It’s not easy running a service maintenance business. Rising fuel costs, global supply chain issues and increased energy prices are putting added pressure on your business to remain profitable.

However, all is not lost. Here’s 5 cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software or CMMS software as it’s also known, to increase productivity within your team and future proof your business.

How fuel prices are affecting your service business

In January 2020 the price for a litre of petrol had dropped to levels seen around in September 2016 (112.92p). However, since then it has been rising sharply and between January 2022 and March 2022, it’s increased by 20% (176p).

This rise is significant enough to make most service managers think about the journeys their teams are making and how efficient their route planning is.

A no-show or a mistake made on the job leading to an additional visits being required, now cost your business a lot more than just wasted time. 

How can you reduce the impact rising fuel costs have on your service business

Unfortunately, you don’t have much say in the cost of fuel, but you do have a lot of influence on how efficiently you can run your service maintenance business.

You can make some smart choices for your business and mitigate the impact rising fuel costs and other challenges have on your business.

For example with Maintenance Planning Software you can:

• Plan your work schedule more efficiently
• Reduce the time spent on admin
• Limit communication breakdowns with your customers
• Win more work with professional looking quotes
• Implement time saving automated notifications for your team and your customers

To see how other service businesses are managing this, check out the following article from Klipboard’s Kellyjoe: Read more.

Adding Maintenance Planning Software or CMMS software, to your service maintenance business can help you improve productivity and limit wasted time and money.

What is Maintenance Planning Software or CMMS?

Even before the recent rise of fuel costs and energy prices, you’ve most likely been aware of the need to upgrade your software or improve your processes.

Perhaps you have been using an older, dated software platform that is grinding to a halt or even in some cases still using paper based methods of data collection and job sheets.

Maintenance Planning Software gives your business a chance to run more efficiently. It greatly improves the visibility you have of your service business, allowing you to create jobs, schedule them and dispatch the details to your team more efficient.

5 cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software

There are many benefits to upgrading to modern, cloud based, Job Management Software. Here are a few cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software that are particularly beneficial during these difficult times.

1. Have fewer wasted journeys

Reduce the financial impact a no-show or wasted journey has on your business by improving your communication.

Leaving a job booking to chance by simply arriving on the day and presuming the client knows you’re on the way, leaves you and your team exposed to making a trip that you didn’t need to make.

When your team arrives on site and your customer isn’t available, that’s one less job you didn’t manage to complete today.

For more on reducing no-shows read the article below 

How to reduce no-shows for Field Service jobs

The cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software for job confirmations

Automated Customer Communications enable you to send reminders to your customer at several stages of a job. You can set them up upon the job booking, when your team is on the way and send a thank you message when the work is complete.

These are sent via SMS or Email and are very easy to set up. They can be made bespoke for each client too, so if there's particular messaging you want to include for one client but not another, that's in your control.

In most cases you don’t need to be a tech-wizard to set them up. Klipboard's Automated Customer Communications are simple to set up and you can even use our pre-loaded templates if they are suitable for you.

Reduce wasted journeys by keeping everyone in the loop using Maintenance Planning Software with Automated Customer Communications.

2. More Efficient Route Planning

With the rising costs of fuel prices, efficient route planning is going to be vital in running a successful service business. 

A successful service business has to balance the need to carry out all the scheduled maintenance calls you have whilst also being alert to emergency call outs for your customer.

The cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software for route planning

Route Planning Tools are pretty standard in Maintenance Planning software. It allows your workforce to spend more time on the job and less time on the road. 

Route Planning gives you complete visibility of where you team is and who would be ideal for a last minute job or emergency call out. 

Maintenance Planning Software gives you more clarity of the schedule for each team member, so you’re not overloading some team members when there could be a better person to allocate the job to.

3. Spend less time resolving issues

A Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) schedule is a great way to develop a long lasting relationship with a customer and will mean your management team will have a better understanding of the particular needs of that customer.

PPM schedules are difficult to build into your process without Maintenance Planning Software. They require recurring job notifications and you’ll need access to all of the asset details and service history on that job in order to carry out the work quickly and to a high standard.

For more on what a PPM schedule is and how to set them up check out the article below:

What is a PPM schedule?

The long term benefits of managing a PPM schedule are huge. The trust and improved relationship developed when your team has a good understanding of a client's location can help resolve issues quickly.

This can reduce payment disputes and improve cash flow.

The cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software for PPM management

Running a well organised PPM schedule takes a lot of planning.

To schedule and carry out the planned maintenance of what could be dozens of assets across just as many locations, without Maintenance Planning Software would be an admin nightmare.

Calendar invites, emails, text messages, documents, PDFs, maps, schematics, technical drawings, inventory lists, service histories, will all have to be collected, stored and sent to your team when required. If these aren’t in one system you’ll find yourself spending more time collecting the information, then carry out the work.

Great news. It doesn’t have to be so complicated. 

Maintenance Planning Software allows you to easily manage a planned preventative maintenance schedule by keeping all the details essential for carrying out the work close to hand and easily shareable.

All you have to do is set up a recurring job and the software will send out notifications to the customer and your team members when a service is due.

Your team will arrive on site with everything they need to do a great job and increase the reputation and trust your customer has with your service business. 

4. Improved job profitability

How much is each job costing you?

If you’re not really sure then you’re missing a trick and Maintenance Planning Software could uncover some fascinating insights into your business.

Everything, from the amount of hours your team spends not the job, to the time it takes to get there, the cost and margin of the parts and equipment used, all of this plays a role in how profitable each job is.

The cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software for cost management

CMMS software will record everything related to each job. The cost of parts, labour hours, travel costs and other expenses can be allocated to each job.

This level of detail on the profitability on each job is vital when every penny counts. 

Gain better insight into the value of each job and even offer advice to your customers on the value of a planned maintenance schedule vs reactive maintenance. You're able to do this with maintenance planning software by quickly gathering the costs involved in each job and reporting on them.

5. Forecast spend on parts

Do you know the impact the Global Supply Chain is going to have on your servicing business?

Circuit boards, chip sets, imported parts, replacement units are already showing signs of being difficult to obtain. This will particularly impact businesses who order parts from overseas.

Shortages in supply traditionally inflate prices and the effect can fluctuate. That’s why it’s important to have a good grasp of what you have in stock.

Limit over stocking items, don’t get caught needing a part to repair an asset and try to avoid long waits for purchased parts.

The cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software for inventory management

Mismanagement of your inventory can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

Above everything else it will affect your field team’s ability to complete a service. Arriving on site only to find a miss-count of the parts required to carry out a repair could extend the downtime of that asset.

This affects the confidence your client has in your ability to fix the issue and potentially harm your on-going relationship.

Your First-time Fix Rate is vitally important to maintain a good relationship with your customer and part availability plays a huge role in that.

For more on improving your First-time Fix Rate read the article below 

First-time Fix Rate hurdles and how to clear them

Maintenance Planning Software helps you clearly see the total parts you have and the exact location they have been assigned to, even down to which van you will find them in.

You can set minimum stock levels so you can be alerted to low stock of parts you either use regularly or that you know you might need in the not to distance future.

Now is the time to sharpen up and become more efficient

It can feel quite daunting having to deal with these challenges and keep up with the work load you already have, but there's reasons to be optimistic.

Moving towards a more streamlined and efficient business is a smart move regardless of the situation with fuel and energy prices.

The cost saving benefits of maintenance planning software are being felt now even more so because of the backdrop of these challenges.

The direction of travel for many field service business, stuck in the old ways of the past has been moving towards a more automated and efficient software driven future.