Techs Sell More With Field Service Management Software
One of the biggest problems faced by owners of service businesses today is sales. You, as the business owner, have no problem making sales. But your field techs aren’t as good at sales as you are. When they go to fix a toilet, perhaps the customer needs a new toilet – perhaps a low-flow water-saving device. But your tech doesn’t bother to even try and sell your customer a new toilet — he simply fixes the unit and rushes out to his next assignment – or to meet his girlfriend for lunch. If your tech went out to repair a customer’s water heater, did he try and sell him a new one? Probably not. Sales is one of the biggest problems facing owners of home service businesses. And field service management software is the one thing that will solve this problem for you and instantly turn your field techs into sales superstars.
Let’s look at FieldSurf, one of the leading field service management software systems on the market today. FieldSurf is loaded with features that totally automate every function of your business — from Scheduling and Dispatch, creation of Work Orders and Invoices, it has full GPS capabilities to track all your techs in the field, and it totally automates your accounting function so all your financial data is available at all times to anyone you authorize to access this information, and you can generate instant reports about exactly how you are doing at any time.’ But the best part of automating your service business with FieldSurf is that it gives your field techs all the tools they need to not only do the job they were sent out to do, but also to examine the customer’s situation and sell them whatever they need to get back up and running,
FieldSurf’s features make the job of selling that much easier.
Parts Book
One of the reasons a field technician doesn’t make a sale is because he doesn’t know the price of an item. To sell anything, you need to know its selling price. FieldSurf has a Parts Book module which allows you to enter the prices of all your parts and services. It can even show prices for regular business hours and for after-hours emergency service, as plumbers, locksmiths, HVAC professionals and many others in the home service business need
to do.
Quotes
FieldSurf’s Quotes module lets your field technicians make firm quotes to customers in the field, then lets you track the progress of the quote from the initial call to completion of the work.
Electronic Invoicing
Upon completion of the job at the customer’s location, the customers signs off using the technician’s smartphone, and then your Invoice is emailed instantly to your customer’s email Inbox. The faster your technicians can submit your invoices to your customers, the faster you can get paid.
Work Order
FieldSurf’s Work Order module lets the dispatcher and management tell the technician exactly what he needs to deal with to resolve this customer’s issue. Everything is in the Work Order. And when you create a new Work Order, FieldSurf automatically creates an Invoice for that Work Order, so you never forget to create an Invoice for a job.
Credit Card Processing
The ability to process a credit card in the field is another factor which influences field sales. Field service management software gets you there. And in this regard, FieldSurf is incredible. It can handle credit card processing in three different ways:
- You can swipe the customer’s credit card directly on-site with FieldSurf’s credit card swiping device, and the customer receives a confirmation number in your presence;
- If you lack Internet access at the customer’s residence, your technician simply enters the customer’s credit card information into FieldSurf, and the system will update with the new information as soon as the technician reconnects to the Internet.
GPS Tracking
FieldSurf’s GPS tracking feature lets you pinpoint all your technicians in the field on a GPS map. With FieldSurf’s field service management software you always know exactly where each of your field technicians is at all times, GPS tracking makes everyone more efficient, and you always know where everyone is. FieldSurf’s GPS system includes “geofencing” which allows you to set up virtual boundaries around any real physical boundaries. This means that you can set up FieldSurf so that when your plumbing tech leaves Beverly Hills and enters the city of West Hollywood, FieldSurf will alert you to this fact – even by SMS message alert if you need it.
Built-in SMS Messaging
FieldSurf is one of the few field service management systems that has built-in SMS messaging. This means that everyone in your company – in your office and in the field – as well as your customers, can be notified of every event and of any changes in the schedule or anything else. If a customer is expecting you at his home at 3PM, but something came up and he won’t be there until 4PM, FieldSurf notifies your technician, so he doesn’t have to sit around waiting for the customer to arrive. And the reverse is also true: if your technician is delayed on his current job and will not arrive during the promised window, FieldSurf notifies the customer and he doesn’t have to sit around waiting. Both these features are loved by your customers and your field technicians.
With all these tools at your technicians’ fingertips, he can’t help but sell more. Everything is put on a plate for him: he has the prices, a system to give and track quotes, a system to track inventory used from your warehouse, via his vehicle, all the way into the customer’s home and onto the invoice. And sending the invoice electronically helps you get paid faster, so you can pay your technicians and vendors faster. And everyone loves that. FieldSurf even logs and tracks hours worked for payroll calculation purposes and can calculate not only hours worked but also any commission that might be due. And FieldSurf even tells you how much money you made on each ticket.
So if you want your technicians to make more sales in the field, turn them into sales superstars with FieldSurf. It’s easy to learn and easy to use. And it gives your field techs all the tools they need to make more sales and make more money — for themselves and for you.
