The Real Reason Your Service Techs Are Struggling on the Job

When you’re already struggling to manage your daily operations, few things are more frustrating than watching your team fail to complete a job on time. It affects your professional relationships, tarnishes your reputation, and hurts your bottom line. 

And worst of all, your techs will get used to not meeting important deadlines. 

When your team expects that something can (or will) go wrong out in the field, their priorities begin to shift. They’ll spend more time trying to anticipate potential problems than getting the actual work done – and when you’re working on a business-critical deployment or time-sensitive project, efficiency is everything.

If you’re struggling to break this cycle, you need to develop systems and processes that help your techs succeed. But first, you have to understand what exactly is getting in their way.

They Don’t Have a Definitive Scope of Work

Transparency is a huge productivity factor in any team environment. When your techs have complete visibility of your workflow, they can spend more time getting the job done onsite with minimal confusion.

Having a definitive scope of work laid out means your techs will have the right tools, team members, time objectives, and mindset needed to finish the job and keep your project on schedule. 

If not, expect things to get messy fast. 

Without a proper plan, your techs will have to scramble to keep up with your sensitive timeline. They may not have the right equipment, qualifications, or skill level required to handle what they’re dealing with on the job that day.

The fix?  

Give your team access to a solution that provides them with detailed, step-by-step instructions of what work needs to be done onsite. This will eliminate any possible confusion and provide clarity of your project’s overall scope.

They’re Wasting Time on Simple Mistakes

Nothing is worse for your team’s morale than to waste valuable time on the job due to a lack of preparation. 

And there are a surprising amount of mistakes to be made. This could mean they:

• Sent a tech with the wrong certifications
• Didn’t have the right tools needed to complete the job
• Arrived at the wrong time because of poor scheduling
• Lost relevant customer information

Keep in mind, small losses like these add up over time. If your techs are having to repeatedly tie up loose ends at the job site, it disrupts their personal workflow and could leave your project behind schedule.

If you want to stop problems like these in their tracks, you need to plan in advance. 

By incorporating a solution into your workflow that gives your team a complete view of your project’s requirements, they’ll make fewer mistakes and boost your bottom line.

They Don't Understand Your Schedule

Do your techs have a complete understanding of your project timeline? Or are they winging it day by day?

Your team may be incredibly capable and equipped for any job, but if they don’t have realistic expectations of your completion date, a project that could have been easily taken care of in a timely manner is all of the sudden dragging out much later than originally planned.

It’s a simple mistake, but it tells customers that they can’t trust you to be consistent or reliable.

Fortunately, the solution isn’t that complicated. Digital schedules allow your team to easily coordinate activities and take any necessary preventative measures needed to stay on task. And when your team knows what to expect, they may even finish ahead of time.

They Have Too Much on Their Plate

This one’s less concrete, but it’s what happens when you fail to address the problems listed above. 

You’ve built your team to make the greatest impact possible. But when your workflow is filled with needless obstacles they have to navigate, they’ll quickly become exhausted. 

Take a moment to break down your tech’s job responsibilities. Now, how many of them involve dealing with:

• Tedious, manual reporting
• Conflicting information
• Scheduling errors
• Communication problems
• Continually shifting goalposts

Hopefully, the answer is zero. But if you’ve scored anywhere in the 1-5 range, you’re in trouble. 

Notice how most of the problems affecting your team are caused by how you approach the management of your daily operations? That’s because their effectiveness relies on how well you set them up for success.

Slow manual processes disrupt your workflow and create barriers for your team. But with a digital operations management platform, you can…

Empower Your Team Members

Yes, giving your techs the opportunity to thrive in their workplace really is the solution. 

The more time they spend dealing with an ambiguous scope or a lack of clarity of what needs to be done, is less time they have to complete their work and exceed customer expectations. Giving your team a way to keep track of all their tasks will keep them from feeling overwhelmed, unprepared, or disjointed.

At Chekhub, we set teams up for success by providing them with all the tools they need to stay connected and get more done. Sign up for a free trial or a demo today!