Engineers really can use technology

In today’s post we're going to look at the way site technicians can communicate with your back office team. With so much technology available, it’s difficult to know which might be the best route.

It’s not that long ago that we relied purely on written job sheets in triplicate, leaving one for the Customer, one for Accounts and the final one for your Service teams records. Indeed, it’s still a great method and still by far the most popular choice for so many businesses, so why should we adopt a new method when this tried and tested approach has served us so well?

Let’s explore some pros and cons.

It’s true to say that by providing a written document on the spot can give your customer instant written evidence for the task just completed. What’s more, they have the proof, right there on the document! But is it really as simple as that?

The fact is; if your technician loses their copy of the document, what has your company got to go on regarding an update? It doesn’t happen often but in my experience just one lost sheet is too many. This clearly is the worst case scenario, but more often the problem lies with late arrival of the document to HQ, returning them within hours at best, the next day more often and sometimes several days later depending on your technicians schedule.

So what can we do to fix this?

We rely heavily on mobile communication for so many tasks in the day, every engineer and sales representative carries a mobile phone with some going further and utilising a tablet device or laptop, so why not integrate the same technology in to your site technician job updates?

This will allow your Service team to see job updates as they happen. From notifications that a technician has arrived on site, a written completion report, to customer signatures on completion. By defining product criteria, test reports can be included or maybe parts required. The options are endless.

Where after hours engineers are required to monitor incoming calls, a really great feature is the ability to look up the customer details, determine the warranty status and raise a call out to attend site. When your office team gets back to work, waiting for them are all the repairs completed with full reports for each one attended.

These are just a few points that can make utilising mobile technology a real bonus, but the true benefit shows itself as a much improved customer experience. They may wait a little longer than before when a written document is required but instant email on completion can fix this, if parts are required, these can be ordered before even leaving the property with photographs uploaded and full descriptions being posted to the customer record for your service team to instantly action.

If you would like to explore these possibilities further, were here to help. Drop us an email or phone us on 0845 474 8824 and start working smart today.