We are delighted to have had our supplier application accepted for G Cloud 12 and accordingly, we are now listed on the governments Digital Market Place. This is where public sector buyers can purchase our cloud field service management solution without the need to undertake prior screening, as we meet the standards required by the government.

Year after year we have witnessed growing developments to the technologies available on the market, for not only the Field Service Industry, but the entire mobile workforce industry. Having the ability to completely mobilise your workforce and automate your processes has never been so desirable and this is set to continue throughout 2019.

For the third year running, the Field Service Summit UK will bring together service leadership professionals to discuss the latest trends and the strategies that drive us towards service excellence across a range of industries. 

There are many benefits to introducing Planning or Scheduling options to your business, for back-office workers, mobile engineers, managers, customers and ultimately shareholders too.

It’s been the talk of the last few months, but what exactly is ‘GDPR’ and how will it impact your business? We have compiled together a number of frequently asked questions to help eliminate any uncertainties around the new law. 

It is important to define what is meant by each of these terms to ensure that you are investing in a solution that is right for your service delivery; you need to be fully aware of what your chosen scheduling system is, and is not, capable of.

To Schedule or Not to Schedule?

For a number of companies, the cost and potential business disruption of implementing a Scheduling Solution is off-putting. Many managers would readily admit that they “make do” with an existing system already in place, even if it doesn’t completely fulfil the needs of their business.

The Top 5 Reasons you Should Move to the Cloud this Year

No, we are not talking about those things in the sky. You are probably aware that the cloud is a secure way to store your data, files and documents all in one place rather than storing it locally, on hard drives or within servers. More specifically to field service, it’s a way you can access your service management system anytime, anywhere and know your customer data is secure. 

SaaS vs. On-premise: Is cloud-based software really less expensive than buying software to run in-house?

It doesn’t go unnoticed that there is some scepticism about the cost benefits of operating cloud-based, “software-as-a-service”. It’s understandable when you compare to scenarios where you “buy once, use forever”. Surely, it’s always “cheaper to buy than rent” I hear you say?

How to get the right engineer to the right customer... at the right time!

This is a question that Field Service Managers ask us all the time and there certainly isn’t a simple answer. What is crucial however, is the co-ordination and usage of key data related to field service. Some data is relatively static and some data is quite the opposite i.e. it’s live and very, very recent.

How can field service software create happy customers and repeat business?

Customers always seek good value but in recent surveys, “value for money” is not the first criteria for delivering customer satisfaction. In field service, surveys consistently tell us that “good quality service” is what people most value. This term is a little vague however; what does it mean? And how can software help deliver ‘good customer service’ and ‘happy customers’?

The G Cloud Framework helps the public-sector purchase cloud technology and support that meets the standards required from local authorities and the wider public sector. With a strong focus on how secure the services are and where they store their data, buying cloud services through this framework is faster and cheaper than entering into individual procurement contracts.

At Solarvista we’re fiercely proud to deliver the very best in field service management software and it is our independence that enables us to maintain the single minded focus needed to achieve this goal so successfully. We do not have conflicting interests, from the board room to the front desk our manager is ‘the task in hand’ – to develop and supply the very best field service management software.

The BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) debate is one that has received much coverage in recent months with some in the service sector as well as other industries arguing that BYOD is the only way forward for businesses looking to compete effectively and offer the most efficient customer service and increased employee satisfaction. But what is BYOD? What is the impact on the business, the workers, and the customers?

The BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) debate is one that has received much coverage in recent months with some in the service sector as well as other industries arguing that BYOD is the only way forward for businesses looking to compete effectively and offer the most efficient customer service and increased employee satisfaction. But what is BYOD? What is the impact on the business, the workers, and the customers?

I suppose I have always been a “power user” when it came to phones. I’d moved from an old “feature phone” to a “smartphone” way back when the Windows Mobile/Pocket PC phones came out, notably in my case an O2 XDA. It seemed to be the way forward but then when Apple launched the iPhone, it was such a dramatic jump in ease of use, compared to a stylus (yes, stylus – seems bizarre now!) driven phone to a finger/touch driven phone. It made everything so easy… photos, web and especially music. And installing apps became so easy (compared to copying over ‘installer’ exe files and “running” them).

At Solarvista, we launched our first mobile app way back in 2002, called Mobile Worker. It was designed to operate as field service mobile application with our existing field service management back office ERP suite. It did it very well. But… that’s all it did. Yes, you could receive jobs. Yes, you could order parts. Yes, you could capture signatures, take pictures etc. And it worked offline as well as online. In fact it did all of the things that we could think that service technicians wanted to do. It was (and still is) a great application. In fact, it’s used to this day for thousands of users.

Leading edge practitioners have long recognised that effective visible inventory management and stock control are very different from simple inventory reduction. As a result of a sophisticated inventory management system, a world class cost-effective service operation can differentiate itself from the competition, lower costs and drive up customer satisfaction.

As one of the founders of Solarvista Software, a leading UK-based developer of field service management software, I’ve been involved in hundreds of service management software implementation projects, large and small, complex and simple. These implementations are usually shaped as a result of the pre-sale procurement process with the “RFP” or Request for Proposal being at the heart of the “definition”. When software was purchased “the old way”, i.e. with large commitments (the “license fee” and let’s face it, “heavy contracts”) in advance, this made perfect sense. The customer wanted to know what they were getting and be sure of it. Of course, a completely understandable position. These RFP documents are usually a collection of individual requirements, gathered from submissions made by multiple individuals within the organisation.