Whether you’ve recently acquired a business with a long history or you’re looking to bring your current servicing business into the 21st Century – modernising it comes with unique challenges.

Chris Hysinger, owner of Land, Sea & Sky explains how his Bio-medical lens servicing business had to go through some big changes to modernise and why you should still consider doing it.

In this article we will look at how to modernise a servicing business and the steps that Chris took to make sure it ultimately benefits his customers and helps his business to grow.

Why you should modernise your service business

The field service industry is highly competitive and making the most out of the time and resources you have available is vital for the growth of any business, this it’s especially true for servicing businesses.

Costs of doing business are rising

Soaring fuel costs, aggressive pricing strategies from competitors and pressures on margins are making the need to get the most out of every day even more vitally important. You can’t afford to have wasted journeys, no-shows or inefficient job scheduling.

Customer expectations are harder to reach

Customers of servicing businesses expect more. They expect excellent communication from their servicing partner and for them to tell them in advance when they have a service due. In Field Service, communication is key and not meeting customer expectations will leave you with a retention problem.

A lack of operational insight

Servicing businesses need to stop working in the dark. Smart, easy to use real time dashboards have empowered Field Service businesses to see a top down view of their business. Everything from the jobs they have scheduled to their field service finances.

Too much paperwork

Many servicing businesses still use archaic, old fashioned methods for booking jobs, collecting data on site and communicating with their customers. The industry is waking up to the fact they will need to introduce efficiencies to their business and Job Management Software is playing a key role in how to modernise a servicing business.

How Chris Hysinger of Land Sea & Sky modernised his servicing business

Land, Sea & Sky, carries out scheduled servicing and sales of Bio-Medical microscopes. They also service and sell a range of telescopes and binoculars for astronomy and birdwatching enthusiasts.

Founded in 1940 Houston, Texas. Land Sea & Sky has a rich history of servicing nautical equipment. Their business has also evolved to include the scheduled servicing of Bio-medical microscopes for hospitals and clinics. They are one of the largest and most active servicing companies for this equipment in the US.

Chris knew he needed to make changes because their job management process was becoming too burdensome. In our recent interview he shared how he has both respected the legacy of the business he acquired and made some considered changes to modernise it.

See the full interview here:

Bring your business into the current Century

Chris and his microscope servicing team had previously used triplicate forms to log the details of the asset services they carried out for hospitals and clinics. This paper based, old fashioned way of working wasn’t acceptable for him moving forward.

He made the switch to Job Management Software so his team could log all the details of their jobs into their mobile app. This created a seamless link between the team in the field and those in the office. Not to mention the ease in which these details can collected and used later.

“Klipboard has revolutionized our ability to track and complete jobs” – Chris Hysinger, Land Sea & Sky

They are able to find a service record in seconds rather than hours

When there is a need to retrieve details of a customer’s asset or relevant service history. His team are able to view this in minutes rather than routing around filing cabinets or spreadsheets for hours.

Using an all-in-one Job Management Software platform, his team waste little time getting the details they need. By improving how quickly they can gather details of a job they are able to create a more professional and sleek operation for their customers.

Service is a great lead into sales when you have more insight

With Job Management Software his team can log and capture data from their client’s jobs and spot trends and potential issues on the horizon. When they visit the labs and hospitals of their clients to make scheduled services on their microscopes, they are able to recommend new equipment should it be needed, which they also sell.

This extra attention to detail and knowledge of the condition of their equipment, helps Chris and his team build longer lasting relationships with their customers. Naturally they always have their customers needs centre to their decision making, but the added insight you get from using Job Management Software, helps give some clarity and can create opportunities for equipment sales.

Choose your software partner carefully

It was our Asset Management features of Klipboard that caught Chris’ attention. The ease in which you are able to create planned maintenance schedules and record the details of each asset, such as serial numbers and locations, which most aligned with the way Land Sea & Sky operate.

Timing is important when you are looking to make changes within a business. The transition to Klipboard happened at the perfect time for Chris as some of their longer serving team members had retired and new members of his servicing team were very keen to adopt cloud based Job Management Software. They didn’t have to encourage people to use an app to log their work as they were already well onboard with working in a more modern way.

