How Software Can Help Your Electrician Business Run More Efficiently
Software is a great resource for your business. When you use cloud-based technology, you can have more security for your data and easier access to data that will help you make actionable decisions about your business direction. More importantly, when you use service software as an electrician, you can benefit from better organization. The best features of electrician business software include:
Quoting Features
Just like good songs have memorable hooks, successful businesses also make a good impression when quotes are accurate. Professional quoting software draws from a large database to customize each customer's quote, which then generates an accurate quote that will not result in surprise charges for the customer when a job is complete.
The best professional quoting software will also enable quotes to be transformed into detailed work orders. This is an integrated tool that can generate work orders for your administrative staff at the push of a button. With a feature like this one, you can reduce errors on new work orders, which can increase customer satisfaction.
Job Management Features
Job management features are also important for electricians. Along with tracking workflows from assigning work orders to completing work orders, job management features should also prioritize excellent service. Features such as safety checklists will ensure each work order is closed only after each safety point has been satisfied.
Customer Information Management
Managing your customer's information is one of the best ways to build a good relationship with your clients. Service software with good customer information management allows you to make profiles for each client, include details about previous work orders, and even make notes about clients who need regular maintenance.
Scheduling and Dispatching Features
Efficiency is all about using time wisely, so two of the most important features to have in your service software package are scheduling and dispatching features. Your administrative staff is in charge of each employee's schedule, but if your current calendar system is inefficient, this can make it more difficult to schedule your field technicians. Ultimately, a slow scheduling system means slow service for your clients, which can damage your reputation.
An interactive scheduling calendar with an at-a-glance capacity is an excellent tool to streamline your scheduling needs. When your administrative staff can have a quick view of all available time slots on the calendar, it's much easier to locate a time that works for a client and drop the work order into the schedule. Your administrative staff can even organize technicians into smaller teams for easier time management.
Dispatcher Mode
For electricians, responding to urgent work orders is essential. An urgent work order could occur because of rolling blackouts in residential areas or because a business needs to have electricity restored quickly. With dispatcher mode, GPS tracking allows your administrative staff to locate field technicians who are free to complete urgent work orders.
Pre-Program Alerts
Some of your clients may need routine maintenance to maintain building code compliance. With pre-program alerts, you can schedule recurring work orders automatically so that your client receives service right on time. This is one important way you can build a stronger relationship with your customers.
Accounting Features
Accounting software can also improve your overall efficiency. When you use accounting software that can be easily integrated into your existing financial software, you can benefit from synchronized data that makes it easier to track income and expenses. Some parts of your accounting software can even automate data entry between different programs to reduce duplicate data.
Accounting features can be used to automate employee timesheets, track billable hours, and even manage your inventory more effectively. Automating inventory management can enable automatic orders for supplies your business frequently runs out of.
One-Touch Billing
One-touch billing is a very convenient feature included in your business accounting software. As part of workflow management, invoices can be generated directly from completed work orders and sent to the client via email for faster payment processing. Instead of sending a bill by mail, a one-touch billing feature can create a digital record for bills and bill payments.
Mobility Features
Finally, excellent service software will also include mobility features that can help you keep track of field technicians. Not only does GPS tracking make it easier to dispatch available technicians, but increased mobile connectivity also improves the access your technicians have to your central data system. With a mobile device synced to your internal system, your technicians can access work orders to add relevant details or send invoices to clients while still on the job site.
When Should You Use Electrician Business Software?
In general, you may want to start using business software for your business when you notice your business productivity is stalling. When your business is still handling paperwork the old-fashioned way with telephone calls and manual data entry, your efficiency dips, and the risk of redundancy increases. However, service software offers partially automated processes that eliminate duplicate functions and simply many of the job tasks for your administrative team.
The other benefit of using electrician business software sooner rather than later is that using this software can help you eliminate redundancy in your organizational budget. When you can streamline business tasks, you can find expense areas that aren't producing ideal results. When you cut these expenses, you can devote a larger part of your budget to employee benefits and digital marketing.
When your business is more efficient, you have the opportunity to see more profits and overall business growth. Organizing your business with service software can reduce human labor, stress, and human error. To get service software for your electrician business and increase your business efficiency, contact ServiceBox for a free demo today.
