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When you run an HVAC or other field service business, efficient scheduling represents one of your chief concerns. You don’t make money unless your team sees enough customers, period. Some of your clients live in places far removed from your headquarters. Your techs will waste a ton of time if you don’t work out their schedules properly. You could leave your guys to do it themselves, but if they skip that step, they will hopscotch all over town burning gas and wasting billable hours. Instead, you need to find a way to dispatch your service techs and organize their appointments for the day behind the scenes.
How to Dispatch and Schedule
In order to dispatch and schedule your team, you will need to take into account the location of your clients, their proximities to your shop, and the speed/efficiency of your techs based on the type of work assigned. You know roughly how long it takes to handle a service call and how long it will take to drive between locations.
Every service company has their own strategies. Some rely on pen and paper while others use a spreadsheet to help them visualize appointments. However, the most profitable service shops don’t do any of that. They rely on some type of technology.
Using QuickBooks to Schedule
Most small to mid-size businesses already use QuickBooks. That software is everywhere, and for good reason. People like QuickBooks because they find it easy to use. The big problem? QuickBooks isn’t really built for scheduling. It will let you track miles as well as hours, but it doesn’t provide a framework for managing those entries, so you have to get creative.
The best option? Expanding. Outside software can help you bolster QuickBooks' functionality with additional, specific, specialized features. For example, TSheets helps companies with timesheets. However, even this wasn’t really built for HVAC companies. TSheets lets you do things like schedule who should be working the register or answering the phone. It doesn’t really support multiple work locations that change all the time. So, again, you have to get creative and look elsewhere.
Thinking Outside the Box
One company/software package has based their entire business on expanding QuickBooks with scheduling capabilities: Smart Service. Smart Service integrates with QuickBooks out of the box. You just plug and play. Smart Service also helps users schedule and dispatch so that everyone knows where to go, when to go there, and the tools they will need when they arrive. Smart Service gives field techs customer service histories and any other pertinent notes to help them prepare for each job. From letting you make notes about which customers have dogs to setting reminders to wear double shoe guards in a particular home, Smart Service gives you the functionality you need to run your business the way you want to run it. At the same time, you get all the inventory and service contract management that you could want in a package that is user-friendly and intuitive.
Plus, Smart Service has a mobile component. Your team can interact with the software on the go. This will let them see exactly where they need to be and give them important information from the overview screen so they don’t have to hunt around for the appointment details, customer preferences, or type of equipment they will be servicing. It’s all right there.
Dispatching and Scheduling Your Team
When you run an HVAC service business, you will need someone to spend some time making sure your guys have the right number of customers to see and that the order in which they go to see those people is efficient. Otherwise, you end up with techs that spend more time on the road than on calls, and that hurts everyone. Your techs will get mad that they spend all day in their trucks, and you lose out on time that could have been spent on a customer. Save your team some hassle and choose a scheduling software that works for service companies like yours. Request a free demo of Smart Service today.
