Author: Martin Port

Want to grow your field service business? Here, we’ll compare manual versus automated job scheduling to help you win more work and reduce operations costs.

Field service businesses rely on accurate job management and scheduling. Yet many still struggle with a mix of tools and methods that don’t work well together – or use spreadsheets they have outgrown as the company scales. 

Whether you’re just starting to think about automating job management or have a solution already underway, there are significant opportunities for improving job management through automation. 

In this blog, we’ll walk you through the benefits of moving from manual to automated job management and the risks of sticking with a paper-based approach.

Let’s dive in. 

Why move to automated job management?

Automated job management provides the ability to move away from the costly, error-prone ways of manual scheduling towards improving the overall management of your entire business.

It reduces admin, increases efficiency, and provides excellent cost savings. 

In fact, after moving to digital and automated processes, JWH Tanks saw 35% growth:

“We have slashed the time taken to produce vital documentation for each job. Customised worksheets such as tank cleaning reports and consignment notes can be completed simply by our engineers, which is complemented by easy access to important safety information such as method statements and risk assessments.” 

The end result? JWH Tanks has raised customer service levels with real-time updates and ETAs. They’ve minimised administrative costs to increase turnover. And they’ve reduced errors such as data duplication.

The risks of a manual approach

If you haven’t moved to automated job management, you’re not alone. In 2018, over half (52%) of businesses were still using manual methods for the bulk of their field service processes. 

Yet manual methods pose huge risks. 

A manual or paper-based approach means information stored in multiple places – including lots of spreadsheets, office whiteboards, T-cards, and printed job sheets. 

Updates are often made by engineers via calls and text messages or even by post. And you’d have to wait to receive the printed job sheets before updating a job and then manually raise an invoice.

While spreadsheets are easy to use – they aren’t made for job scheduling. They also rely on everyone having access to a live version and being able to track changes.

Ultimately, this all makes job management a lengthy and admin-heavy process. 

Plus, it’s prone to bottlenecks and involves a lot of coordination, deadlines, and data entry – the risk of human error is huge. 

Not to mention these additional challenges that manual processes present:

• Paperwork – As well as the need for manual data input to systems, paperwork can also get lost, it can be difficult to interpret different hand-writing, and keep up with job progress. Plus, updates aren’t in real-time.
• Invoicing – Manual invoicing can be slow, disorganised and negatively impact cash flow.
• Competitive disadvantage – Competitors can leap ahead with quicker scheduling and smoother customer experiences (with automation, they can provide live updates on a job).

The bottom line? This approach can’t be easily scaled to support a growing business. This is why we’ve seen a real shift in the market with more and more field service businesses making the leap to automation.

For smaller businesses, the need or urgency for a move away from manual job management is less pressing. However, if you hope to grow your business, it might make sense to look for an alternative sooner rather than later.

As an interesting side note, during the pandemic, businesses that quickly moved to automated job management software could continue to operate seamlessly. Whilst we never want to experience something like this again, it’s good to future-proof your business for the unknowns.

Benefits of automated job management

Moving away from manual processes, automated job management uses specialist job management software to allow for accelerated growth in a way that paper systems just can’t handle.

How? Going paperless means all information is available at all times, regardless of your location. This means you can check a job’s progress or send an invoice from anywhere and from your mobile!

Likewise, because this type of platform can automate all the steps in the job management process – and requires only minimal admin input – it ensures efficiency and eliminates effort. 

As a result, you can adapt and scale to changing needs, provide 24-hour service availability, comply with legal requirements, and free up valuable time. 

For savvy field service businesses, it’s a no-brainer. 

No bottlenecks, no data issues, and no more struggling to get a mish-mash of tools and spreadsheets working. Just job management and scheduling that works. 

Here are some additional benefits:

• Increase the number of bookings – Reduce administration so you can focus resources on booking and attending more jobs. 
• Speed and accuracy of job scheduling – Arrange job scheduling in the most time and fuel-efficient way, allowing you to do more jobs with the same number of engineers.
• Respond quickly to new opportunities – Everything from quicker generation of quotes and proposals, through to automating timely follow-up emails and reminders.
• Quickly adjust job schedules on the go – With a real-time view of every job, engineer and vehicle, you can respond to unforeseen circumstances such as emergency call-outs, driver illness or a vehicle breakdown.
• Route your team to the nearest jobs – With live tracking and a precise location of a site, you can send drivers exactly where they need to be whilst keeping fuel costs down.
• Increase profits – Automate everything from timesheets to customer service due reminders to reduce administrative costs, freeing up your team’s time for more bookings.
• Run a more cost-efficient business – Say goodbye to admin errors and lost paperwork. Automated workflows ensure every job is done right every time, using the closest resource.
• Improve the customer experience and response times – Say hello to automated, real-time customer updates and ETAs. Plus, have access to all customer details (full job history for each customer, including financial history, model numbers, contact details and more).

