In a growing market like the pool service industry, an increase in efficiency, even by a few percent, would increase a company’s chances of capturing the market.
Unfortunately, managing a field service business like pool servicing has operational challenges. For example, imagine a scenario where one of your technicians arrives at a client’s home only to realize they don’t have the necessary chemicals or tools to complete the job. Now, they will have to return to the warehouse, pick up the tools, and travel again to the pool site for maintenance jobs — wasting time, fuel, and resources and impacting customer satisfaction.
Simple adoption of field service management software improves the efficiency at which your pool service management business operates — read more to learn how.
What is pool service software?
Pool service software is a specialized field service management software designed to automate manual tasks within pool service management and operations.
5 key features of pool service software that improve business efficiency
- Automated scheduling and dispatching help connect the nearest available and skilled field service technician for the pool servicing job.
- Real-time GPS tracking lets managers monitor where their technicians are, ensuring that they follow the most efficient routes to customer locations.
- Invoice and payment automation improves cash flow management and reduces manual invoicing work.
- Mobile apps provide access to job details, customer history, and inventory information from their mobile devices while in the field.
- Automated inventory management features to streamline the assignment of resources, tracking, and maintenance of pool service chemicals and equipment.
3 FSM for pool service management workflows to improve efficiency
Here are 3 key field service management workflow inspirations that help improve pool service management efficiency:
1. To automate scheduling and dispatching
Instead of manually sharing job details, finding available field service technicians, and coordinating with them — one can use FSM or pool service software to automate this workflow.
It also helps handle any real-time changes in the schedule. For example, if a technician finishes a job early, the FSM system can automatically assign them to the nearest job, reducing downtime and maximizing productivity. Any changes due to appointment reschedules also get handled without manual intervention.
How does FSM software improve efficiency in this workflow?
The pool service company will experience reduced scheduling errors, faster response times, and more efficient use of technician working hours.
2. To track technician and their performance
With GPS technology, FSM or pool service software like Zuper can implement advanced workflows like geo-fencing and geo-tracking. This means you can track technician movement, get job updates, and track equipment movements in real time. One can connect this directly with their performance and design incentives for improved productivity and payment.
How does FSM software improve efficiency in this workflow?
It helps improve communication between field and office staff. This leads to fewer missed appointments and quicker responses to changing situations. It also removes the ambiguity of ‘productive working hours’ to help with fair compensation and comply with local labor laws.
3. To automate invoicing and payments
Manual invoicing or cash collection often leads to delayed payments. This impacts cash flows for a pool service business that may need money to maintain inventory, buy supplies, or pay field service technicians in advance.
With swimming pool software, the company can generate invoices when a job is marked as ‘completed’. It will pull out all job details, calculate charges, design a branded invoice, and send it manually to the customer. With the support of digital payments, one can accept credit/debit cards or other key online payment methods to avoid cash transactions.
How does FSM software improve efficiency in this workflow?
The FSM software enables faster invoicing by reducing errors, enabling quicker payments, and reducing time spent on administrative tasks. It reduces the labor required to create and send invoices. With customer portal features, one can offload customer service requests around invoices by making payment history and bills accessible.
Get swimming pool software by customizing our FSM features.
Zuper offers comprehensive field service management software that pool service companies can customize as per their workflows. It can schedule pool service appointments, dispatch workers, and collect payments — digitally.
Take the first step to digitization for pool service management — book a demo today.
