Managing multiple employees who are all on the road and trying to meet customer expectations is challenging. But field service businesses have to do it every day — and also plan efficient routes that don’t waste gas or staff time. Luckily, many apps can help. Here are some of the best apps for scheduling field service workers.
ServiceWorks Multitasks Several Business Functions
ServiceWorks does much more than scheduling — that sets it apart from the other scheduling apps. This app offers businesses several features besides scheduling field service workers.
First of all, ServiceWorks helps track leads to convert inquiries into customers. It can also help generate quotes for those potential customers so you can respond quickly when asked about your services.
Once you book a client, create a work order before assigning a field service appointment. Besides scheduling appointments, ServiceWorks helps you find the most efficient routing and scheduling for your field service employees. With gas prices skyrocketing, this feature alone can save businesses a lot of money and create a much more efficient appointment schedule. Faster service for appointments can also make customers much happier with the service received.
With employees out in the field, this app helps you track where they are and communicate with field employees so you can manage any problems quickly and efficiently. If the vehicle breaks down or an appointment needs to be rescheduled, you can quickly communicate with your field service workers about unexpected changes.
Once you book that appointment and deliver your service, ServiceWorks helps with invoicing and collecting payments. This app takes you through the entire process of contacting leads to collecting payment.
Spreadsheets and Email Aren’t the Most Time Efficient
The old-fashioned way of scheduling is sitting down with a spreadsheet and manually putting in the schedule for each employee. After hours of planning a schedule and reviewing to make sure you have enough worker coverage, you can email or post the schedule.
While you could perform the distribution of the schedule using an app, this method relies heavily on manual labor rather than technology, so this is the least efficient method of scheduling.
Google Calendar Provides a Basic Schedule
A lot of people use Google Calendar for their personal scheduling needs. This is a no-frills solution and since many people are already familiar with this app, many employees will find it easy to understand.
Unfortunately, if you’re scheduling more than five employees in Google Calendar, you might run into some problems because this app has been designed to create a schedule for one person. While you can color code different employees’ schedules, using it for business and multiple employees can be very confusing.
Calendly Can Create Meeting Schedules for Businesses
Calendly is another popular app that many people use in small businesses to book appointments with clients. If you schedule a lot of meetings, this app offers plenty of options for you and your employees.
This app works best for scheduling when there’s only one employee accepting appointments. If you have multiple field service workers, it’s probably not going to work unless you create a separate Calendly account for each employee. That can make customer scheduling online confusing.
Shifty Simplifies Scheduling
Shifty offers a much better solution than Google Calendar or Calendly. Schedule multiple employees on multiple shifts much easier with the simple drag-and-drop interface.
This app does have limitations, however. If changes are made to the schedule, you still have to redistribute it through email. Employees can be confused as to which schedule is the most current so you want to include a date so workers avoid confusion about which is the most recent version of the schedule.
Sling Offers a Time Clock Feature
Sling is an app used frequently in the restaurant and healthcare industries where you have very complicated schedules and multiple shifts. It also offers some additional features besides scheduling.
Sling helps you manage time off requests and lets you know when you’ve scheduled overlapping shifts by mistake. It also sends push notifications to employees to notify them of an upcoming shift on their schedule.
You can utilize the time clock feature to have employees clock in on a central computer or they can clock in from their phone or tablet. You can set limitations on how early someone clocks in and the automated system can clock someone out if they forget to do so — that feature alone can save a lot of headaches when it comes time to do payroll.
If your field service workers are starting their day at an appointment, they can clock in from their cell phones. Or, if you require them to stop into the office first, you can also set location parameters for clocking in. In other words, employees have to be at a certain location to clock in and can’t just clock in from anywhere. It’s up to you.
Communicate with workers out in the field through push notification and messaging. You can even share files through the app with employees out in the field.
But What Else Do Scheduling Apps Do?
Scheduling apps like Sling offer some additional scheduling and timeclock features, but they still don’t offer the additional services you find with ServiceWorks. Why use multiple apps for multiple business needs when you can get so many features in one software program? With a free trial, you can see for yourself how ServiceWorks can do so much more than scheduling field service workers. Give it a try today!
