5 Reasons Home Service Businesses Need Field Service Management Software

Efficient field service management directly correlates to levels of customer satisfaction, workforce efficiency, employee safety, and data management for home service businesses. 

Implementing field service management software, like MarketBox, is the easiest way for home service businesses to optimize their operations and stay competitive in a changing market. But before we look at the many benefits of field service management software, let’s take a quick look at what the software does. 

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What is field service management software? 

Home service businesses use field service management software to organize their in-home appointments and mobile service technicians. The software has features that make the day-to-day operations more efficient, such as 

• Automated employee scheduling and dispatching 
• Job tracking 
• Customer database management
• Real-time communication and updates between office staff and home service technicians 

The best field service management software also has online booking options allowing customers to schedule their online appointments 24/7 to provide a 360º solution for your home service business.

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The benefits of field service management software for home service businesses

Field service software improves employee scheduling 

Field service management software often gets confused with scheduling software for good reason*. The automated employee scheduling feature makes organizing mobile appointments faster, easier, and more accurate. 

With field service software, there’s no need to assign jobs to employees manually, and the software helps you avoid scheduling errors, double bookings, or accidentally giving jobs to the wrong employee. 

MarketBox’s travel zone feature also makes it possible for home service businesses to control when and where their team works. Each provider (or admin on their behalf) can create custom travel zones within their service area and assign availability or specific job types to each zone to further optimize schedules and reduce travel time for mobile appointments.

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*If you were wondering, field service software is basically scheduling software with additional features like online booking, job tracking, inventory management, customer database, etc. 

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The software provides real-time job updates without disturbing your team 

Field service management software improves workforce productivity and allows office staff to track job progress without needing to disturb employees through real-time job updates. Each software handles this feature differently, but they all essentially allow employees to mark jobs as arrived, in progress, and completed so admin staff can see where they are in their day and monitor progress without picking up the phone.

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Field service management software improves customer service 

There are multiple ways that field service management software improves customer service, including

• Enabling faster response times to customer inquiries thanks to automated scheduling 
• Allowing customers to create accounts and book and manage service appointments online 
• Tracking customer service history so providers can skip the introductory questions and perform services to the customer's specifications 

MarketBox even allows you to eliminate the dreaded service windows and give your customers a specific time slot for their appointment (or let them pick it themselves), so your customers never have to wait around for their provider again! 

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Using software in your home service business makes managing data easier 

Running your business via field service management software gives you easy access to data and insights on your business, allowing you to monitor quality levels and make data-driven decisions to grow your business. 

Field service management software gives you access to data on things like 

• Employee performance 
• Customer purchase history 
• Sales 
• Ratings and reviews 
• Billing charges 
• Refunds, cancellations, etc. 

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Field service management software saves money and increases revenue 

Implementing field service software can result in significant cost savings for a home service business. The software optimizes technician scheduling so there’s more room in employee calendars for jobs and fewer mistakes or late arrival times that might require refunds to smooth over. Field service management software can also reduce travel time by grouping appointments by location or optimizing travel routes, lowering fuel and other transportation costs. 

Field service management software, like MarketBox, also supports integrated payments so customers can pay for services quickly and easily online. As a business, you never have to create and send invoices or chase inevitable late payments again. With MarketBox’s additional charge feature, you also have the freedom to upsell services and extras while at the appointment without having to take new payment details from the client. 

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Final thoughts 

Field service management software is essential for home service businesses looking to optimize operations and stay competitive in a changing marketplace. The software helps improve both customer and employee satisfaction by enabling fast, accurate scheduling of home service appointments, lowers costs, and provides better insights to ensure the continued success of your business. 

If you’re looking for field service management software for your home service business, book a demo to learn more about MarketBox, the only software that’s designed for both home service businesses and their customers.