Every year $10 billion is lost or not actualized due to faulty service practices in the field service industry. Customers depend on a reliable service provider that meets their needs in a timely manner. Simultaneously, on-site employees require accurate data and readily available paperwork to complete their objectives. This is why having the correct service practices in place and augmenting your current practices can be the most valuable business decisions in today’s fast moving industry environment.

In this blog, we will go over three field service practices to avoid and what field service management solutions are right for you. 

1. Manual invoicing

The steps to manually process invoices require a tedious amount of handling to prevent human errors and external factors from bogging down the efficiency of your company. The manual invoicing process is as follows: the invoice is received, the data is entered manually, it is reviewed, the payment is acquired, and finally the invoice is stored for record keeping. As many are familiar with, this process is prone to serious error as industry leaders are now more than ever choosing automated invoicing as their business solution. Automatic invoicing will allow you to receive your payments faster and will allow for a more efficient sales and payroll process.

2. Filing tedious administrative paperwork

We all know the tiresome nature of filing administrative paperwork as an employee in the field service industry. Delays and errors resulting from lost or misplaced documents and the potential for unreadable writing to result in incorrect data entry have been the common experiences among field service operators that still use a paper based filing system. Paperwork is expensive, so if you can afford the cost of paper and its errors, you already have the budget to replace it with a software solution. 

3. Manual inventory management

As many of you know, servicing highly technical systems requires intensive material tracking, being on top of regulations, scheduling and timely deliveries of equipment, and laborious manual data entry. For example, large mailing systems or printing shops demand a complex part ordering process which requires efficient management of inventory, dispatch, work order, and complex pricing schemes. Manual inventory management processes would struggle to keep up  in this growing digital age, as digital solutions are increasing productivity and efficiency. With a field service management software, you can track your inventory and assets more efficiently by downloading performance reports to determine where and how they were used. You will also be able to prevent inventory levels from running low with detailed statuses being updated in real time. 

The Solution 

Within today’s ever evolving field service industry, the field service practices implemented by your business must follow suit. Employees rely on the efficiency of back end systems to provide excellent customer experience, and avoid unnecessary exertion in the process. With a single solution you can avoid manual invoicing, filing tedious administrative paperwork, and manual inventory management. With ServiceEcho as your field service management solution, faulty aspects of your field service practices will be avoided. Decrease paperwork reliance, improve end‐to‐end visibility, and have the right information at the right time with ServiceEcho. If you would like to learn more about ServiceEcho and how our software will assist you in avoiding faulty field service practices, book a demo below.