In a nutshell, you can run a healthier business: An automated job management system can have a ripple effect through a business positively impacting all processes and teams involved. 

With the ability to link data with the click of a button, so many areas of mobile operations can be streamlined. 

This is why businesses like A&S Newbuild Aftercare have seen a boost to turnover of £5m in just two years. Here’s how:

“We have complete visibility of everything going on in real-time… It has allowed us to really streamline our mobile operations. Tradesmen are now much more self-sufficient; journeys to the depot are rare, first fix rates are improved, and there are fewer wasted hours.”

The end result? Automation allows A&S to meet any contract specification, opening up new business opportunities and much bigger contracts – with the assurance that they can deliver exceptional service.

Make the move to automated job management 

Automated job management can help you save two of your business’s most critical resources – time and money. 

Even when you have a small number of employees, manual job management can create a mass of work and lead to errors. Of course, the problem only increases as your business grows. 

The good news is that automated job management software can take the burden off your shoulders – replacing 70-80% of repetitive work, such as keying in paper-based job sheets – so you can focus on more value-added work. 

In conclusion, moving from manual to automated job management ensures your business stays on the path to continued growth. Ultimately, you can differentiate yourself as a market leader with a strong competitive advantage.

If you’re ready to grow your business and profit margins, you’re probably ready for automated job scheduling. Take a look at this latest blog for a checklist of must-haves to look for in a job management software provider. 

Or, jump straight and book a one-on-one demo with our field service bus

Decided to move to job management software, but need to ensure you’re choosing the best option for your needs? Here’s the key criteria to consider.

If you’re running a field service business in this day and age, it helps to use job management software. Delivering improved cost savings, efficiency, and profits — it’s not surprising it’s so popular among time-pressed businesses. 

You’ll never go back to messy spreadsheets or paper job sheets again. 

But once you’ve made the decision to invest, what do you need to consider? And what key factors should you think about when choosing job management software? 

Let’s get into it.

How to choose the best job management software

If you’ve decided to move to job management software (also known as field service management software), how do you ensure you’re choosing the best option for your needs? 

📝Here are some of the key criteria that should make their way onto your list.

Criteria for choosing job management software

• All-in-one solution with the right integrations
• Easy-to-use (even for those less tech-savvy)
• Advantages beyond job management
• Strong supplier and partnership relationship
• Ability to scale with your business

To help you assess each one, we’ve pulled together some key questions to consider when weighing up solutions and suppliers. 

#1. What do you need your job management software to do? 

Some job management software providers offer job scheduling. Others are designed to support customer quoting and invoicing. Others major in job progress tracking.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find one that can do all three with ease.

Having a clear idea of your priorities can make the selection process far easier. 

The key here is to think about your objectives – what are you looking for in your job management software? Is one area more important to you than another? 

Or maybe, the ideal software is an all-in-one solution that fully integrates with other useful systems. For example, syncing up your finance software such as Sage or Xero, plus GPS and What3Words for location finding. 

Similarly, one thing that businesses find particularly handy is software with the ability to automatically create job cards and industry-specific certificates that can be quickly shared with customers.  \

#2. Who will be using it? 

Often, one of the reasons businesses want to introduce job management software is to make everyone’s life easier. If this is one of your reasons for investing in mobile workforce management, it needs to be part of your decision process. 

Given that, think about the skill set of those you want to make use of the solution. Are they all good with software? Not everyone is ‘app savvy’. 

You want to avoid a complex or unintuitive solution – what you invest in needs to be user-friendly with support on hand. 

Likewise, to ensure adoption with your users, your solution needs to allow anyone – not just management – to access and update jobs if it’s to deliver real benefits to your business.

Aside from your field teams, think about who else might need access to the software, such as stock control, reporting, finance and other teams. Consider if everyone will get what they need from your chosen solution.

#3. Does it have advantages beyond job management? 

Chances are, you’ll need to ‘sell in’ the idea of investing in field service management software to your director. If you can identify and shortlist a solution whose benefit goes beyond improving job management scheduling, you’ll be far more likely to secure the budget you need. 

The best solutions will enable you to not only schedule jobs but offer an all-in-one solution. 

