Essential features for Telecoms Servicing Software

Telecoms servicing software has revolutionised the telecoms hardware asset recovery, test and repair industry.

From high intuitive Asset Management tools, to more efficient field team job scheduling. Adding field service software to your business will supercharge your Telecoms field service operation. Here’s a list of the essential features you’ll need to help you pick the right provider.

What is Telecoms Servicing Software?

Managing your field service jobs creates a lot of admin and completing all your customer jobs, even the unexpected emergency call-outs can be very complicated without Telecoms Servicing Software, this may also be known as Field Service Management (FSM) software.

Plans change, the scope of projects may broaden and without a good way of achieving complete visibility of your operation its difficult to maintain the condition of your customers telecommunication equipment.

FSM software simplifies the process of job scheduling. It empowers your team so they can arrive on site with all the information they need and with additional field service finance integration, it will streamline the process of quoting and invoicing your customers.

Connect your team in the office to those in the field and improve how customer information is shared around your business by using Field Service Management software.

This article highlights the essential features you need from your Telecoms Service Software, if you would like to know about FSM software you can find that here. Learn more.

How Telecoms Field Service businesses benefit from using Telecoms servicing software

FSM software is used in almost every Field Service industry and is especially beneficial in the Telecoms hardware servicing sector. It serves to meet the challenges most commonly found in the Telecom servicing industry.

Whether your engineers are responsible for VHF, UHF, SCADA systems, mobile data and network transmitters or any other type of Telecoms hardware, your team will need to meet the needs of your clients, complete reports, inspections, repairs and often with very particular demands.

The importance of keeping Telecoms hardware in top condition was highlighted in a report from McKinsey & Company where they discovered around 85% of energy is wasted in some telecoms equipment from heat loss in power amplifiers, when equipment is kept idling and no mobile data is being transmitted. Inefficiencies in systems such as rectifiers, batteries and cooling systems are costly for Telecoms businesses.

The International Telecommunication Union, stated that the Telecommunications industry will have to reduce their carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions by 45% between 2020 and 2030. If they wish to comply with the Paris Agreement. This will mean replacing equipment for less polluting alternatives and ensuring the equipment currently in operation is operating at required emission levels.

Below you’ll find a list of the typical challenges you might face in Telecoms servicing and how Telecoms servicing software can help meet these challenges and improve your service.

“85 percent (of energy) is wasted because of heat loss in power amplifiers, equipment kept idling when there is no data transmission, and inefficiency in systems such as rectifiers, cooling systems, and battery units.” – McKinsey & Company

Quality Control

Telecom equipment is very expensive to repair. Your clients would have made a significant investment in their equipment so it’s in their best interests to keep it operating at peak levels maintaining a high residual value.

Telecoms servicing software helps those who install and service hardware to ensure each asset has its own inspection and servicing schedule. Automated service notifications make sure an asset is never missed. These automated communications are easily created within the software platform and can be bespoke for each client or asset.

Many Telecoms businesses use Telecoms servicing software to put their clients assets on a Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) schedule. This is a great way to ensure each asset is serviced before it fails. 

This proactive approach to maintenance is only achievable with a system in place that allows you to easily manage multiple assets and their unique schedules. You can read more about what an PPM schedule is, how to set one up and why more businesses like yours use Klipboard to do it in our article. Learn more.

Telecoms equipment is used by critical services

In many cases Telecom equipment is used in emergency services and business critical situations.

Any period of downtime can do significant harm to your customers reputation, keeping their service levels at a maximum standard is often the minimum expectation.

Telecom hardware servicing businesses need to be organised on two fronts:

1. Their ability to run a regular installation and inspection schedule
2. Their speed of response when reacting to an emergency call out

When a piece of business critical equipment fails your customer expects you to respond quickly. How will you know who to send on the job if you don’t have complete oversight over your business?

Many businesses like yours use Telecoms Servicing Software to view at a glance the availability of their field engineers. They can do this in a number of ways such as: engineer skill set; proximity to the job; and familiarity with the client or asset.

Telecoms Servicing Software allows the office team to find the right person, to enables them to send all the details of the job over to the engineer instantly through their mobile app and keep the client informed with automated communications.

Recruiting and retaining Telecoms Field Service Engineers

It’s hard to find the right people. It’s even harder to replace a good employee. 

When you up-skill and support your team you’re more likely to retain their talents. Engineers will know what software their peers are working with and what systems they use. It’s imperative to give your field and office teams the right tools for the job.

Field Service Management software takes a lot of the burden of admin and time management off your team. It helps avoid burnout and creates a more predictable and manageable workload for your team.

