BLOG

Velocitor Solutions Blog

Enterprise Mobile Applications: Your Best Friend in Field Service

- Sunday, April 01, 2018

Field service is an industry which owes a large margin of its improvements to mobile applications. It has been leveraging mobile applications for a number of its functions and aspects for quite some time now and organizations have already replaced all of their heavy paper-based processes with smart mobile applications. Most of them also continue to migrate their software as well as services and storage to the cloud, by which they allow the emails, photos, documents, and other important information to be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Being the level at which mobile workers are increasing, there is also going to be an increase in the number of mobile devices connected to the Internet, which according to Gartner is likely to be more than 30 billion in number by 2020, generating almost $2 trillion as an economic value worldwide. That said, since mobile connectivity with the Internet is rapidly increasing worldwide, it is about time that field service personnel also utilized mobile applications and start becoming a part of the mobile workforce.

As a matter of fact, the field service industry is one which has a million functions and opportunities to make them automated with mobile apps. It is indeed critical now for them to keep up with the changes and embrace mobility. Using a fully integrated field service management software has to be followed up with a mobile app as well.

Field agents are almost always on the move, traveling from one job site to another. And they always need access to customer information, invoices, work order information, product or tools information, and the like, most often in real-time. Since they go from one place of service to the next continuously, they might need information on their next work order and their next customer as well on the go.

A well-designed mobile app can help them simplify these processes and get things done in a more efficient and organized manner. Since it is cloud-based, it allows the field agents to pull up any information instantly from wherever they are. Hence, it avoids redundant phone calls to find the whereabouts of the agents or the job site and also any delay in information exchange.
It also helps to simplify communication between the field service agents, the providers, and the customers. Many a time, field service personnel have faced challenges in communicating with their team, especially when there are several agents traveling to a particular job site simultaneously.

The right mobile app helps in effective communication and better coordination among these agents. This is especially true in case of companies that provide round-the-clock maintenance and inspection support. They definitely need a communication system that spans beyond regular telephonic calls, so that they don’t have to go through the ordeal of making a landline office phone call or enter passcodes and numbers every time that have to connect with someone. They need a system with advanced features that allow seamless communication between field service personnel. It helps to eliminate human errors arising from manual data entry or paper-based data entry processes as well, which again adds to the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization as a whole.

Most field service mobile apps have many added benefits as well for the field agents, such as:
Ability to access information related to work history and forthcoming jobs so that they can do the necessary preparations
Ability to capture photos and signatures while they are on site
Ability to go through and review their assigned tasks and accept or reject them according to their skills and expertise or time schedule
An in-built navigation tool that will help them find the most efficient and appropriate route to their job site, thereby reducing travel time
Ability to request for assistance or advice to other nearby co-workers, while they are on site and ensure that they fix the issue properly
Ability to control costs by managing vehicle inventory
Collect payments via various available payment methods

For more information about our field service solutions and other enterprise mobile software, click here.