Managing people takes a lot of different skills, and not all of them reveal themselves at the start of running your own business. Patience, precision, punctuality, the ability to negotiate and to influence people effectively are only the tip of the iceberg. Managing mobile workers can seem harder still, because it is not always possible to talk face to face at the exact moment the situation calls for it.

Remote service management does, however, have plenty of advantages. The key is to work out fast, effective ways of doing things. After that it is all downhill. Our Fieldworker service software supports exactly those first steps into managing online and takes you by the hand when you need help most.

Save time and save your nerves

Once your company has grown, time becomes your most valuable currency. Again and again you will be choosing between looking after existing customers and winning new ones. You will make decisions tied closely to your business model, and you will not always be able to count on help from outside. Minimise the time you spend on matters you could settle faster and without additional stress. Managing mobile workers through an online system will help you steal precious minutes back from the day, minutes you can devote to growing your business or to your family.

Example

On Friday afternoon one of your technicians’ vehicles breaks down. You cannot get a replacement car for the weekend, so Saturday’s jobs have to be split among the rest of the team. You pick up your diary, pick up your phone and start asking about work plans, journeys and the materials needed. Remote service management would have let you find all that information in moments. A glance at working hours and travel routes for each person and you know immediately who can take on extra tasks and who definitely cannot. No round of phone calls, no frustration for you or your team. You make the changes in a second, and the technician sees a finished, optimal plan on their phone.

Eliminate misunderstandings

The bigger the team you manage, the higher the chance of misunderstandings and awkward situations. In work built on commission there is often unhealthy rivalry too, attempts to manipulate or run down other members of the team. Leading a group, you have to be prepared for the fact that not everyone who works for you will like each other. Managing mobile workers online eliminates the problem of poor communication and clears up any ambiguity. Choose transparency and stay confident about the work your team is carrying out.

Example

One of your technicians discovers a major fault during a job and has to spend considerably longer at the customer’s site than planned. They call a colleague and ask them to take over the next request on their list. The colleague agrees but does not carry out the task. The reason does not matter; the effect does — a job that was never done and a customer who is certainly furious. Sorting out what happened will take a lot of time and will not repair the relationship with the customer anyway. Online service management rules out that sequence of events. Every task is monitored as it happens, and there is no way for responsibility to evaporate.

Make life easy for yourself

Clear situations and the ability to oversee work from anywhere are a huge comfort. You do not have to sit by the phone in case some problem appears that has to be solved immediately. You can use online service management software wherever you like and follow what your team is doing in real time. You will not have to ring them to find out where they are, what they have already done and how much material they have used. You just look at the app. Importantly, you can also follow the cash flowing in from completed tasks. Customers will be able to settle up with your technicians without cash, and you can use the money as soon as it lands.

Example

Because of the volume of jobs you have had to add four new people to your team. They all seem trustworthy, but you do not really know them and you do not know what quality of work to expect. Managing mobile workers through an app that works in real time lifts the weight of that uncertainty. You do not have to spend your time personally checking what a new employee is doing. You look at the app and within moments it tells you the travel time, the working time and the materials used on every completed job. What is more, you can read your customers’ feedback and reassure yourself that you made good decisions during recruitment.

Managing a team purely through personal contact is convenient and quick only up to a point. The more your team grows and the more tasks it carries out, the harder effective direct communication becomes. Too much on your plate means details are entitled to slip, and hanging on the phone all day starts to wear you down. Moving management online is the way to stop losing even the small things and to reach everyone at once with a single click. Online service management is an approach that clears the awkward obstacles from your path to success and leaves you more time for what matters.