So I type “home service repair” into Google and find the highest-rated service company. After I call them and leave a message, I get a call back to schedule my appointment. At that moment, I realized that most service providers unknowingly neglect the most important thing about “home service” – the experience.

So, to all service providers, OEMs, or any company that offers in-home service, please listen to this plea…

My blood doesn’t boil because my pipes are leaking, my blood boils because of the moments between where I’m left in the dark with little to no communication from the service companies. These moments are the “experiences” that every home service company neglects – the hopeless minutes homeowners feel when waiting for the technician to arrive.

Modern companies have noticed that we live in a customer-centric world and customers now expect to be kept in the loop about everything! They want to know:

• Who is arriving?
• When will they be arriving?
• What do they look like?
• Can I leave feedback?
• Can I communicate with them ahead of time?
• Can I easily reschedule or cancel the appointment?
• Can I do everything on my phone?

With consumer expectations rising, it’s time to demand more of your brand and deliver a modern customer experience.

In this post, we break down how to turn those hopeless moments into tech-driven memorable experiences.

Step 1: The moment a customer needs help

Ask yourself this, how frustrating is it when companies make it difficult to schedule an appointment? You search for the “book now” button only to realize that they don’t have one. So you dial the dispatcher, wait for someone to call back, and schedule a time that most likely isn’t built around your schedule but theirs. Nothing about this sounds like an optimal customer experience does it?

The importance of customer experience in the age of instant gratification is now higher than ever.

How to fix step 1:

Simple. Build in a process that allows homeowners to schedule appointments with your company at a time and date that works best for them. Here’s what you do – add a “Book Now” button that takes homeowners to a form where they can share details about their need, fill out their contact information, select the best days and times that work well for them, and easily send their service request with a click of a button.

Then, and this is the most important part, the company sends the homeowner a text message confirming that they received the service request. This immediate communication lets the homeowner know that you have their best intentions in mind and you’re on it. It adds a little bode of confidence in their mind that your brand has everything under control.

Step 2: The moment the customer starts to feel left in the dark

How annoying is it when you text someone a question and they don’t get back for a few days? You start thinking – Are they mad at me? Was I too pushy? Why aren’t they responding? The silence messes with your rationality and just like any other human being you craft a narrative that explains/justifies their silence – often based on zero evidence.

The same goes for service companies. When I schedule an appointment and don’t hear anything from the company for a while, I begin thinking:

• “Did they forget about my appointment and do I need to call to confirm?”
• “Did I actually submit my request?”
• “Is this the right company to go with?”

So what do customers typically do? They call to confirm that the company got their request.

This weekend, I witnessed this exact thing. Before a scheduled carpet cleaning, the homeowner called to confirm that the appointment is still on. I thought to myself, why is it that people assume service companies will inevitably forget about them? It’s not the same in other industries. I don’t call my airline to make sure my ticket is still valid before my flight, so why should I call a home service company to confirm my appointment after it’s already been scheduled? It’s because we’re nurtured to expect a late technician or worse, a no-show.

This stems from the infrequent communication service providers have with their customers, causing homeowners’ latitude of patience to become exceptionally thin.

How to fix step 2:

It’s easy. Implement a tool like Dispatch and send automatic status updates to customers through SMS and/or email. Companies can pop off appointment confirmations, status updates, appointment reminders, on-my-way appointment notifications, feedback surveys, and much more. All of this helps your customers feel informed, aware, and most of all valued.

Step 3: The moment a customer can’t leave feedback

Before I purchase anything (product or service), I read online reviews. I do it before I buy online, and I do it while I buy in-store. I want to know what others are saying. I want to know what type of experience they had. I want to know if 3-weeks later the person still found value in it. I’m very willing to go to yelp or Google and leave a positive review if I had a good experience. Here’s a review I left after getting my tires changed.

I also left it on Yelp…

I wanted to blast it everywhere because I had a great experience and I want to push as many businesses as possible to the companies I enjoy. Most modern customers want their opinion voiced when someone does a good or poor job. It’s just the world we live in! The stigma here is that people only use reviews for negative things…this simply isn’t true. Case in point, look at all the reviews Car Zone has.

