How can workforce management help small businesses to make it big?
Doing great things in business is the dream of every organisation. But, success doesn’t come easy. It is important to keep up with new technology and market drifts. It is necessary to harmonise customer relationships and to keep on top of your workforce management. Only then can a business move forward and achieve its goals. If not, it could be hard to survive in the long run.
For service organisations with a mobile workforce, the going gets tougher! Almost every business is extending its services to meet the demands of an excellent doorstep facility. In this case, the workforce is not desk-bound but is moving around to fulfil customer requests. If you’re managing a team of scattered employees travelling outside the office premises, you must have faced the challenge of utilising resources in the optimal way. The introduction of cloud computing into field service operations has, however, made things easier. If you have not yet embraced cloud-based workforce management solutions, here are five reasons why you should consider them.
1) Say no to extra costs
One of the most crucial concerns for SMBs is managing those hefty staff expenses. Balancing employees, customers and profit figures is not an easy task. It’s not possible to avoid the costs if you wish to compete in the market, but there is always an option to invest in a way that boosts revenues and garners high ROI. The cloud platform is the best way to achieve this.
A modern workforce management solution based on cloud technology is a boon. These applications need no upfront capital investment. There is no prerequisite to have a specialised IT department to manage the platform. All it takes is a working internet connection and a mobile and/or desktop laptop or tablet device. A company can get started by customising features that match their business processes. The quick setup saves you from extra initial and ongoing maintenance costs.
2) Put the focus on productivity
In the world of smartphones and digitisation, it is not a wise thing to make your staff do unnecessarily laborious work. Sticking to old paper-based methods or spreadsheets to maintain task schedules, attendance, and payroll and work assignments does not please the business anymore. It is worth replacing these conventional systems with sophisticated cloud applications. Not only will it simplify the work but it will also make it effortless.
An advanced field service automation solution incorporates functionalities that facilitate end-to-end task administration. It frees up your employees’ time and allows them to focus on more business-oriented tasks. Some noteworthy features of these modern service desk apps include smart scheduling, automated workflows, workforce tracking, dynamic job management, centralised information, seamless integration, and service level agreement (SLA) management.
3) Better management and control
To reach new heights, it is necessary to ensure consistent performance. It is tough and complicated to manage a disconnected workforce. There is no concrete way to ensure good performance and resource utilisation. But, if you equip them with the right tools and technology, it will definitely make things better. The secret lies in the word ‘optimisation’. Mobile workforce management apps have the capability to transform and optimise service delivery operations like never before!
A good workforce management solution will reduce the extra effort and time wasted in unplanned travelling, manual entries of task updates and the white spaces in field employees’ schedules. The field employees receive exact task details with images, videos and customer notes. They use the app on their device to auto-route their day for minimum distance to travel, to accept urgent work orders and to communicate anytime with the office team. On the other side, the back-office staff can track the field teams, ensure their safety and receive instant updates as and when they complete their allocated tasks.
4) Get closer to the customer
For any service business, the customer is of the highest importance. Running a business with high profits is possible if you are able to earn customer loyalty. And the digital customer expects a lot. Does it mean you need to spend a huge amount to serve them? Well, no! You only need to plan a smart move and the game will be all yours. Self-service is a cost-effective way to handle your customers and give them the power.
Self-service apps allow customers to report issues, request services and place their orders 24/7. The workforce teams receive these tasks and can begin to work on them at the earliest opportunity. At every stage, there is seamless synchronisation of workforce and customer apps. The customer gets all notifications as the app communicates every update from the employee to the customer. It forms a closed-loop to enhance customer service. It reduces the overhead of having office executives coordinate and answer the queries.
5) Better decisions with analytics
Information is a huge treasure. In the past, files and spreadsheet records were maintained only until a task was completed. But, data has a lot more potential with the cloud. Rather than silos of information, advanced workforce management solutions give you a single source of truth. Using analytics is beneficial to making informed decisions. It enables you to drop the guesswork and rely on the actionable insights.
Consolidating information in a centralised manner enables you to foresee future trends. You can better manage your workforce by preparing them for upcoming tasks. It gives you the ability to plan focused business strategies. The data provides a complete picture of the work-order history, stock and inventory usage, complaints, feedback and performance metrics. The best part is that the required information is accessible to authorised users from anywhere.
Field service requires mobility and the cloud offers it big time. Small-to-medium enterprises face many challenges and it really is a no-brainer to leverage a modern workforce management solution. It will help you to grow your business by empowering mobile staff and offering flawless service delivery.
