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Author: Jon Mailer
Jon Mailer is one of the leading authorities on growing and managing a field service business. He is CEO of PROTRADE United, the leading provider of business advisory and mentoring services to the trades industry. He has spent the past 15 years and over 15,000 hours researching and advising over 850 trade business owners and their teams. He speaks from street-smart practical experience, dissecting the complex and offering simple steps to create the business and personal life you choose.
Written by Jon Mailer, PROTRADE CEO
Does choosing a new software for your business make you feel overwhelmed? You’re not alone. But, even if you’re overwhelmed by the thought of new software, it’s more important than ever to make sure your business is set up with the right tools for the future.
Over the next ten years, digital technology will transform businesses in more ways than we've experienced in the last 50 years. Therefore, it’s imperative to select and implement the right software for your business. But how do you choose the right software?
In the video at the end of this blog, we discuss how technology will continue transforming businesses. We also look at the logistics: How do you choose the right software? How do you implement it in your business? And, how do you engage your staff to accept the new software? Join us as we dive into what we’ve seen work in terms of implementing job management software into a business successfully. And, also some of the mistakes that we often see. To get you started, here are my top tips from the video below:
How to Choose the Right Job Management Software for your Field Service Business
1. Think long term
The trade and construction industries have been around for centuries and will continue to move forward for centuries. Therefore, when choosing software it is important to pick something that will not only work for your business now, but that will also work for it in the future. Even if it does feel daunting, it’s important to consider what your business will be like in the next three to five years. Ask yourself:
- How will customers interact with and choose your business?
- How will customers communicate with your team?
- How will customers pay?
2. Map out your processes
Software will help you to optimise, automate and streamline the processes you already have in place. To choose the right software, you need to consider the whole customer journey. Start from when the customer first interacts with your business right through to the very end when they pay. By doing this, you’ll identify where you may double up, double handle, over communicate and under communicate. Mapping out your processes helps you identify where you can cut down these steps as well as help you see how software can assist with improving business efficiencies.
3. Shortlist the options
Once you’ve mapped out your processes, get your key people involved and work out which software solutions within your industry match your business. Make a document - down one side list all the steps in your process then have another column for each software you’re considering, go down each of the columns and put a tick or a cross to signify whether particular software has a solution for the specific process or workflow. This helps you to evaluate the options within your industry and weigh up the positives and negatives of similar software.
4. See how the software works for another business
Seeing how a software works for another trade business is a great way to make the final call about whether it is the right fit for your business. Use this time to see how another business utilises the software throughout the whole customer journey. Discover how the business manages the job, its schedule, how it connects with the team on site and how it collects payment. It’s so beneficial to be able to see how a software works in a real-life situation.
5. Engage, implement and train - continuously
Once you’ve chosen the right software for your business, it’s time to set yourself up for success when using it. To do this, you need to engage your team. You need to communicate and get them engaged with the features that directly benefit them. Remember the saying goes, inconvenience is an opportunity. It’s up to you to frame the change in a way that helps your team see how it’s going to help them be superstars in their roles.
The final steps are implementation and training. The best software providers will give you both of these. They’ll come in and look at your processes, look at your systems and then take you through the step-by-step approach to implementing the software into your business.
But a successful software implementation isn’t just about getting it set up and leaving it alone. You need to make sure that you get regular training and that you look at ways the software can continue to support your business that are different to what you’re already using it for.
Find out more about technology in the trades industry and setting your business up for success with the right job management software in the video below.
Learn more about simPRO Partner, PROTRADE.