How to fix step 3:

Most companies don’t like asking for reviews – which is okay. Dispatch removes that awkward moment with a survey link that is authentically sent the moment a job is complete. So now you can collect every possible review and begin to solidify yourself as an excellent company to do business with.

As a customer, if I’m presented with a quick survey on my phone, I’m much more likely to fill it out – versus getting a link and having to type it in online.

Because of Dispatch’s feedback flow, they’ve helped companies increase their survey feedback response rate by 220%.

So if you’re a company and you’re looking to improve your last-mile customer experience then check us out. Everything presented here is why we exist as an organization. We strive to help home service companies deliver memorable customer experiences.

To learn more, request a demo.

The post How to make your customers feel extremely informed and incredibly valued appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

Sadly, it all falls apart during the “last mile”—the time between when you hand the customer off to your third-party service provider and when the technician finishes the job. For example, the technician doesn’t let the customer know he’s running late…he doesn’t have the right tools for the job…or he hands the homeowner a messy paper invoice and asks for a check.

Your third-party service providers are a reflection on your home warranty brand, so read on to discover how digitizing the last-mile customer experience—also known as last-mile CX—impacts your customer retention, profits, expenses, and more.

Every Stage of The Customer Journey Is the Most Important Stage

It’s a mistake to frontload all your amazing customer experience capabilities and then let it drop off at the end of the process. This excerpt from a white paper on customer experience by Jolt Consulting Group does a good job of explaining why:

CX is a cumulative result of each and every touchpoint; therefore, the impact of service on customers’ perceptions and experiences with a company must be evaluated through the complete service delivery chain—from service initiation to call centers to online portals all the way through to on-premise delivery of service. To achieve service excellence and improved CX, service organizations must develop best-in-class business processes, create new and unique ways to interact with their customers and invest in service technology to optimize these touchpoints.

Digitizing your last-mile CX helps optimize every touchpoint. For example:

• Omnichannel communication lets the homeowner interact with the service provider in the way they’re most comfortable with.
• On-my-way customer notifications give the homeowner the confidence of knowing when they need to be ready for the service visit. (No one likes wondering if they have time to duck out for a carton of milk before the technician arrives!)
• Automatic appointment reminders mean the homeowner doesn’t have to worry that they’ll forget about the service visit.
• Mobile payments let the homeowner pay quickly and easily using the method they prefer.
• Mobile feedback forms end the experience on a positive note by showing that the service provider cares about the homeowner’s experience.

From the beginning of the customer journey to the end, digitized last-mile CX offers homeowners a great experience that reflects well on your brand.

Customers Always Remember the Last-Mile CX

Let’s say your home warranty company delivers good CX all the way through the entire customer journey, but there’s a minor glitch in the last mile. What will customers remember most? 95% of the time you and your service provider delivered a positive experience or the 5% of the time that it was just “meh”?

Surprise: The “meh” last-mile CX is what will stick in their minds, giving customers an overall view of your service as “just OK” even though you scored well during the rest of the process.

Here’s why: The Peak-End Theory, developed by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, says that people don’t average out the highs and lows of an experience—they judge an experience by how they felt at its most intense moment, and how they felt at its end.

So unless you created an intensely positive or negative moment somewhere along the line, that last-mile customer experience is what your customers will remember most.

A Better CX = More Profits

Now we know that customers judge their experience based on the last mile. But how much is that worth to your home warranty company?

We admit: it’s hard to measure ROI on customer experience—so we’re lucky that the smart folks at Harvard Business Review did it for us.

In businesses with transactional revenue models (which are based on the sale of goods), customers who had the best past experiences spend 140% more compared to customers who had the worst past experience.

Even more relevant for a home warranty business are the data from subscription services: members who have the worst experience have only a 43% chance of being a member a year later, while those who have the best experience have a 74% chance of remaining a member for at least another year.

