In our previous blog we explored the current situation for scheduling and the possibilities for the future. The importance of scheduling for your business and your field service staff is well established, but inefficient processes can hinder the business and make achieving targets a difficult and frustrating challenge, so getting this right is essential.
For those businesses who don’t have a scheduling solution in place at all, they are missing out on valuable insights into their mobile workforce. Without a scheduling solution, monitoring staff activity, keeping an active and up-to-date picture of how jobs are performing becomes difficult. Problems or delays becomes a manual process that takes up valuable time and resources.
It may be the case that you have been running a scheduling solution for a long time, or perhaps you are only beginning the search to implement one into your mobile workforce. Whichever the case may be, it’s important to establish what your objective is and to consider exactly what a successful scheduling solution would look like for you.
There could be a number of issues to consider when you have a scheduling solution in place and it isn’t working to the best level for the business. Does it actually provide you with the best schedule for your business, taking into consideration your business goals and objectives?
Perhaps the solution has a “one size fits all” approach, restricting departments and their different needs. Rather than providing a unique and empowering solution for all it may only work well for some. This approach can also have a negative impact when seasonal staff or fluctuations in demand occur. If the scheduling solution is static and inflexible, it won’t be able to handle changes within the business, often resulting in a return to manual or paper based processes.
A solution is required: a dynamic scheduling solution that can meet the needs of your business, allowing flexibility and the ability to manage change.
The Business Benefits of a Dynamic Scheduling Solution
In our previous blog, we established that the future of scheduling is growing increasingly intuitive; the result is a dynamic scheduling solution that utilises AI technology to create a schedule that works for all aspects of the business and creates the most effective schedule possible.
The positive effect this solution has on staff sees them with more time to provide a high standard of service. Their daily schedules are created in line with business criteria, skills and the urgency of jobs, allowing staff to plan ahead for their day. The knock-on effect is that staff skills are being used in areas where they can make a difference, enabling them to deliver better service and helping increase their own job satisfaction.
An added benefit of dynamic scheduling is the ability to route more efficiently, ensuring that the closer member of staff to a job attends it if possible. When used alongside a field service management solution, further travel costs can be eliminated as the daily schedules can be communicated to the field service teams on their mobile devices, allowing them to continue to each job throughout the day without a need to return to the office.
The ability to see where each member of your team is at any one point is hugely beneficial, with the unique function that allows a scheduler to see when their mobile device last synced they can manually check in with the field staff if required.
A dynamic scheduling solution should be a fully flexible solution that has the ability to scale up or down with the business needs, it should integrate with mobile workforce management easily to give your business a 360 degree view of how your mobile workforce is working. The benefits of having a solution that works with your business is seen in the ability to gather valuable information and insights on your staff are working, giving you full visibility to monitor and improve the achievement of goals. Without this scheduling solution, the danger is in the lack of control over field staff and how they are working, it means manual processes that cost money and valuable time. Investing in a dynamic scheduling solution is essential in future-proofing your business.