Look for solutions that offer:

• Mobile app for efficient paperless job management
• Client job portal (or booking site)
• Automated job scheduling
• Live tracking of fleet and resources with real-time updates
• Better customer CRM and project management
• Financial management, including quotes and invoicing
• Integration with your accounting software (or with an ERP system for larger businesses) 
• Business insights and reporting
• Audit trail with time stamping
• Customer messaging, such as text messages to confirm when engineers will arrive 
• Ability to control the workflow step-by-step so nothing is missed

Are you short-listing suppliers that can deliver on all this?

#4. Does the supplier match up to the solution? 

When you choose a job management solution, remember you’re not buying just a solution, but a supplier as well. The right supplier can turn into a fruitful business partnership. 

Ask these key questions:

• Whether your supplier has a strong track record and history of implementing job management software – what’s their history and heritage?
• If they’re able to provide evidence of satisfied customers, with testimonials and case studies? 
• What training and support you’ll receive, what’s their customer service like, and what back-up is available? Is there 24/7 client support?
• What credentials do they have around security? 
• Do they regularly meet customers through shop floor days?

Ensuring your chosen supplier can support you on your job management automation journey is vitally important. Make sure the service levels match up to the technical elements of the solution. 

#5. Does the solution have the capacity to scale with you?

Finally, as your business scales, you need job management software that has the capacity to scale with you. 

Can it handle increased workloads while adding users with minimal cost impact? Can you add integrations, such as Xero, as you grow? And is the supplier constantly updating the software with new features?

Equally important, is the solution fast and flexible to launch? Some software requires complex IT involvement, while others can be up and running straight away. 

In short, make sure the solution suits your needs today and has what you need in five years’ time. 

If the answer is yes, put that vendor on your shortlist.

Getting it right when making decisions on job management software

The benefits of job management software are well-recognised. You can save significant time, improve productivity, reduce your admin, and increase efficiency. 

We can’t say it enough. Making sure you select the best solution for your business is the crucial step in achieving the benefits field service management software can deliver.

When narrowing down your options, be sure to read customer reviews and compare features and benefits. 

Hopefully, this blog has given you some ideas of how to get it right when you’re choosing job management software. 

When in doubt, schedule a demo

Scheduling software demos are an excellent way to understand each software better and get a better feeling for their customer support.If you’re ready to put BigChange on your shortlist, why not book a one-on-one demo today? Our team will show you how to win more work, take control of your operations, and deliver the best customer experiences.

Initially selecting the cloud-based platform to help gain and maintain quality standards and industry accreditations, JWH Tanks also used BigChange to improve the management of their nationwide operations by reducing data duplication, minimising paperwork and eliminating inefficient workflows.

Part of a family business dating back 150 years, JWH Tanks has been offering safe, reliable and cost-effective tank cleaning, tank removal, decommissioning and other fuel-related services for over 40 years. With teams operating across the UK, the Leeds-based company has completed projects for organisations such as the NHS and MOD, major fuel forecourt brands and large development projects, alongside smaller organisations such as independent building contractors and even domestic clients.

“Since we went live with BigChange around 2 years ago, we have increased our turnover by around 35 per cent,” commented Nick Saunders, Operations Manager at J W Hinchliffe (Tanks). “I believe this is attributed to a number of benefits brought on by BigChange, particularly efficiency savings, allowing us to focus on other aspects of the business, such as brand promotion.”

“Using BigChange, we have slashed the time taken to produce vital documentation for each job. Customised worksheets such as tank cleaning reports and consignment notes can be completed simply by our engineers, which is complemented by easy access to important safety information such as method statements and risk assessments via the BigChange app,” he continued.Nick Saunders, Operations Manager, J W Hinchliffe (Tanks)

“Once a job is completed, clients no longer wait 24 or 48 hours for paper documents to be returned to the office. In many instances, our clients receive their post-work completion packs before our engineers even return to base, using the benefit of real-time information sharing.”

Using BigChange, which incorporates customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, resource management, job finance and business intelligence, has dramatically reduced the time and resource required to manage the complete project lifecycle from the initial enquiry right through to project sign-off and invoicing. Intelligent scheduling and routing are reducing costs and unnecessary returns to base between jobs, and the digitisation of paper documents is improving access to and sharing of job-specific information.

Since implementing BigChange, the administrative burden has been dramatically reduced, and management has better control over costs, all contributing to the increase in turnover. The system also improves communication between field-based teams and back-office staff, raising customer service levels and boosting feedback with real-time updates, ETAs and reporting. In addition, the management of staff and vehicles is streamlined with automated checks and alerts, real-time tracking and 24/7 visibility of remote staff. 

