on more people or rely on unfamiliar subcontractors who are difficult and costly to manage.
Fortunately, with technology, the possibilities for business growth are endless.
BigChange's Network is a seamless way of connecting with other trusted contractors and subcontractors in the system. You can collaborate with them to expand your services and increase your reach without high levels of capital expenditure.
Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy by using the BigChange Network:
Free Business Listing
Post your business on the system and start receiving networking requests immediately. You'll have the choice to work with a range of different companies.
Robust Security and Privacy
All information on the Network is entirely secure as we use the latest cloud-based technology.
Real-Time Progress Updates
You'll be able to see how the job is progressing as contractors and subcontractors can provide live updates from their mobile devices.
Instant Alerting
Your contractor will receive an alert as soon as the subcontractor has completed the work, improving communication and ensuring everything remains on schedule.
Superior Processes
You can continue to use your own preferred worksheets so you can rest assured the subcontractor completes the job to your high standards.
Define the Job Types You Want
You'll be able to share the types of jobs you want, along with the skills required to complete them.
A Straightforward Experience
Customers will still receive paperwork with the original company's branding on it, but you can invoice as normal, so there's no disruption on either end.
Agreed Rates
The system uses agreed rates shared via our Network to calculate the invoice, meaning you'll never be out of pocket.
Above all, by meeting virtually every month with other members to network and form partnerships, you'll feel inspired and have practical ideas on how to drive your business growth further.
Grow Your Field Service Business with BigChange
BigChange is the complete Job Management Platform that’s helping field service businesses across the UK to win more work, take control of their operations and deliver winning customer experiences.
Bringing together customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, field resource management, financial management, business intelligence into one simple to use and easy to integrate platform your business can run on.
Want to find out more?
Discover how BigChange's complete job management platform can make your business grow stronger here and arrange a freedemo today.