That increase in subscriber retention makes focusing on the last mile CX well worth the effort.

Focusing on Last-Mile CX Saves Money

Sure, digitizing the last mile to create a better customer experience boosts customer retention—but since you have more control over the first portion of the customer journey, why not spend your efforts on attracting new customers instead?

Developing loyal relationships actually costs less than building new ones. This is from a research report by Bain & Company:

Consider the cost of serving a long-standing customer versus the cost of courting one. Across a wide range of businesses, customers generate increasing profits each year they stay with a company. Why? Return customers tend to buy more from a company over time. As they do, your operating costs to serve them decline. What’s more, return customers refer others to your company. And they’ll often pay a premium to continue to do business with you rather than switch to a competitor with whom they’re neither familiar nor comfortable.

Digitize the last-mile CX and you’ll see expenses drop even as profits roll in.

Ready to Improve Your Last-Mile CX?

Businesses that offer digital customer experiences with Dispatch’s Last-Mile CX see a 35% increase in their Net Promoter Score. Reach out for a demo to see how Dispatch lets home warranty companies offer service reminders, on-my-way tracking, instant customer reviews, digital invoices, simple payments from the field, and other features that improve the last-mile CX.

The post How Digitizing the Last-Mile Customer Experience Pays off for Your Home Warranty Brand appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

The post Attracting New Talent While Building Independent Service Provider Loyalty appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

To boost customer loyalty, it makes sense to start at the end: Customers often judge your brand by the last interaction they have with you—and since that final interaction is usually with your third-party service providers, these partners can make or break your customer loyalty scores.

If you have constant turnover in your service provider network, your customers are the ones who feel the pinch. Miscommunication, missed appointments, service professionals with little knowledge of your brand, and other problems pop up, sinking the customer experience you spent so long building up.

Because service provider loyalty can have a huge impact on customer loyalty, you want to make working with you as easy for them as possible.

So how do you keep both of these groups happy?

How Can I Improve Service Provider and Customer Loyalty?

Consider your service providers and customers as a two-sided market and your field service management software as the intermediary to build loyalty among both parties.

• Offer multiple ways to connect. Keep important information—like job status, contact information, and customer photos—flowing between your brand, your customers, and your service providers to keep all parties on the same page.
• Make sharing job details easy, fast & clear. Use an app that shares customer and job details with your service providers—so the customer doesn’t have to explain the issue multiple times, and the service provider has easy access to the information they need to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
• Increase service provider loyalty with the right tools. A field service management tool that doesn’t integrate with your providers’ in-house software is just another app for them juggle—which can affect your service provider loyalty.
• Let customers have their say. Customers want to be heard, so make it easy for them to share their kudos and critiques.

Now let’s get all the details on the table.

Offer Multiple Ways to Connect

Nothing frustrates a customer faster than communication issues with their order. Whether it’s a missed tracking number or a multi-layered phone tree to reach a customer service rep, every stumbling block put in your customer’s way reduces the chance that they’ll buy from you again.

Your service provider network needs easy communication with both you and your end customers to keep appointments on time and customer information up to date.

In both cases, offering multiple channels of communication can help keep information flowing where it needs to go. For example, you might offer a web portal where customers can upload details about their work orders, including photographs. With access to this information, along with a centralized database of customer information, your service providers can do their jobs more efficiently. An app can come into play for service and appointment updates, reducing the number of customer no-shows.

Make Sharing Job Details Easy, Fast & Clear

Forbes says that 77% of consumers consider convenience a key factor in choosing service providers. If your order or service process is confusing or requires customers to jump through too many hoops, they’re going to start looking for a clearer experience elsewhere.

One sticking point for customers is in getting the details of their service order to the provider. If you’re making your customers explain their situation to two or three different people, they’re going to be frustrated before your service partner ever arrives at their home.

You can eliminate that problem, and increase customer loyalty, with a field service management app that allows your providers to easily view the customer’s history and information. They’ll arrive at your customer’s home with the right tools and parts, and your customer won’t have to repeat the whole conversation they just had with your customer care team.

