Having a profitable day for each service technician starts by making smart choices when their appointments are booked. So, by the time you get to the “day of” the appointment, the schedule is set, and the damage is done.
Booking great appointments requires a number of considerations best made by Field Service Management (FSM) software such as:
- Type of job
- Standard duration
- Skills or special equipment required
- Location and relative distance from other jobs that day
- Available capacity with the appropriate skills
As you can see, making these decisions in the most efficient way becomes very difficult to do manually at volume, and we haven’t even considered what the customer’s preferences might be.
If you have yet to invest in FSM software, some less sophisticated options include:
- Covering certain areas on certain days
- Booking all work in one geography to one technician
- Expanding appointment windows to ‘all day’ and then allowing the technicians and dispatchers to finalize their routes
If you’re opting for one of these or another ‘simple’ approach, know that you are not optimizing productivity or the customer experience. You’re doing the best with the tools you have, but you’re leaving significant productivity and profitability on the table.
Have you solved the appointment booking challenge in a simple way? Share your experiences in the comments below.
Learn more about field service transformation with Chapman Management Solutions and download the full 30 Tips to Field Service Profitability eBook at www.chrischapman.ca.
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