Tag: field service solution
How an American was able to achieve his dream of extending pet care services across the globe.
One of life’s most enriching and delightful experiences is owning a pet. An animal that you nurture and take care of all its life – it is definitely a never ending source of happiness and love.
Pet care is a rapidly growing business, with the U.S of course, leading the sector having the world’s highest number of pets. Pet pampering is increasingly becoming the norm, which is something that goes beyond simple taking care, feeding and grooming. People are ready to pay a premium for high-quality pet products and services because pets are considered a part of the family.
As part of the pet care industry, there are several companies that provide pet care services to pet owners. Here we discuss one such company, K9 Experts, that used technology to manage its pet walking business in an efficient and effective manner.
An ardent pet lover Mr. M, runs K9 Experts headquartered in New Jersey. He has always been very particular about taking care of pets, just like any other American. He wanted to help others with their pets and hence started by working for a pet care company. Now he owns one.
The Challenge
M. always wanted to start a pet care business of his own. While working for a pet care company initially, he had been using a certain kind of application, which he found a little inefficient. There were still many areas of the business that the application did not cater to, and hence remained unautomated. He was looking for a better, more advanced pet care solution for his new business; one that completely eliminated all the challenges that he faced with the application that he was currently working with. What he basically needed was a one-stop solution for pet owners, to take care of their pets world over, in a hassle free way and he had a specific set of requirements for it too.
The Solution – Tracking Paws
He found the perfect solution in full-fledged feature rich web application developed by Fingent Technology Solutions called “Tracking Paws”.
Tracking paws had a number of unique features, that helped him overcome all the limitations of his existing pet care application. Some of them were:
- Due notifications and alerts, not just for the customers, but for the staff and the business partners to enable effective communication
- Geolocation features enabling customers to view and track where their pets are being taken for walks, ensuring sufficient transparency
- QR code enabled starting and ending of services making it easy and quick for the customers
- History of service activities for customers and the service staff, contributing to more transparency
- Interactive maps and photo uploading features, all meant for a richer customer experience
All of these features were focused on providing a transparent and reliable portal for customers to take care of their pets, and thereby earn their trust and loyalty.
M was able to successfully start his new pet care business, with “Tracking Paws” and hence fulfill his vision of helping people take good care of their pets. With Tracking Paws, he saw almost a 20% improvement in his overall business, within the first few months of deployment. The user-friendly nature of the application was an added advantage, making Tracking Paws more popular among his clients. On the whole, it allowed M to keep ahead in the pet care business with sufficient support from his growing customer base.
Are you looking for an efficient application to solve your business challenges, just like M? Talk to our team of experts! We can help you develop a custom software solution specifically suited for your business to realize all its goals.
The field service industry is rich with technology these days, equipping field service technicians with all the right tools to improve their productivity and efficiency. Especially with mobility being mainstream, field representatives are able to be much more effective in their field today, than they have ever been before.
So how do mobile field service solutions help to create a huge impact on customers and eventually improve profits?
Only the right requirements
A field service mobile app that has only the necessary features and requirements will be more effective than one which is overloaded with features.
For example, a lot of companies make the mistake of creating a mobile replica of their CRM for their field service app. Now, this is a bad idea, because first of all, it would be quite an extensive project, not to mention the complexity and costs involved.
Secondly, a copy of the entire database of the company’s customers is not really something that a field representative would need for his work.
Here are some of the most effective features that can be included in a field service mobile app:
- Centralized work order scheduling and tracking – Being able to view and keep track of all work orders from a single easy-to-use dashboard is one of the most important features of a field service mobile application. It helps the managers monitor work orders as well as the progress made by the field workers, thereby enabling them to make better and faster decisions.
- Priority wise notifications – Considering the busy schedule of field workers, it is practically difficult to keep checking their mobile apps for any tasks that need to be completed. This may also cause delays in tasks being seen and hence increase in completion time. Hence, it is important to have an automated status update feature, which prompts the field worker for every new work assigned, and allows them to accept it or reject it too so that it can be reassigned to the next worker.
- Geolocation – Geolocation helps to track and identify the location of the field workers, according to which the dispatchers can assign and reassign tasks.
Take a look at our blog 5 Key Features That Maximize Efficiency of a Mobile Field Service Application to know more.
Forms and questionnaires
Field service representatives might need to collect a lot of information while they are at their site, which they might need to enter into their systems, once they are back in office. This can be avoided with the help of a mobile app, as it contains different electronic versions of feedback surveys, questionnaires and the like. The information can be directly entered into the app right in the beginning, and it gets automatically uploaded into the CRM system, which can then be used by field service representatives as well as the marketing department for their analysis.
The right hardware
An enterprise field service mobile application, fit into a 4 or 5 inches mobile screen, may not be the best of ideas. Not only is it quite a task for the UI developers, it also makes job for field technicians more difficult, as they definitely need more space to make the best of the app features. Tablets may be more ideal for tailoring mobile field service software. About 8 to 10 inches of space, may be more convenient for field technicians to scroll through their app and utilize its features, especially filling forms and questionnaires.
Different kinds of information can be best displayed in different kinds of hardware or devices, like tablets for forms, mobiles for updating and retrieving information and the like. Hence, the right hardware can make a huge difference.
Taking care of these points can help you make the most out of your mobile field service software, and increase the efficiency of your field service workforce. It also helps you better manage them.
Talk to our field service management experts to create an effective field service management solution for your business.