Managing customer expectations with a seasonal constraints is a critical challenge for residential services. For an ambitious entrepreneur, expanding its portfolio of residential services requires digitization.
Field service management software is a popular first step in adopting technology for such services. Read more to understand how field service businesses like residential services benefit from technology adoption.
Roadblocks faced by residential services in growing business
As more population grows out of poverty and move to cities, the demand for residential services will increase. But with growing industry, this field service business comes its own set of unique challenges:
- Workforce management: growing demand means managing, training, and upskilling more field service technicians, which further requires more resources.
- Seasonal demand: different seasons require relevant field services. For example, HVAC services are in demand during winters, while pest control is in demand during springs. Businesses need to manage their service offerings accordingly.
- Customer expectations: residential services involve fixing homes – and such customers tend to have specific needs as each home is differently built. Many jobs may require personalized solutions.
- Profitability: it is not easy to have recurring revenue in residential services business. One has to keep marketing and ask for referrals to get more customers.
- Customer support: if your customers face bad servicing, then your field service technicians may have to rework. Sometimes there are issues in payments or behavior of workers which needs managing.
Digitization of field service businesses is an important step towards managing above five challenges.
What is a field service management software?
Field service management software is designed to manage, optimize and automate many operational tasks for any field service business. It is feasible to use such solutions for residential services industry for handling customers, field service technicians and administrative tasks.
For example, your business can automate scheduling and dispatching of relevant field service technician based on their skills, location, and availability.
How to choose a field service management software for residential services?
Here are some relevant features of a good field service management software for residential services:
Route planning and optimization
Fidning residential buildings and homes is not easy – and wastes a lot of time and fuel in searching the right location. A field service management app will consider traffic, shortest routes, and job requests to find an optimized routes to cover multiple jobs in one round. This reduces your service delivery timelines and helps perform more jobs in same time.
Acquire and manage customer relationships
Residential services require consistent marketing and lead generation efforts to keep the business coming. A field service management software allows you to manage new leads, re-engage existing customers, and resolve any business queries. It also helps you find out popular services taken by existing customers and take feedback for insights.
For example, your business developers can offer heating and ventilation services in winters to existing customers who took AC repair services in summers. Check out Zuper, a full-scale field service management app that includes many integrations to feed converted leads into ‘order’ pipelines.
Remote montoring of field service technicians and equipments
For residential services, the field service techncians are customer-facing as they directly interact with them. Hence, it is important to onboard qualified workers and train them to deliver customer-centric services. A field service management app will help you communicate and track their location in real-time. You can share job information, rescheduling notifications, or provide resources to perform their jobs.
Inventory and equipment management
A residential service business can use remote monitoring for tracking equipment usage and maintenance schedules. Due to seasonal nature of residential services, it’s critical to ensure adequate amount of materials and equipements are available as required. This reduces delays in delivering the service, while also reduces costs in maintaining benched equipments.
Hence, ensure your chosen field service management software includes features to manage and optimize inventories.
Customer communication
Ensure the field service management app allows you to notify and update your existing customers about the service delivery. For example, you can share information about the assigned field service technician, like their job history, success rates, reviews by customers, etc. This helps the customer feel assured about the status of their requirment. Such features also allow customers to communicate any reschedule requests or complain about the service provided as feedback.
Explore how field service management software can integrate with your residential services business
Today, more homes want to integrate with smart home automation systems for modern living. With growing demand in residential services, automating your own business will help you grab these upcoming opportunities for business growth.
At Zuper, we understand the unique business needs for residential services. Our field service management solutions helps automate manual tasks across invoicing, billing, managing workers, orders, customers, etc. Book a demo, and our team will showcase relevant features and how it can be used for your business operations.