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Ten ways to improve job profitability

27th Apr 2018
Brought to you by
simpro

simPRO helps field service and maintenance businesses work smarter.

Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

With the global population climbing ever higher, and technology continuing to advance, the market for blue-collar businesses is experiencing some fantastic levels of growth.

job_profitability

As this market expands with the population, many owners and operators in this sector can find that their business models are unable to keep up.

Without preparing to meet growing demand, previously undetected inefficiencies in day-to-day operations and among office staff and engineers can become prominent, and ultimately impact your job profitability through a lack of billable hours and customer satisfaction.

So, in this era of growth and expansion, how can trade business owners prepare to meet demand and improve their job profitability?

Common decisions

Let’s first look at some common decisions that trade business owners are inclined to make at first signs of an impact on revenue:

Some owners and operators may opt to raise the selling price of their products and services.

While this can be justifiable with the expanding market and rising costs of living, it will ultimately leave loyal customers feeling undervalued by the sudden increase in prices and deter new customers from purchasing your services when cheaper ones are available.

Other business owners may try to run promotions to move stock and generate more job requests.

Speaking short-term, this is a great way to drum up business, provided you have the stock and revenue wiggle room to meet promotional demand, however this is not a sustainable, long-term business model for your company in a changing market.

Job management software

The key to meeting the growing demand of the 21st century is job management software.

In 2015, 87% of high-performing companies used project management software and with the opportunities this tech provides, it’s no wonder why. Technological developments have produced a solution for most businesses in the blue-collar industry that can streamline basic workflows like job scheduling, accounting, inventory, fleet monitoring and asset maintenance.

This industry is growing with the times and it is up to business owners in the sector to take the necessary steps to align themselves on the right path for growth, and in the 21st century, this is one that includes job management software.

Let me put it to you like this: If the need for your business increases so do the phone calls to your office, the jobs your team has to schedule, the time spent locating engineers with the right tools close by, the paperwork your team has to file.

It’s not just in the office either: monthly stock inventory suddenly needs to be fortnightly, your stock orders are more frequent, asset maintenance becomes more costly.

A growing business is a great business for any owner because it means more revenue in your pocket. However in the age of social media, where the customer can air their dirty laundry online for hundreds of thousands to see, it’s important your staff are given the time they need to ensure they are maximising possible billable hours and delivering a great service.

simPRO Software is a proven example of the value of job management tech to the blue-collar industry: by minimising the programs required to be used, and allowing the use of multiple features at once, simPRO grants office staff the opportunity to maintain a watchful eye over their fleet and efficiently schedule jobs, contact engineers, and quote or invoice jobs.

By guiding office and field staff to more efficient processes, simPRO allows owners to ensure their business is meeting demand and providing a top tier service that maximises billable hours and ensures customer satisfaction.

Improving job profitability

Here are ten efficiencies that simPRO’s job management software can bring to your business to help you improve your job profitability:

  1. Efficient scheduling: With simPRO’s scheduling software, office staff can choose their calendar perspective, integrate Google Calendar to sync previously scheduled jobs, and prevent double-booking with alerts for overlapping job times. By putting the timetable in front of your office staff and allowing them to easily cancel, add or alter scheduled jobs in seconds, your customer is serviced quickly and your possible billable hours are increased, without the run-around.

  1. Clear job instructions: By using the SMS function that can be purchased as an extension to the simPRO Service, office staff can draft messages to customer or engineer. This ultimately keeps your customer satisfied that they are in the loop, and means engineers can quickly be given definitive instruction for a job. The option to store customer history in profiles for various clients means that your engineer knows what’s been done, when and by who, meaning he or she can go in and get the job done right the first time.
  1. No need to go to the office to collect paperwork: Keep your engineers out of the office and in the field with eForms. By digitising the invoicing and quoting process, your engineers can focus on getting to the next job faster and your customer is happier with the efficiency of the invoicing process.
  1. Right tools and materials to do the job: Using our intelligent inventory software, your staff can track materials from warehouse to van. Opportunity for billable hours can be maximised by removing the risk of having to turn around for the correct tools, and your customer is kept happy when your engineer has everything he or she needs to do the job right the first time.
  1. Accurately track the time taken to do the job: Any user with the simTRAC software (an add-on to simPRO Service) can login from any device with an internet connection to see the location of vehicles and receive detailed reports on everything from on-site time through to travel time. This means that you can see where you’re losing billable hours and how you can improve customer satisfaction with timeliness.
  1. Track materials used to add to invoice: Using simPRO Connect and the invoicing tools, your engineer on the job can track what materials have been used and what labour has been performed to ensure that the customer’s invoice is detailed and informed. In turn, this keeps your customer pleased with the open-book style service, and you can develop an understanding of the time taken to do certain jobs, to better plan for maximising billable hours in the future.
  1. Create invoice as soon as the job is done: eForms not only help you keep your engineers in the field, but also ensure that the invoicing process is as speedy as it it effortless. Using either a tablet or smartphone, engineers can quickly pull up an invoice, present it to the customer, process a payment, receive a signature and then continue on to the next job. Making invoicing a timely and efficient process.
  1. Get key customers to create their own jobs: Using the Customer Portal, another service offered by simPRO, business owners can provide customers with an online domain through which they can request quotes and even book jobs online themselves. Not only does this reduce admin costs and time, it means your customer is satisfied knowing they can call on you and your business quickly and efficiently.
  1. Get signatures and attach photos to a job: The eForms feature also allows your engineers to keep valuable records of previous work done by attaching photos and signatures to a job. This means that your customer is held accountable to the work previously done, and your engineer has information to avoid any run around if re-attendance to a property is required.
  1. Asset information stored: With the preventative and reactive maintenance features and add-ons available in simPRO, you can keep detailed customisable reports of every customer asset you create in simPRO. Meaning that your engineers cna quickly and efficiently access whatever information they need, maximising billable hours, and your customers can be satisfied knowing that your business is keeping a detailed record of their service.

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