[Continued from Part 1]
Planning Lunch into the Route
Your team must take lunch and rest breaks somewhere along the route and not all field services work this into the plan. Sure, there may be 30-60 minutes left open between services for lunch, but do you know where your team is going to stop?
What if there are no decent fast meal options near where their last pre-lunch service or their next post-lunch service are located? What if there's nowhere friendly to sit down and enjoy a meal? What if your team decides to drive 15 minutes off-route to find a lunch stop?
These situations can put a serious kink in either your schedule or your team morale. The right answer for a smart field service business is to make lunch part of the planned route. Where will your service team be around lunchtime? Where will they want to stop? Check out maps and check-in with your team to find out, then plan your daily routes accordingly.
Smart Customer Scheduling Management
Does your business allow customers to schedule their own services or set their schedule preferences? If so, you don't have to give them 100% of the possible options for schedule selection. Instead, think carefully about how you want customers to schedule.
Allowing each person to pick any time slot that's not already claimed is impractical. It doesn't take into account region and routes for the service teams and could have you rushing all the way across town from one service to another. Even service windows of this nature are risky. The key is to control which slots are open and available to choose from.
You might, for example, ask customers to enter their zip-codes before scheduling. Then offer them scheduling blocks based on where their location fits into your route plans.
If there's been a cancellation, only offer nearby customers the slot so that their schedule doesn't throw off the route. Be sure plan routes that alternate weekdays so that each person has a chance to schedule during a time-of-day that works for them.
Adaptive En-Route Navigation
Finally, be prepared to adapt your routes while vehicles are on the road. Accidents, bad traffic, and construction can all cause devastating service delays but they can also often be avoided simply by taking an alternate route.
Your navigation software can help to a certain extent, but you need a solution that is adaptive to both changing service schedule and changing road conditions.
Many teams use HQ-coordinated navigation while others rely on advanced field service nav software. Whatever solution you choose via tech and logistics, the important thing is that drivers get the alternate route guidance they need that coordinates with both the service schedule and the need to avoid traffic slow-downs.
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Fleet management is comprised of a professional collection of skills and strategies that, together, make a highly efficient field services fleet. From having the right vehicles to planning your service schedule, expertly managing your fleet requires forethought, technology, and coordination to provide great services to your customers.
Here at Wilmar, Inc., we specialize in fleet management solutions that make your field service fleet more efficient from top to bottom.
We will be glad to help you put together the ideal fleet of vehicles, equip them with the technology and gear you need, and keep each vehicle superbly maintained so that you can focus on what you do best: Providing excellent field services to your customers.
Contact us today to discuss more tactics to improve the efficiency of your field services fleet, tactics, and fleet management strategies. Our team is looking forward to hearing from you.