Your field service management software makes the process more convenient for your service partners, too. You can give them access to product information, knowledge bases, and customer data that they need to find answers to any customer questions and get the job done quickly.

An FSM tool also helps improve service providers’ first-time fix rate (since they’ll have a better understanding of the job before they arrive at the customer’s home), which will further improve customer experience.

Increase Service Provider Loyalty with The Right Tools

The service management tool you choose needs to enhance your service provider’s workflow. Otherwise, it becomes just one more app taking up space on their phone or tablet—hardly the way to increase service provider loyalty.

The right platform gives you visibility into how your service partners are doing, while also helping them do their jobs. Give them an easy way to assign and track jobs, see customer notes and photos, and accept payments in the field, and your providers will be much happier to use the tool.

If your platform can integrate with tools your service providers are already using, like QuickBooks, ServiceMax, and Zapier, it’ll improve compliance even further. No one likes having to enter the same information into three different web portals, or having to juggle payment processors.

But if you can bring all of these pieces of their business together into one field service management tool, they’ll be much happier to use it.

Let Customers Have Their Say

Customer feedback is essential to understanding what you’re doing right, and where you need to improve. Tweaking your business operations based on common feedback is a great way to improve your customer retention rates.

But your customers don’t want to have to type in a URL or call a phone number on their invoice. If you make it difficult for your customers to give you feedback, you’ll probably only hear from the really motivated ones (both furious and thrilled). This can give you a skewed sense of how your customers feel about your field service business.

Instead, give your customers a way to leave feedback instantly. Asking them to rate you and/or your service provider immediately after the job’s done means that the job is fresh in the customer’s mind. And with the right customer feedback tool, you and your service providers can spot trends and opportunities for improvement.

Customer loyalty and service provider loyalty are both critical to your brand’s success. By employing tactics and tools to keep both of these groups happy, you can cut down on customer service-related expenses—and keep your business growing.

Struggling with ways to help your third-party service providers delight your customers?

With robust communication, scheduling, and feedback tools, Dispatch can improve your customer experience from purchase to service delivery. Schedule a demo to see all it can do for you.

The post How to Ace Your Customer and Service Provider Loyalty appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon. July 13, 1999

Today’s consumer has access to more information and tools than ever before. With a single Google search, consumers can find the best price for a given product in a matter of seconds.

The only sustainable, long-term differentiator for companies is the end-to-end customer experience customers receive when interacting with a brand. Brands which differentiate by delivering superlative customer experiences will cash in on greater customer wallet share and lifetime value, ultimately netting greater profits and investor returns.

This is because a happy customer contributes 2.6 times as much revenue as a somewhat satisfied customer and 14 times as much revenue as a somewhat dissatisfied customer. Thus, the need for better customer experience spans many different industries.

The biggest hinderance home service brands face today is delivering a seamless, omnichannel, digital and data-driven experience that connects all parties, including 3rd-party service providers, throughout the customer purchase and home service fulfillment process.

After powering millions of home service jobs in over 30% of the homes in America, here is what we’ve learned for how you can cash in on the home services space.

Why There is an Opportunity to Cash in on the Home Services Space

In the early 2000s, home service companies built customer relationships on their own terms. Brands only communicated with customers when they wanted – typically through mailers and calls, or worse, no communication at all, leaving customers in the dark about the status and timing of their home services. Traditional retailers did a fair job executing product sales and deliveries but struggled to execute on expectations set with customers about the home services experience customers would receive.

Over time, due to the rise of the internet, mobile technologies, social media, and lower barriers to entry for new retailers due to the commoditization of hardware/cloud computing, the consumer rose to the forefront, ultimately having an unlimited choice about who, when and where they would purchase. Consumers suddenly had a megaphone to share the negative (and positive) experiences they were receiving from brands, and the ability to quickly and affordably shift their brand loyalty to brands who focused on CX. Industries outside of the field service arena adopted and implemented new technologies to help bridge the gap between the brand and the customer.

