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Ask any dispatcher and they will tell you; scheduling and rescheduling jobs in the middle of the day to accommodate unexpected situations with customers is a hassle. First you have to find a time slot that works for both the customer and your company, then you have to inform the technician out in the field of the change before they waste time and resources pursuing their original plan. For larger companies that handle rescheduling requests from numerous customers on any given day, things can quickly become hectic and disorganized. For these reasons, you need a solid system for rescheduling and for fitting in last-minute jobs.
Paper Options
The solution many companies try first simply involves keeping thorough and precise written notes of every interaction with the customer, as well as every scheduled job. While paper notes can help handle numerous issues in the field service industry, human error and negligence often cause problems down the line.
Many service companies try to prevent rescheduling as much as possible by attaching fees to an account when the customer makes a last-minute scheduling change. This will deter many customers from altering your schedule, but not all of them (it also creates a negative customer experience and could lead to bad word of mouth).
Going Digital with Job Scheduling Software
Good field service scheduling software can help mitigate the hassle of same-day scheduling or rescheduling. These systems put all the customers and technicians for a given day on a single screen in front of your dispatcher. This allows your dispatcher to quickly and easily add or remove a customer from the day’s schedule.
Putting the full day’s schedule for any given technician in front of them allows the dispatcher to easily fill in unassigned time frames with a new job, should a customer have an emergency or other last-minute scheduling concern. Many scheduling software products also include areas to supply more information about the customer and job on hand.
Scheduling software represents the ideal next step for a company to handle increasing customer volume. However, not all scheduling software is created equal.
Smart Service: The Job Scheduling Software King
While most scheduling software systems include options for notating a customer’s account, the real difference with the best software comes with the ease of scheduling and rescheduling customers. Enter Smart Service.
With its drag-and-drop rescheduling capabilities, Smart Service takes the hassle of rescheduling a customer out of the mix. The dispatcher won’t have to go through the trouble of adjusting dates and times within the scheduled job, or have to even fully delete the job only to recreate it at another time. Instead, Smart Service users can simply drag the job from the existing time slot and move it to another. It’s just that easy!
Using this same method, dispatchers can move jobs between technicians. This provides far more flexibility, allowing the dispatcher to quickly reschedule customers to other technicians, should someone have an emergency and be unable to complete their scheduled work for the day.
Smart Service also offers some great routing features. Smart Service routing helps technicians and dispatchers find the most efficient route between all of their jobs for the day. Smart Service will automatically path all the routes for the day and give one ordered agenda for each of your technicians. Smart Service also provides an option to automatically find the best spot to slot a new or last-minute job into an existing schedule.
This allows dispatchers to easily find slots available in the schedule and slide a new job in without the hassle of skimming through an entire day or week worth of work. This can save a great deal of time, especially when a customer cancels their appointment and a slot needs filled as soon as possible.
With new features and solutions arriving every year, scheduling emergencies are becoming less and less of a hassle for field service businesses with software like Smart Service. To get in on the action, request a free Smart Service demo today!
