Field Management: How to create "Uber for installers" using special software

In some industries, mobile workers — installers, equipment tuners, and so on — do the main work. This model has its weaknesses.

One of them is the weak flexibility of the model. Clients have to agree in advance on the arrival of the master, which is not always convenient. Many people have become accustomed to receiving services on demand (such as calling a taxi in the Uber application) - according to one study , 89% of users would prefer not to wait for the service, but to receive it when it is convenient for them.
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In Uber, users order taxis using the app, paying for trips with a bank card attached to their account - this saves passengers from having to carry cash, and drivers - to count the change. This model proved to be extremely successful, making Uber the most expensive start-up in the world, and prompted many companies to attempt to transfer it to the ground of their industry.

One of the ways to transfer this model to the field of field work is to use special field management software tools.

What it is

It is difficult to control mobile workers, which leads to abuse on their part. For example, they can negotiate with clients to bypass the employer and use its equipment, or later start and finish work earlier.

Often, employees, especially newcomers, perform the task suboptimally and in the way they feel better. This leads to errors that are difficult for management to track, and which lead to financial losses - a disgruntled customer may require redoing the work and certainly will not recommend the company to his friends. To solve the problem of control, just use a special software.

As a rule, such systems consist of a mobile application for mobile workers and desktop versions used by managers in the office. The mobile application may contain a list of tasks for the employee on the day, the necessary information about the customer, the checklist, in accordance with which you need to do the work (which eliminates the initiative), and there is also a function to send a photo report.

In the desktop part of the system, the manager can track the movement of all employees on the map and dynamically change their routes, taking into account traffic jams, cancellations of orders and new arrivals.

"Uber for installers"

The use of such tools can dramatically improve the efficiency of staff movements — first of all, they will not be able to use non-optimal routes and end the working day early.

Secondly, the use of field management software together with the use of more flexible planning methods allows more flexible planning of the schedule of mobile employees. For example, according to statistics in the USA in the telecommunications industry, 5-10% of orders are canceled, and another 20-30% take more or less time than originally thought.

When working with a tight schedule, all this creates problems - windows arise when employees are idle, or customers have to wait for a delayed installer. Using special software allows managers to rebuild the route of a particular employee on the fly.



The movement of employees on the map in the desktop application Planado.ru

Companies can easily increase the number of clients serviced per day - to do this, they need to abandon reservations in the schedule of space for hypothetical new orders. Canceled calls will still be more. If some order is canceled, and another suddenly enters, the manager will be able to redirect the nearest employee to it, having oriented on the map.

Conclusion

Using tools for field management allows companies to significantly improve their work efficiency.

According to McKinsey, one of the American cable companies has increased the number of orders for equipment installation per day by 80%. This, in turn, led to the situation that the installer’s waiting time was reduced by 30%.

Good results can be achieved in the Russian market. So the introduction of the Planado management service created by us, on average, gives an increase in the productivity of their work by 31% - in a difficult time of crisis, a good indicator.

The use of new technologies and flexible management techniques can improve the quality of even such well-established services as furniture assembly or equipment installation. Convenience and simplicity is exactly what users expect in the “Uber era”.