This puts pressure on brands to offer the same level of service to their customers in a tech-driven way. When they do, they can expect to see some drastic improvements to their customer SAT, NPS, revenue, and customer lifetime value.

Here are some of the outcomes service brands can expect after implementing customer experience tools.

Two-Way Communication Tools Improve Brand Perception

Kudos to you if you’re messaging with your customer about their home services appointment. MAJOR kudos to you if your tool allows for two-way communication with that same customer to create engaging experiences.

Home service companies that enable dynamic communication between them and their customer receive more information up front, which does two things: creates a sense of confidence in the customer’s mind, and allows for seamless fulfillment of the service.

Dispatch allows customers and service providers to directly connect with each other in a bi-directional, modern and meaningful way while empowering the consumer to provide information (notes, photos, updates) to the service provider in advance of service execution. Not only is the customer-empowered, but the service provider is well informed about the service the consumer is expecting to have fulfilled….and before appointment execution.

Automatic Appointment Reminders Improve Customer No-Show Rate

By keeping consumers informed of the status of their service appointment, including on the day of service, brands can reduce costs associated with customer no shows and reschedule requests. Automatic appointment reminders prevent this from happening.

54% of millennials prefer to communicate with brands through either mobile or email.

Not only do consumers prefer to communicate bi-directionally, based on experiences they are having with brands, but consumers expect this level of communication so they are informed and not left in the dark waiting. According to Forrester “The majority (66%) of adults feel that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good online customer experience.

Dispatch’s omnichannel communication tool delivers email, SMS, push, WhatsApp, or whichever communication method your customers prefer at the right moment.

Instant Feedback Helps Monitor NPS

As we evolve in today’s tech-driven world, the importance of immediate data capture becomes vital to reduce customer churn. While every brand will occasionally fail with service delivery, it is essential to be able to immediately act on subpar customer feedback. If your service experience is lacking, then customer switching costs are low and the customer won’t buy more of your product.

Gauging service experience and remedying poor experiences as they happen has led to a 6% reduction in customer churn (2018 Dispatch customer data study).

What is the next step for service companies?

Brands looking to capitalize on the service space need to realize that it’s all about customer experience. Jeff Bezos had it right in 1999 – amazing service is one of the most important long-term and sustainable differentiators that a brand can build. Done right, positive home services experiences will net greater customer wallet-share, customer lifetime value, and incremental product and services revenue for any brand.

The post How Superior Customer Experience is Changing the Home Services Industry appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

What you’ll learn in 3-minutes

We’re reviewing different protocols that will keep your service providers and customers safe while in the field. 

Service Provider Safety:

If you can, work remotely
Being isolated away from your team and working out of the comfort of your home is the first step in remaining safe. If you can’t work remotely, make sure to restrict all office visitors with case-by-case emergency situations letting people into the office.

Screen for fever every day
Implement active screening of service providers and office staff for a fever every day with an Infrared Forehead Thermometer.

Keep your distance
Experts suggest maintaining six feet of distance between yourself and other people at all times.

Assess everyone’s health before going out
Before every job, ask your service providers and customers if they’re feeling ill. Reschedule the appointment if the answer is yes.

Adopt contactless communication
With photos, messaging, and digital payments, you can minimize the exposure between service providers and customers. Some companies, like Bloomin’ Blinds, are implementing video consultations in order to adapt their business for this contactless world.

Customer Safety:

Wear shoe covers and gloves for every job
Wear new shoe covers and protective gloves every time you enter the homeowner’s home. This helps ensure cleanliness and puts the homeowner at ease.

Confirm your customer’s health
Communicate with the customer before the job to gauge their health and their family’s health. If anyone is ill, politely ask to reschedule the appointment.

Meticulously disinfect tools and trucks
Disinfect all vehicles and every piece of equipment after each use. This prevents the virus from spreading surface to surface.

Implement contactless payments
Implement paperless billing, credit card payments, receipts/invoices, etc., so that you and the homeowner don’t need to touch anything.