Maintaining a high First Time Fix Rate

Your First Time Fix Rate (FTFR) is your ability to complete a repair or service at the first time of asking. A low FTFR will result in longer than expected periods of downtime for your customer and could significantly effect customer satisfaction.

Many businesses use Telecoms Servicing Software to ensure their FTFR remains high by reducing human errors in scheduling and ensuring they have the correct inventory and skills to complete the job.

Essential FSM features for Telecoms Servicing businesses

Telecoms servicing businesses need a particular set of features from their Field Service Management Software.

Often Telecoms servicing software providers will have a very impressive list of features included in their software but not all of them are essential and to be successful a Telecoms servicing businesses needs to ensure their software has the following features:

Job Scheduling

This is a basic and essential feature. Telecoms hardware servicing businesses need to be able to manage the allocation of jobs and the workload of their team.

Office teams and management need to be able to see at a glance who is available and schedule both recurring essential maintenance and respond to emergency call outs.

Klipboard’s Drag and Drop scheduler helps your team see what jobs they have scheduled through their app and your office team can quickly and easily plan out the work. This saves hours of time spend writing emails, sending documents or traveling back to the office to collect or complete jobs. Everything is done online, quickly and easily. Learn more.

Asset Service Scheduling

Many of your jobs will be repeat or recurring jobs.

A vital feature for Telecoms hardware servicing businesses is the ability to create a schedule for a unique asset – not just a client or location.

Klipboard understand that some Telecoms equipment might require its own planned maintenance service schedule. That’s why we’ve created the feature to set these recurring jobs at a frequency set by you and your team. 

In a few simple steps you can create a schedule and ensure the communications to your team and your client are automated. Learn more.

GPS Tracking

It’s much easier to anticipate the availability of your team when you can seen everyone in real time. 

This feature helps provide some clarity and ensures you send the right person to the job. A live status feed can show when they are en-route, started a job or completed it. Klipboard allows you to see where each field team worker is during their job cycle. Learn more.

Asset Management

This feature is absolutely key when choosing a Telecoms Servicing Software provider for your Telcoms hardware servicing business.

Consider a lack of Asset Management as a deal breaker when putting together your shortlist.

You need a comprehensive Asset Management system to keep up with the condition and servicing schedules of your client’s assets. 

Office and Field teams need to be able to register assets onto your system and your team needs to be able to quickly see the location, condition and last serviced dates of those assets instantly. 

Klipboard allows you to create an asset register with ease. These can be quickly imported or your field team member can perform an onsite survey and capture all the relevant data on the asset including photos, in the field using the Klipboard App. Learn more.

These are some of the details you can add to each asset:

• Installation Date
• Location of Asset
• Product Code
• Serial Number
• Reference Number
• Next Service Date
• Warranty Expiry Date
• And more…

Mobile Forms

Mobile Forms help telecoms hardware servicing businesses meet two very specific challenges.

To ensure your team completes the Telecommunication Compliance testing to meet standards they will need to complete an intensive survey, test or inspection for certification.

Mobile Forms allow you to build out workflows that your teams must follow. That means if you have a specific set of tests your engineer needs to perform to certify the equipment, you can makes mandatory fields to ensure that task is signed off before completing the job.

The other challenge is health and safety. This is particularly important for Telecoms business as your engineers can be asked to work at height or with rope access (IRATA).

You can create Health & Safety surveys to fill out for each job ensure the correct checks are made every time.

The details entered in these mobile forms are synced back with your team in the office so as soon as the job is complete your back office knows and the invoice for the work can be raised. This greatly speeds up reporting and being paid for the work you complete.

Inventory Management

To successfully maintain Telecoms equipment you’ll need to be on top of your inventory. You don’t have the luxury of waiting for parts to come back into stock when a part failure may result in downtime of equipment.

You need Inventory Management within your Telecoms Servicing Software so your engineers have an accurate picture of what’s available to them and the locations those parts are held.

Budget with more confidence and use your inventory more effectively. The fast moving nature of Telecoms means parts are soon made redundant and new versions are rolled out. Overstocking can be as costly as under stocking an item so it’s important to get the balance right.

A smart Inventory Management System linked to your job management software system will allow you to calculate job costs, margins and locate the items when you need them.

Klipboard even adds this functionality to our mobile app, this allows you engineers to see where inventory is even when they are on the go. When a job has been assigned and synced with the mobile app it will display any inventory stock allocated to that job. They will know what’s available to them and any parts used will be deducted from your inventory in real time.

Find the right Telecoms Servicing Software and try it out for yourself

Make a shortlist of the essential features you know you’ll need from your Telecoms Servicing Software and build a list of potential suppliers.

Every essential feature you can see in this list is available on Klipboard – Start a FREE TRIAL and see for yourself.