Field And Back-Office Efficiency Go Hand In Hand

Submitted by WennSoft

Finding areas of inefficiency – and fixing them – is one of the best ways to increase profits in a field services business.

Some of the areas where processes bog down are easy to spot. Back when I still worked for my family’s mechanical business, The Wenninger Company, our guys came in every Monday morning to pick up uniforms, drop off paperwork and restock their trucks. But what that task seemed to turn into more often than not was an excuse for the whole team to get together, do 15 minutes of real work then spend a couple of hours drinking coffee and catching up on each other’s weekends.

We ultimately decided to hire a kid to drive a minivan around delivering the technicians’ uniforms, equipment and parts directly to their job sites. The new policy was so successful we ended up getting two or three more drivers to do the same thing. I recently heard about another company deciding to address the same problem by renting out mini-storage spaces scattered around their geographic market. Technicians visit the storage spaces, key in an access code and pick up one or more bins with all their stuff. There is no coffee, so there’s really no reason to hang around.

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