Always social distance
Stay a minimum of 6 feet away from customers and other service providers at all times and if you’re feeling a little under the weather, please stay home. 

The post Webinar in 3: 6 Ways to Keep Service Providers and Customers Safe During COVID-19 appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

You rely on Dispatch to help you deliver consistently excellent service to your customers every day, and we want to make sure you are getting the most out of the Dispatch product. Below you’ll find a few features you may not have known about – features that can help you continue to deliver excellent service, even during this challenging time.

Export Your Customer List

Keeping your customers informed about your business can be critical. It’s hard to tell if businesses are still operating – what’s essential, what’s non-essential – which can potentially lead to lost business and unsatisfied customers.

Dispatch gives you access to all of the customers you have serviced through our platform, with their contact information, job history, and more. You can view this information by clicking on Reports > Your Customers, and download it by clicking More Options > Download Data on the right-hand side of the report. Don’t forget to remove the default 30-day date range to make sure you get everyone!

The resulting list can be uploaded into your marketing software, or dropped directly into an email, depending on the number of customers. This is a great way to easily put a complete customer list together, and use it for updates, offers, marketing, or anything else you need to communicate to your customer.

Branded Booking Page

Did you know that many of our service providers use Dispatch to enable customers to book business directly from a web page? Most companies that use Dispatch can set up our booking and scheduling page, which allows customers to enter their contact information, details about the work they need done, and provide suggested appointment times to reduce the back and forth of finding the right time.

Leads submitted through our Booking Page feed directly into Dispatch for you to assign and complete, just like adding a job manually. You can even include a link to the Booking Page right in your Google business listing or in your email signature.

In a time where office visits are no longer an option for letting customers book time, the Dispatch Booking Page can help keep business flowing without the need to interact in person.

If you want to enable your free Booking Page, reach out to your franchisor, or support@dispatch.me.

Notification Templates

Every service appointment you complete through Dispatch sends several appointment notifications throughout the course of the job – scheduling, on my way, survey requests, and more. You already know that these are part of our best-in-class customer experience, and typically just include a little bit of information about the next step in the job, and a link to our branded customer portal.

What you may not know is that these notifications can be edited to add specific text to each touchpoint. In addition to providing the basic information, you can include a short message with each notification. 

Right now, many of our users are choosing to add notes about special accommodations or requests regarding staying safe during the outbreak – asking customers to provide specific information ahead of time, or reminding them to give your technician as much space as possible during the appointment.

For independent service providers, you can add this in the Work app under Settings > Company > Branded Emails, in the Custom Text (Optional) field. For franchisees, reach out to your franchisor to discuss adjusting this text.

You choose what you want to say to your customers, and we help deliver the message throughout the service appointment.

Take Customer Payments Remotely

Your customers can now view estimates and invoices, approve estimates to begin work and make payments against outstanding invoices – all from the customer portal!

You choose which billing documents you want to be shown to customers in the customer portal. When you hit Send on a billing document and include the customer’s email address in the recipients, they’ll get a link in their email. Any estimate or invoice not in a DRAFT status is shown in the portal.

For users with credit card processing enabled, you can also remotely request and collect payments through the portal, allowing customers to pay for service without interacting with your staff.

Communicate More, Contact-less

One of the greatest things about using Dispatch is how it helps you open the lines of communication between you and your customers. During a time like this, when in-person communication is not recommended, these Dispatch features offer even more value.

Our service experience notifications and branded customer portal are a great way to keep your customer in the loop throughout a service appointment. If you use our Inbox tool, you can message with customers at any time – reducing the need for in-person contact at the home or office. 

Our customer portal is a great way to interact with your customers, reducing the amount of in-person contact needed to provide high-quality service. Customers can provide notes and photos ahead of time, reducing the need for multiple appointments, and increasing first-time fix rate. 

Our customer experience, messaging, and reporting features are all important parts of the Dispatch product, made even more pivotal given the current situation we all find ourselves in. Hopefully, these features will help ease the pain of operating during the time of COVID-19. 

