Why You Should Expand Your Business with New Field Services
Posted on: August 14, 2020 | By: Guy Logan | Acumatica
Why do you own a business? Most people look to businesses as a way to provide a service or product that helps their customers. But you’re also in business to turn a profit. Finding ways to grow the bottom line and gain new revenue opportunities is important to keeping your business afloat. In this blog post, we’ll be talking about how adding field services to your offerings can help you increase your business value.
What are field services?
Field services, such as preventative maintenance, cross selling, and more, can provide you with more profit-making opportunities. For those who already provide field services, many of your field technicians may not have the tools to do the job right. In fact, FinancesOnline reports that 45 percent of technicians say their current tools are not fast enough and 38 percent aren’t able to access all the information they need. This means your customers will be left unsatisfied and your profit will continue to fall.
If you’re in the distribution, manufacturing, or services industry, there are numerous things modern field service management software can help you with. One of the greatest benefits of this software is the ability to automate your customer, staff, equipment, order, and inventory processes as well as their services. It also provides your field staff with full-time access to the software via any device, anytime and anywhere.
Using field services software to manage operations
Field services management can be broken down into four categories: customers, orders, staff and equipment, and products. When working with customers, you can start with your customer relationship management (CRM) software for handling marketing, leads, sales and other client needs. Then, with your field services software, you can work to keep customer information current, including information like locations, equipment used, service history and more.
When managing your orders with field service management software, you can enter parts and service orders to keep track of all the revenue opportunities coming in. You can price and discount your products accurately with your high-level view of overall operations and supply and demand. To maintain efficient use of your employees, you can assign subcontractors and schedule and route field officers through this software as well. Through field service management, you’ll be able to start using your project accounting for larger opportunities, leading to higher revenue and lower costs.
When managing your service staff, you can use field service management software to fully understand their individual skills and certifications. This means that you’ll be able to accurately assign them to projects that best suit their expertise, leading to happier customers. You can also control service vehicles, equipment and specialty tools if needed, meaning less time wasted on technical issues.
And in regards to your products, a strong field service management software can track your warehouse, branch and truck inventory in real-time. Fully understanding your inventory levels is crucial to making sure your customers are satisfied and your field staff are well equipped. You can also manage lot and serial numbers, and even backorders with a strong software system as well.
Next Steps
Growing your business means understanding the services you provide and the technology you use to provide those services. But without the right solution in place, those steps toward growing your business can be extremely difficult. A cloud-based ERP solution with a fully integrated field service software like Acumatica can help you transform your business for the better.
Logan Consulting, a proud partner of Acumatica, has helped clients across the nation grow their business step by step. Contact us to schedule a free consultation and start your digital transformation journey today.
Check out the full Acumatica article and infographic here to learn more about what the cloud ERP solution can do for you.