Exceeding customer expectations: 6 job management software features you're probably overlooking

Kully Rathore
December 4, 2023

As field service management businesses face increasing pressures, business owners are looking at how they can do more with tech. 

In the past, firms have tended to prioritise features like job scheduling and inventory and equipment tracking. These features, of course, are essential basics. But what about the unsung job management features you’re probably overlooking? 

Job management platforms like BigChange allow you to create an all-around client experience. But how do you know if you’re missing out on key features? Can’t you just use your usual tools? And how do they work? 

Beyond basic functionality

Field service is entering a new era of rising expectations. Efficiency and reliability are just the starting line – clients now demand highly personalised engagement that sets new standards. In this climate, businesses must gain an edge through the overall client experience.

This calls for solutions that spin traditional job management approaches in a whole new direction… Enter BigChange.

Going beyond scheduling and dispatch basics, BigChange offers integrated capabilities to level up client interactions.

Think:

✅Robust communication channels provide real-time connections.

✅Customised portals cater to individual clients with self-service access.

✅Powerful analytics reveal actionable insights.

With these well-rounded tools boosting engagement, BigChange creates new opportunities to surpass client expectations and nurture lasting relationships. And, ultimately, it equips field service providers to not just keep pace but also set the bar ever higher in this age of rising demands.

Feature #1: Enhanced Customer Communication 🔊

In an industry where satisfaction makes or breaks, robust communication is mandatory. And depending on your sector, customer safety may be reliant on your services and so knowing when engineers will attend, and tracking ETAs, can be paramount.

With job management software, automated customer updates provide real-time job status notifications across the entire service timeline. So, without the need for endless calls, customers are kept in the loop – and if you have a large team and lots of customers, you know this could otherwise be a logistical nightmare.

Plus, this transparency builds trust which contributes to loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendation. 💎

On top of this, instantly capturing customer feedback improves impressions. For example, if a customer isn’t happy with the work, they can flag it and have it rectified. Our clients tend to find that customers are more thorough with feedback when they supply it in written form, soon after job completion. It captures honest views, in the moment so you can act on it and delight customers.

And longer-term, recording this feedback into a job management platform allows you to see trends in customer needs.
With ongoing two-way dialogue, BigChange supports better relationships. Customer inquiries are handled quickly and jobs are tracked. Plus, clients feel heard as businesses gain actionable insights to shape ever-better service experiences.

A screen of the BigChange system showing tracking map with vehicles on.

Feature #2: Personalised Client Portals 💞

Put simply, personalised customer portals give customers control. They create on-demand experiences that let customers request, book and manage their appointments at their convenience.

As well as this, they can track job progress LIVE. And access all the documents they need like service history, photo evidence of completed work, signatures for signed-off work, and invoices when the work is completed. 

All this, right at their fingertips. 🖱️

These easy-to-use and personalised experiences are what customers expect now. Plus, being super transparent with documents and job progress, field service businesses continue to build on trust.

With Big Change, customers get the clarity and control they crave. And this experience pays dividends for repeat custom – as well as time and cost savings internally.

Customer portal with JobWatch

Feature #3: Streamlined Scheduling and Dispatch 🔁

With the speed of delivery being a big contributor to a happy customer, precision scheduling and nimble dispatch separate the heroes from the zeroes. Luckily, Big Change is packed with intelligent algorithms that perfectly assign the right engineer in lightning time.

⚡You set the parameters of what you need so that it rapidly works on your behalf. This means customers aren’t left waiting and you can hit your SLAs. Or, depending on your sector, it could mean the safety of customers. Every minute matters.

It can even prevent them from researching an alternative provider.

Going beyond standard job management software, Big Change provides real-time adjustments. Traffic delays? Urgent add-ons? No problem! You can expect to deliver a swift response and be flexible to meet customer needs with this job management software.

And again, trust is built. This time by minimising disruptions.

Feature #4: Real-Time Analytics for Customer Insight 💹

Where to start with this feature. Real-time analytics is incredibly powerful for the entire business. Here are just a few ways Big Change’s instant intel helps:

🔍Spot trends and behaviours: to develop more customer-centric service delivery that meets ever-changing needs.

🔍Monitor service delivery: to reward excellent delivery internally and reduce issues in service delivery like bottlenecks.

🔍Identify opportunities for personalisation: track every part of the customer journey to see where a refined tailored approach can boost the experience.

So, not only does it allow you to respond in real-time, but it also allows you to pre-empt customer needs and provide better experiences – before customers even have to ask. It means that you can leverage insight to deliver a better experience at every interaction along the customer journey… From the initial quote through to invoicing.

Stock Management

Feature #5: Automate follow-on jobs

As well as automating scheduling and dispatch, Big Change also automates follow-on tasks in just one click. Simply set rules based on job outcomes. Positive results triggering sales opportunities? Done. Equipment failures needing replacement? Handled.

For example, if you’ve attended a job and an engineer flags ‘new boiler needed’, a trigger can be set up to create the new job ‘fit a boiler’ and schedule this in.

Plus, you can even map key details like due dates, locations or contacts from the original job straight into new ones.💪

Stop manually initiating repetitive follow-ups and let smart data connections do the work. Prevent delays and even missed jobs that would otherwise contribute to a poor experience and take productivity and speedy service delivery to a whole new level. 🚀

Feature #6: Compliance and safety protocols

Whilst playing by the rules is non-negotiable – particularly if customer safety is at risk – there are ways to make meeting standards much easier.

For example, job management software can help you to:

📃 Documents easily accessible for retrieving past history – this is fully audited.

✒ Create standardised job sheets that follow safety protocols and prompt engineers if they fail to tick a box.

🔍 Track certifications and training requirements.

The result? You can ensure you tick every compliance box, avoid fines, and impress clients.

Client Success Stories: A spotlight on Celsius 🔦

Celsius plumbing and heating, a plumbing and heating company based in Edinburgh, wanted to provide homeowners with the same exceptional service delivery that they normally reserved for demanding ‘big contract’ commercial clients. 

The challenge was working out how to achieve this as a relatively small and new player in the market. Enter: job management software. ✨ With Big Change’s tech, Celsius completely changed its processes.

The results are impressive:

  • 💥We used to average 6 jobs a day, but now we are doing 7 or 8, meaning that our engineers are often 30% more productive.
  • 💥Our service booking success rate increased from 20% to 90%.
  • 💥Customers love the system. It’s really easy to book a date and time online and with ETA notifications on the day they know when an engineer will arrive.

“In the office, the productivity gains are even greater. With a single, paperless system, BigChange has not just cut administrative work but, through automation, we have significantly reduced the customer calls we make. Saving all that wasted time – we are certainly 40% more efficient – it has in effect freed up two members of staff to focus on important things like customer service.”

📕Read more about this here. Or, check out more success stories from hundreds of peers.

Elevating the client experience with job management software 

It’s easy to see how each of these features alone support service delivery. But together, the results speak for themselves. There are literally hundreds of field service businesses benefiting from job management software today.

From constant, clear communication, through to personalised self-service portals, customers are nurtured throughout service delivery. You can start to see why trust is important. It is a big part of building relationships and promoting loyalty for both new and existing customers that may be referred from your existing, delighted customer base.

And the tech doesn’t stop there. It future-proofs business success by allowing you to tap into real-time analytics and spot customer behaviour trends early so you can always meet needs.
The proof of all this is just a click away. 🖱️  Book a demo with Big Change today and we’ll share first-hand how field service businesses transform customer experiences.

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