If you want to learn more about these or any features offered by Dispatch, reach out to support@dispatch.me.

The post Times are Tough – Here’s How Dispatch Can Help appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

But field service providers still have to do their jobs. Therefore, we put together this safety checklist for every field service professional. Please print out this checklist, share it with your service providers, and stay safe out there.

We’re so thankful for all your work.

Service Provider Safety Checklist for COVID-19

1. If you can, work remotely.
The first step is working remotely if you can. If you can’t, restrict all office visitors, effective immediately, with case-by-case emergency situations.

2. Screen for fever and respiratory symptoms.
Implement active screening of service providers and office staff for fever and respiratory symptoms with an Infrared Forehead Thermometer.

3. Confirm your customers are healthy.
Communicate with the customer before the job to gauge their health and their family’s health.

4. Innovate with contactless communication.
Implement video chat into your customer outreach to see if it’s necessary to roll a truck or if the job can be serviced via video chat.

5. Stagger service provider work schedules.
Stagger work schedules to avoid too many service providers in the office at all times.

6. Meticulously disinfect tools and trucks.
Disinfect all vehicles and every piece of equipment after each use. This prevents the spread from surface to surface.

7. BYOB – ”Bring your own bottle.”
Avoid company-shared water bottles by bringing your own to work. Make sure to bring it home, and wash it every night.

8. Wear shoe covers and gloves for every job.
Wear new shoe covers and protective gloves right when you enter the homeowner’s home. This helps ensure cleanliness and also puts the homeowner at ease.

9.  Implement contactless payments.
Implement paperless billing, credit card payments, digital receipts/invoices, etc. so that you and the homeowner don’t need to touch anything.

10. Always social distance.
Stay a minimum of 6 feet away from customers and other service providers at all times and if you’re feeling a little under the weather, stay home.

Sources:
https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3990.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/california-santa-clara-county.html

The post Downloadable Checklist: Service Provider Safety for COVID-19 appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

What you’ll learn in 3-minutes

For this webinar in 3, we’re discussing if it makes more sense to build enterprise software or to buy enterprise software from a third-party vendor. As a refresher:

To build means to create the software from scratch. Doing this requires a team of software engineers, a product person, testers, a budget considering total cost of ownership, diligent roadmap planning, and a whole lot of time set aside to maintain the software post-deployment.

To Buy means you will work with a vendor that has already built the software you need. They thought of all the nuances, squashed the bugs, are constantly looking for ways to improve their product and have dedicated support to make the client happy. 

While both these options are good, deciding to buy vs. build comes with its own set of pros and cons. Tune into the 3-minute webinar (yes, just 3-minutes) to learn how you should approach this dilemma and what looming questions you can ask yourself in order to make an educated decision.

The post Webinar in 3: To build or to buy, that is the question appeared first on Dispatch Technologies.

Depending on the complexity and number of integrations you need built into your software, building it can be a major undertaking. Before jumping in with both feet, consider the pros and cons of building your own solution, rather than buying an off-the-shelf platform.

Should You Build Your Own Enterprise Software?

When deciding whether to build or buy your enterprise software, you need to ask yourself a few important questions:

• How much will it cost? Building your own field service software might seem like a cheaper choice, but big IT projects have the tendency to blow their budgets. Typically people don’t feel like it’s the cheaper choice in the short term. It’s capital intensive up front, but they think they will make it up after they build it vs ongoing Saas costs. What they forget is all the maintenance and upkeep and operational costs, ongoing licensing, compute, etc.
• Can I afford to maintain and adapt it? Having a software platform built just for you is an appealing option, but it comes with added maintenance costs.
• Will it grow with my business? Sure, your in-house-built software can grow with your business, but do you have the permanent developer staff to pull off those upgrades?
• How much time will it take? From planning and designing to implementation and training, building your own FSM software involves a lot of hidden costs in the form of staff time. And tech projects invariably take longer than expected due to unknowns and scope creep.

Need some help deciding whether buying or building your own enterprise software is the right choice for your business? Here, we expand on the key considerations:

Build or Buy Question #1: How Much Will It Cost?