The most important part to get right was finding a software partner who’s feature set best aligns with the way your servicing business operates, rather than choosing a big name brand where you’ll need to make compromises.

Read more: Top 10 mistakes made when choosing Field Service Management Software

The biggest challenge is finding the right staff

When we asked Chris what is the biggest challenge he is currently facing in his business he responded by saying “finding trained staff to carry out the work”.

Finding people who fit the mould of understanding your product range while also empathising with your customer is not unique to Land Sea & Sky. Many Field Service businesses are struggling to find the right recruits for engineering and technician roles.

“Hire on attitude. You can teach almost everything else but attitude”

 

As Chris says “you tend to find you can get technical expects, who know the equipment really well, but unfortunately they often aren’t particularly good at communicating or selling the equipment to other people”.

His advice is to hire on attitude. Chris believes you can teach most people anything about the equipment but you need to have the right attitude. Having a desire to earn and a passion for the work is a must-have attribute according to Chris.

10 tips to modernise a servicing business

Are looking to make some big changes this year and you wish to modernise your servicing business?

Here’s some top tips from us and what we’ve collected from other customers who have made the move to a more digital and better connected workplace.

1. Understand what processes require change
   Do your research. Find out what’s currently holding you back from completing more jobs and giving your customer the best possible experience. Perhaps you are still using paper based methods of recording job details or you are re-entering finance information. Whatever work is taking up hours that you think could be done in minutes should be a priority.
2. Involve your team early
   Get feed back early. Your field team will be well aware of the things that are taking up more time than it should. Ask them about the changes they would like to see made in your servicing business.
3. Understand how change will affect your customers
   Modernising a servicing business will affect your customers both positively and potentially negativity (at first). Make sure your customer support, sales and field teams are fully up to speed on any changes to streamline your operation. If you do they will be able to field any questions and your customers will be able to see the long term benefits.
4. Make your vision clear and sell it to your team
   Why are you doing this?
   That’s a pretty valid question and one you’re likely to be asked. The long term goal for modernising a servicing business should be how it will benefit your customer. Once that’s clear it will be easy to explain this to your team. That should be enough to avoid any push back and get everyone onboard.
5. Understand the potential threats
   Are there processes that some of your customers like to stick to and can they be replicated in the new way of working? Making any kind of change is likely to be a little disruptive at first, so anticipate any problems and mirage their impact by spotting them early and sharing the information.
6. Be brave enough to make big changes
   It’s much easier to not make any changes. Being brave with your service business means pushing against the narrative that ‘it’s fine as it is’. To thrive tomorrow you need to make changes today and introducing a more modern way of scheduling jobs, creating forms, writing reports and invoicing for completed jobs takes bravery.
7. Formalise new processes
   Once you’ve established what parts of your service business needs more efficient processes, you need to set out standards to follow. These don’t need to be complicated but ensuring everyone sticks to the script and completed the right forms and checklists, will save a lot of time later. Use Workflows and Mobile Forms to ensure mandatory fields are completed on the job and compliance is ensured.
8. Ensure you gather feedback from your team and customers
   One of the key benefits of managing your own procedures on Cloud Based Job Management Software is being able to make tweaks as you go.Using clunky and complicated software from some providers requires their team to make changes, create new forms or workflows. Using Cloud based software like Klipboard means you’re in control and can improve it as you go.
9. Learn from others who have modernised a servicing business
   There are plenty of case studies and customer stories of businesses just like yours who have chosen to modernise their servicing business by using Job Management Software. Regardless of the market you operate in you can find examples of other businesses who have streamlined their job management. Click here for more.
10. Keep going
    Change isn’t easy. However, recognising that you need to modernise several parts of your service business, to ensure you continue to offer a great experience to your customer is the first step. With the right software partner you’ll find it easy to hit the ground running and quickly start to see the benefit to your business.

Start today modernising your Field Service business today

To modernise a servicing business you need to make some big decisions but the easiest one should be to start a free trial with Klipboard.

Click here to start a free 14-day trial.