Running a service business can be quite challenging. This is particularly the case when it comes to organization, as there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to running a service business. While you need to make sure that your contractors are accountable, you also need to be able to give them a framework to be accountable in. This means that you need to have a central database where you can actually organize and assign jobs, as well as give real-time updates and support to your contractors. This way, if anything goes wrong, you’ll know that it wasn’t a scheduling or organizational issues on your end.
Keep in mind that failure in this regard can be the difference between positive and negative reviews, and repeat and one-time clients. As such, your service business’s success needs to be judged on whether it is organized and accountable or not both to its customers and to its staff. You will also need to make sure to put in a framework in place, ideally with a technological solution, in order to make sure that your service business stays organized and provides the services that it says it does in a timely and efficient manner.
Schedule Jobs with Technology
One of the best ways to organize your service business is to revolutionize your scheduling. Using spreadsheets is fine if you are just starting out, but once you have more jobs coming in, you need to have a way to directly assign jobs to contractors without having to constantly circle back and adjust your schedule. The best technological solution to help with this is service dispatch software. Service dispatch software will help to get all of your team members on the same page with its robust scheduling capabilities. It can also allow associate multiple assignments to a single work order in the event of a multi-day job that requires the same contractor to be present. By using this type of scheduling technology, you’ll virtually guarantee that your clients will be satisfied with the timing of your work and you will also be able to give your contracts an up to date schedule that they can easily follow.
Provide Updates with Notifications
When working in the field, things will often come up that may change the scope of a job. It is possible that job may be cancelled at the least minute altogether. To do this, you will want to use technology to create assignment notifications that can be directly texted or emailed to contracts so they have completely accurate and up to date information on their jobs. While you can have an administrative assistant manually keep track of all of this, it is often cheaper and more efficient to use software to do this. This can also help you let contractors know about any last minute scheduling changes which are par for the course for service businesses which often have emergencies jobs come up.
Give Support to Your Contractors
Contracts should always feel that the company they work for has their back. Otherwise, they may end up looking at other job opportunities that will treat them better. To do this, you need to make sure that what they are saying is true and that they are accountable to yoru business. TO do this, you should use technology to track customer complaitns and set realistic expecations with customer as to how long a job will take. When this is done, you can always review any customer complaints and see if they are in line with the job estimate that you gave them so that there is no conflict. If the customer is trying to coerce you into free or reduced service by complaining, you’ll then have the data to back up your contractors claim to be assured that taking their side in the event of a dispute does not jeopardize your business reputation.