Whether you’re buying a software suite outright or – more commonly these days – looking at a subscription model, the price tag might give you pause. But if you’re thinking that building your own software in-house will be cheaper (or easier), you might be in for an even bigger sticker shock.

Why? For one thing, you’ll need to think about servers and server upgrades, plus licensing or subscription costs for various software features you want to include (such as a map functionality). Building your own software also means assigning or hiring a project manager, assembling a team of designers, and engineers to make sure your software will do what you need—and coming up with a cost estimate for all of the above and more.

That last task can be the hardest. It’s difficult to look into the future of a project and spot problems before they come up. Maybe your developers can’t meet the original due date you put on this project—so now you need to hire more personnel or stretch the project timeline. Or maybe an integration with some part of your existing system ends up being trickier than your team’s first thought, and fixing it drives up costs.

On average, large-scale IT projects run 45% over budget and 7% over time. Scarier still, 17% of IT projects get so off the rails that they threaten to sink the company.

That’s not to say every software build will get that out of hand, but even small budget overruns can put a serious dent in your other business goals. On the other hand, an off-the-shelf solution can give you predictable cost estimates based on previous projects, and lets you budget accurately for ongoing subscription fees. That reduction in guesswork may be the tipping point for you.

Build or Buy Question #2: Can I Customize It?

Maybe the cost isn’t the deciding factor. Maybe the ability to create a highly customized solution that gives you complete control over the coding is worth the higher initial price tag – since you can change the software whenever you need it. Adding a new process that needs to be integrated with your software? Simple—just build it into the next update. Right?

The reality is: maybe. 

If the developers who built your software are staying with you long-term, then they’ll be familiar enough with the code to maintain it, push bug fixes and other updates, and maybe even add features as they become necessary.

But what if you only hired those developers to build the software, and didn’t intend to keep them on once the project was finished? Did they build the software in a way that other developers can edit it without too much time and effort? Will your in-house IT team be able to take over the patches and troubleshooting that? What about security and compliance? Security threats are always changing and keeping the software compliant with evolving security, privacy and compliances are expensive. For example, maintaining compliance for things like PCI and SOC II can cost $100’s K/year.

Compare that with a pre-built solution, where the burden of creating updates, patches, and new features is on the vendor’s team, rather than your own. And while all new software installations have a learning curve and require on-site IT support, you’ll have the benefit of documentation and tutorials that you don’t have to create in-house.

Build or Buy Question #3: Will It Grow With My Business?

Got big plans for growing your business quickly? Custom software might be an attractive choice. Assuming you’ve kept engineers on your team who can modify and upgrade your software as you go, then you can expand it to grow with your business needs.

But again, you’ll need to weigh the importance of this ongoing customization with the costs and labor needed to perform it. Modifying software might not be as huge a project as the initial software build, but it still requires a cost/benefit analysis, a project manager, and developers familiar enough with the code to make the changes you need.

And if you think an off-the-shelf solution can’t get you close to the features you need, you might be surprised. Vendors selling software for your industry are familiar with industry needs and will listen to your requests for new features to add to their platform. While it won’t be the same as having your in-house team customize your software at will, you might find that an off-the-shelf solution gets you close to what you’re looking for with lower costs than having your own developer team.

Build or Buy Question #4: How Much Time Will It Take?

As we mentioned in an earlier post, time costs are built into every stage of software development. You’ll need to spend time planning, designing, building, and implementing your new software. You also, as we mentioned earlier, have to develop end-user training materials—and then spend time giving your users that training.

These time costs go along with any new software, whether you buy it or build it yourself. But bought software might have the advantage here, since vendor teams have already worked on implementation with multiple clients, and can help your IT team plan for potential hiccups in the process. Off-the-shelf software also comes with its own training materials, so you won’t have to spend time creating them.

Need an enterprise solution that gives you all the tools you need to effectively manage your third-party network? Schedule a demo and see what Dispatch can do for you.

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