As the last decade progressed, the electric service industry has changed from a service provider model to a service consumer model. Customers expect quick responsiveness, clear and compromised conversations, as well as precise billing. In addition to changes with customers, the workload of the electric teams today is much greater than it has been in the past due to increased complexity and the number of technicians and the number of electrical professionals.
With the growth of the electric service industry, many electrical contractors continue to utilize basic scheduling systems (i.e., shared calendars, whiteboards, or simple appointment applications), which may work effectively for businesses with only one or two electricians, but as the electric service business grows, these methods of scheduling become much more hard to manage.
Basic scheduling indicates that a job is scheduled, but it does not necessarily provide an indication that the electrical company is about to complete that job without any disruption.
Lack of communication between electrical companies can create issues, causing time losses, excess billing, and a decline in customers’ trust.
Limitations of a Scheduling Tool
A scheduling tool is, on the surface, a piece of software that tells users, “Who is going where at what time?” However, as seen within the electrical industry, an individual having the ability to schedule appointments does not mean that they will be effective in determining whether these appointments are going to be executed or what types of delays may occur.
A service work order typically has many aspects that need to be properly managed. In order to accurately fulfill the services requested by the customer, the Service Work Order must contain all of the necessary information to allow the technician to complete the service correctly, as well as provide the office with a means of tracking the Service Work Order’s status, and also give the customer the assurance that they are receiving up-to-date information.
The scheduling tools will not provide the dispatcher with updates on the jobs’ progress. Therefore, they lack the complete picture of the current job status and cannot accurately communicate with the customer.
This is the reason that many electrical teams feel that they are busy throughout the day, yet still fail to keep up with their customers.
Electrical jobs rarely fit neat time slots
The reason for this is that electrical work is unpredictable. Panel upgrades may reveal that your current wiring is outdated, and a commercial call may take longer than expected due to complications related to safety and access. On top of that, emergency calls have the power to throw an entire day off schedule.
Basic scheduling tools operate under the false premise that every job will fit into a specific amount of time. However, the nature of electrical work is such that it does not confirm to this schedule-based model.
When schedules are created without any context regarding the real-time nature of the job, small delays can lead to larger delays (causing):
- Technicians are arriving late for their next job.
- Staff members are scrambling to send out messages to explain how long they will take.
- Customers are losing their faith in the company.
To effectively manage modern electrical workers, the scheduling system must reflect the reality of what is actually occurring in the field rather than being based upon plans made several hours earlier.
Importance of Visibility for Owners and Managers
As an owner or manager, it is important to know not only where your electricians are but also what they are doing now! Questions you need answered quickly include:
- What jobs are currently underway?
- What jobs are taking longer than originally planned?
- Which technicians can take an urgent call right now?
Unfortunately, basic scheduling tools cannot give you these answers without the need to call or text your electricians constantly! This lack of visibility leaves managers reacting rather than planning.
With platforms such as Field Promax, scheduling is integrated with both work orders and job status. Office staff can see how jobs are progressing without interrupting the flow of technicians’ work. This visibility enables office staff to make faster and better decisions throughout the day.
Miscommunication Results In Lost Profit
Miscommunication is one of the greatest hidden costs an electrical business has to operate under. If you have your scheduling in one location, your job detail in another location, and you are only receiving updates via phone calls or text messages, the likelihood that an electrician will show up without the full context for the job is high. Furthermore, office staff may be providing inaccurate information to customers based on their assumptions.
Basic scheduling tools were not designed to resolve this issue.
The electrical team benefits from having all scheduling, job notes, and status updates stored in a single system. With this type of system in place, as soon as an electrician updates a job, the office staff will see it immediately, therefore providing accurate information to customers without having to chase down job status updates.
This is where modern platforms created for the field service industry begin to show significant measurable differences.
The Standards of Customer Expectations Are Higher Than Ever
Customers have begun to compare your electric company to any service company they use; therefore, they expect a professional experience, transparency on what is going to take place, and follow-up to ensure that the work was completed with a quality standard. If they have had both of these things and received a comfortable update, this is an indicator that they had a positive experience while working with your company.
A missed arrival time or vague communication regarding how long the job will take is considered to be a very poor service to the customer, even if the technical work was performed properly. Don’t forget that basic scheduling tools are designed to be used internally only, focusing only on internal scheduling rather than the customer experience.
With connected systems, electrical teams can tell customers when they will arrive, share updates, and keep records of completed work. Over time, clear communication builds trust and brings repeat customers.
Scheduling Should Be Based On Actual Job Progress
Most electrical companies have separate computer systems for scheduling and documenting the work that has been completed. ‘Scheduling’ shows when the job should be done, and ‘documenting’ shows what was actually done. This difference creates frustration between office staff and technicians. When technicians complete jobs earlier than anticipated.
Those changes will not be reflected on the schedule until the next appointment is affected. If a job takes longer than anticipated, the office staff may not know this until the next appointment is already affected.
By utilizing digital work orders, electrical teams will have a better view of daily capacity because the schedule will be based on actual job completion and will have a better reflection of the current status of jobs, not hopeful estimates.
Growth exposes weak scheduling fast
When your business adds technicians, service areas, or job volume, the complexity of the schedule will increase in a hurry.
Some of the more common warning signs include:
- Rescheduling or double booking frequently
- Dispatchers getting overwhelmed with calls
- Technicians are confused about what is most important at the time of their dispatch
- Customers contacting the office to check on jobs, when the office is not able to see any information about them
When this begins to happen, it is typically not that the team is at fault, but rather that the scheduling system is at fault.
New technology has been developed to help electrical contractors manage their workflow and reduce the administrative burden of managing schedules.
What do electrical contractors require from their scheduling systems?
Scheduling should be part of a larger operational system. As opposed to being viewed just as a calendar, a scheduling system should allow for:
- The ability to see live job status
- The capability of seeing status updates in real-time from the office
- The ability to communicate clearly with the technician in the field
- The capability to accurately reflect a job’s progress.
Contractors that utilize platforms like Field Promax do not use these systems for the additional software, but they utilize them to make the day-to-day operation of the business much less difficult. When scheduling and job status are integrated, operations become a lot more predictable.
Example of a Realistic field
Take, for example, an established, medium-sized electrical contractor that performs both residential and small-scale commercial work. Historically, this organization has been heavily dependent on telephone calls to facilitate their operations; they shared a calendar with each other, but used the telephone to keep in constant contact with their dispatchers in relation to any status changes.
As the work order volume grew, issues with delays became more prevalent. In fact, it took days for dispatchers to keep track of the jobs that they were responsible for dispatching. Customer dissatisfaction increased due to their lack of clarity on when the technician would arrive.
When this organization implemented a new system where work orders and scheduling were tied together, the office gained the ability to have real-time visibility of their scheduling. Dispatchers could now adjust their scheduling with greater confidence based on what they could see in real time. Additionally, technicians spent less time on the phone and more time performing their work.
As a result, the company had much calmer days, happy customers, and a team that trusted the process.
Conclusion
Basic scheduling tools are not inherently “bad”; they simply were not designed to accommodate the complexities associated with modern electrical service work.
Electrical companies operate in a fast-paced environment, where visibility and communication are of utmost importance to their success; as such, a simple calendar system can no longer support the level of coordination required for success.
Moving forward from a basic scheduling tool toward a more comprehensive field service operation will allow electrical service companies to operate more smoothly, create stronger relationships with their customers, and establish sustainable long-term growth.
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