As more and more service-based businesses move from sheets of paper to the cloud (where their competitors are), we’ve seen a big change.
The jobber vs Workiz conversation has really picked up steam in the last 5 years. HVAC, cleaning, plumbing, service, power washing — we’re seeing business owners from all different types of industries build their daily workflow around field service software for their small businesses. And of course, to rank the two in comparison, it’s never really about “what’s the best tool to use” — it always boils down to what use case fits your business the best. And more often than not, that absolutely extends to what feature category is most important for a field service software system.
What Field Service Businesses Need
The basic need for most service companies today is the same for almost all. Scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and customer communication. Where the meaning of built “nowadays” stretches to something that (in-place) extends how many devices your team can work from: vans, job sites, residences, field work (wherever the paper workflow follows) — with apps built in the now, that extend your service plans to modern devices, in the future.
It’s not “does this do scheduling?” asked to your co-founder or service manager.
The real question is: how does this tool allow me to gain complexity, gain insight, gain speed, and still look and work like an app that my crew will adopt?
The Other Things: Linear vs Modular
The workflows of some field platforms can seem really positioned in a straightforward (simple?) way: booking → dispatch → invoice. Other players head down a different path in a modular (customizable) way, allowing a service-driven business to build its process into the system, as it needs to function.
Not one is better or worse, really.
If you’re running small with one or two office members, Linear might be the best fit because you have more control, and processes can be repeated every time.
If you’re scaling quickly with office staff being onboarded all the time, you might consider modular, letting your dispatchers fly, and process evolve. Great can become better or worse, but at least you can make it great really quickly, you know?
Up until now, the other things are absolutely more important to consider than the list of features that can be edited and stripped to either flow in a linear or modular way.
Then, The Communication Layer
I think it’s pretty safe to say that, in a service-driven business today, you can’t quite consider yourself simply booking jobs any longer. You’re in a business that needs to talk with customers. All the time.
And much like some of the other features, two-way texting, both of you sharing job progress, and alerts aren’t nice anymore — they’re somewhat expected. Where this conversation gets sort of muddied is in what the tools do with the sweet data points that they create. Data points that are created from the constant conversation happening… in the app.
Last Bit
The comparison chat will always be that between the two, to some, but the right opportunity for you and your business is how you operate when you operate: the pace, the crews or desk members, and need for paper, processes — and service experience to find a bit of process within, so that things are done right for you, and your customers.
Read more on http://fetchthebusiness.com.