“BigChange has freed up my time to run the business rather than it running me,” concluded Saunders. “It gives me the tools and information I need when I need them, it provides the mechanism to share time or business-critical data, and it provides the intelligence we need to be accountable to ourselves, our customers and external organisations. This has allowed me to invest time in other areas of the business, such as the website, advertising and customer care, which has undoubtedly contributed to our growth.”Nick Saunders, Operations Manager, J W Hinchliffe (Tanks)

New build after-care specialist A&S has used the latest mobile workforce technology to double its business to a £5m turnover in 2 years.

Using the cloud-based job management system from BigChange, A&S has successfully diversified into high-level access services and asset management services for the Private Rental Sector (PRS).  

Established just eight years, A&S has become a leading player in the fast-growing market for new build after-care.  With a head office near Chester and a national training centre in Market Drayton, the company employs multi-skilled and specialist trade teams carrying out NHBC remedial claims, assisting with high-volume build programmes, remedial repairs and technical reports.

A&S works with the major house builders and is now expanding into the private rental sector providing services to UK and overseas investors with A&S Asset Management. With a pool of 100 tradesmen using mobile devices to connect in real-time with the office, BigChange provides a paperless dynamic CRM system that is boosting customer service and efficiency on site.

A&S recently acquired JA Access, allowing the group to offer high-level remedial works, technical external investigations and cladding remedial schemes. JA Access will be the first scaffold access company to utilise BigChange, and A&S are creating a nationwide supply chain network to provide access across the country. This new capability will help A&S complete recently secured cladding remediation and solar panel installation projects.

“BigChange has already delivered productivity gains of 20 percent within our after-care business,” said Sean Coldrick, Group Managing Director, A&S. “Now it has been deployed to underpin expansion into the private rental sector and manage new division in access services – helping us to boost turnover to £5m in just 2 years.”

Sean Coldrisk, Group Managing Director, A&S

“BigChange has transformed JA Access from a paper-driven to paperless business, allowing processes to be streamlined,” Coldrick explains.

“Incorporating JA Access was easy thanks to the ability to link data by the click of a button, making purchase orders and job data simple to exchange. It’s now a business underpinned by a dynamic CRM system; we’ve been able to seamlessly add new clients, double staffing levels and boost sales by 50 percent.”

Sean Coldrick, Group Managing Director, A&S

Using the BigChange mobile app, tradesmen manage all work on-site, aided by on-screen workflows to ensure all the correct procedures are followed and information recorded.  It is completely paperless, and job cards are completed with accompanying on-site photographs, generating contra-charge reports at the click of a button. BigChange also has fully integrated vehicle tracking, providing time and location data, routing, customer ETA alerts and driver performance reporting.

With customer service central to A&S, BigChange provides an important platform for customer mediation, with a portal allowing customers to access all information, including quotes, bookings, job cards and invoices.  BigChange has also been used to transform stock management, with real-time stock control and replenishment of stock on vans and the ordering of parts and materials by tradesmen via their tablets.

“BigChange has allowed us to really streamline our mobile operations.  Tradesmen are now much more self-sufficient; journeys to the depot are rare, first fix rates are improved, and there are fewer wasted hours.

We have complete visibility of everything going on in real-time and that provides assurance that all works are properly controlled.  The system allows us to meet any contract specification, opening up new business opportunities and much bigger contracts – with the assurance that we can deliver exceptional service with a well-proven system and processes.”

Sean Coldrick, Group Managing Director, A&S

BigChange is also helping A&S expand into private rental, creating a new division. A&S Asset Management provides a complete service to the PRS sector, working with UK and overseas investors and increasing the ROI on residential units by providing a high-end cost affective refurbishment scheme for residential units. 

The new division has already secured a multi-million-pound scheme within the NW to bring what are currently standard rentable units up to a modern category, introducing green energy and modern techniques to reduce carbon footprints significantly.

BigChange allowed A&S to centralise all overhead facilities and gave both JA Access and A&S Asset Management a foundation to provide the clients with reassurance.  BigChange ensures all the key requirements are in place; H&S, tracking of jobs and vehicles, asset control and transparency with client login.

“BigChange has lived up to our expectations and transformed the business.  However, more than anything, we chose BigChange because the system was clearly backed up by real people; a team of professionals that have since proven to be invaluable in the roll-out of the system,” said Coldrick. “And like us, they have a forward vision and ambition to grow; that fits very much with our own ambitions.”

Sean Coldrick, Group Managing Director, A&S