Scheduling Tips for the Field Service Industry

Scheduling multiple employees for jobs around your area can be time-consuming and frustrating. With traditional scheduling means, it can leave room for error and inefficiencies. For example, manually scheduling without considering job type and your crew’s abilities can leave room for mix-ups, confusion and time wasted on the road.

There are some ways in which you can improve your scheduling practices to make the most of your time and your crew’s skills every day. Here are the steps to field service industry scheduling with intuitive software:

Schedule According to Service Type

Your business likely offers a variety of services within the landscaping category. While some customers may be looking for lawn maintenance, others might be looking for tree care. In this case, it’s not always possible or efficient to have the same crew tend to every service you offer. Instead, schedule according to service type, handpicking the right crew for every lawn maintenance job.

To do this, you need to be able to filter through every job to find all the jobs suitable for that crew and that day. So, to begin your streamlined scheduling process, filter your jobs by job type.

Search Jobs By Area

Next, filter or search for upcoming jobs within the chosen service category by area. By doing this, you can get a quick glance at all the similar jobs within a certain zip code or route. This allows you to schedule your team’s day without having to account for significant travel time.

Map Results to Visually Schedule

Coordinate multiple jobs into a single area. After filtering jobs by service type and area, it’s best to map the results. By doing this, you are able to visually see all the unscheduled and scheduled tree jobs in that area, rather than guessing at which addresses are close to one another (or worse, searching every address location manually). This helps determine when it is the most efficient day and time to schedule that service alongside your services that are already scheduled. For a grouping of unscheduled jobs, you can select which job pins on the map that you’d like to schedule and, with just a few clicks, you’ve grouped similar location jobs for the same date.

This provides the best route for your team that allows them to get as much done as possible without spending hours on the road and dollars on extra gas, which leads to our next point…

Next, Route The Jobs Closest In Proximity

When looking at the mapped job results, you can choose the jobs that are closest in proximity and assign the same crew to these jobs. This makes it easy to develop a schedule every week that makes the most of your crew’s time in the field, rather than wasting time on the road.

With an intuitive scheduler, you can easily balance the capabilities of your team with availability, customer expectations, and efficiency thanks to specific scheduling software that automatically filters and schedule with the click of a button.

Not all jobs are created equal. By being able to schedule based on service type and location, you can allocate the correct resources to every job. This ensures that the right equipment and team members are at the job, allowing you to maintain a high response time. This, in turn, increases customer satisfaction and efficiency, both of which contribute to better profit margins (directly or indirectly). In addition, you can increase your profit margins by reducing the amount of travel time and stops that your crew has to make in a day with filtered scheduling services!

The Job Scheduler Designed for Field Service Businesses

Routing and job scheduling software like Arborgold can help automate each of these steps and help your business maximize productivity. Capabilities within the Arborgold scheduling software allows for specific job scheduling that treats every task differently. Customized jobs can ensure that the right resources are allocated to the different services that your business provides, from lawn mowing to landscape design consultations.

Make one of your most time-consuming tasks so much easier with Arborgold, the solution designed with the features and benefits that small lawn care businesses need to grow.

Features of Arborgold

• Mobile crew app
• Location-based scheduling solutions
• Automatic scheduling for recurring jobs
• Drag and drop job scheduling
• Job scheduling filters
• Arborgold Successor Service Scheduling

Benefits of Arborgold

• Reduce the time and expenses associated with job scheduling that doesn’t take location into account.
• Quick and easy scheduling with drag and drop functions allow users to see a whole day’s schedule at a glance.
• Don’t double-book or forget recurring services with the ability to schedule recurring appointments automatically. Appointments can be set to repeat on daily, weekly, monthly or custom schedules and managed on an easy to use calendar.
• Scheduling updates are communicated seamlessly through the app, rather than notifying personnel separately.
• Cloud-based software reduces the opportunity for scheduling mix-ups and confusion and instead delivers a high-quality experience for your customers and team.
• Location and service type filtering allows for quick scheduling that takes team skill sets and availability into account.
• Service follow-ups are a great business practice, as they benefit your customers by providing reminders and easy booking, while also helping you build upon your current customer base. Rather than trying to remember everything manually, the software can automatically send out a reminder to the appropriate customers and job types.
• Arborgold’s Successor Service Scheduling allows the ability to create multi-service work orders that automatically follow each preceding task when each service is completed.
• Timely services and service reminders show your customers that you care and leave them with a lasting positive impression of your high level of customer service. This, in turn, encourages repeat customers and word of mouth.
• Enhances employee satisfaction by taking availability into account, reducing time in traffic and reducing confusion and scheduling mistakes.

Make the most of your schedule with field service scheduling software. Balance crew availability, efficiency principles and customer expectations all in a few clicks with integrated and filters job scheduling. To learn more about Arborgold’s scheduling software and take a tour of all the functionalities offered, click here!