Back to all BlogsThe Definitive Guide to Elevator Service Software
There’s lots of ups and downs when servicing Elevators and Lifts. You’ve got to manage ongoing planned preventative maintenance schedules while also having the operational visibility to quickly respond to call outs by your customers.
Elevator Service Software is used by many servicing businesses to provide a platform to book new jobs, raise quotes and invoices and give a more structured and organized view of their operation.
Contents:
- What is Elevator Service Software?
- How the big challenges of Elevator Servicing are met by software
- How to manage PPM Schedules with Elevator Service Software
- How Elevator Service Software gives you greater insight
- Elevator Service Software gives your Engineers access to more on the go
- How Elevator Service Software helps you deliver real time communication
What is Elevator Service Software?
Lift and Elevator servicing businesses need a way to efficiently schedule routine maintenance and call outs for repairs of their customers equipment. Managing a team of Lift Engineers and the admin that’s created from servicing jobs can be very time consuming, that’s why servicing businesses turn to Elevator Service Software.
Elevator Service Software providers such as Klipboard offer a web and mobile app based platform, This allows your team to access details of customer records, job scheduling, quoting, invoicing, inventory, job routing, time tracking and more. Intuitive Dashboards help to display the information in a way that makes it easy to gain insights into your business and automated SMS and Email customer communications ensure your customer is informed of every booking and upcoming job.
How the big challenges of Elevator Servicing are met by software
The effects of lift or elevator downtime can put a lot of pressure on an Elevator Servicing business. They need to ensure the equipment is back in operational condition and all further maintenance and repairs meet the highest compliance standards. Here are some of the biggest challenges faced by Elevator Servicing businesses and how they are solved by Elevator Servicing Software.
Responding quickly to call outs
Lifts and Elevators are in frequent use and from time to time they will fail. When that happens they expect fast response times from their lift servicing partner.
Elevator Servicing Software allows you to quickly identify the right person to assign to the job and effortlessly get the details over to that engineer. Job scheduling & dispatch software gives you a complete view of your team’s schedule, so you can see who’s currently on a job and where space can be made in the schedule to respond to a call out. Any changes you make to the schedule are updated in real time and synced with the team. No more schedule confusion, double booking or mistakes that can cause further disruption.
Stop unnecessary trips and wasted fuel
Rising fuel costs are affecting the profitability of each job. You can’t afford to make unnecessary trips, using inefficient routes or spend too much time between jobs.
Job scheduling efficiency and profitability is directly tied to how much visibility you have of your Lift Engineering team’s locations and schedule. To send the right person to a job and anticipate availability you need to be able to monitor the progress of your jobs from start to finish. Elevator Servicing Software provides complete visibility of your team, helps you optimize your day to day operation, creates savings in time and fuel costs by giving you the ability to assign the right person and get them on the most efficient route to the job.
Ensuring compliance standards are met
It’s a legal requirement in most countries for Lifting Equipment, Escalators and Elevators to be serviced and inspected regularly.
In some countries such as the UK it’s a legal requirement to carry out this work every 6 months. In the US there are similar legal requirements and Municipal Codes that escalators, elevators and lifting equipment is subject to, ranging from 6 months to annual inspections. More recently these have also extended to ensure the safe and accessible use by people with disabilities under ADA guidelines which has required some businesses or building owners to make changes to accessibility of their equipment.
Elevator Servicing businesses have to make sure their customers’ lift and elevator equipment meets compliance standards by ensuring the correct inspections are regularly carried out. Elevator Servicing Software helps to achieve this by assisting servicing businesses with reminders of servicing schedules and standardizing data collected from the engineer in the field.
Digital Forms on mobile apps help your team record the checks they need to make and document any proof of repairs, potential faults and record engineer notes to use in reports. These Digital Forms ensure all members of your team are using the correct forms and recording the details needed to meet the most up to date standards.
Too much admin!
Field Service in any industry creates a lot of admin. Every week hours are being wasted with inefficient use of time spent on completing paperwork, writing up reports and duplicating data entry for finance admin. In a recent survey we reported that on average a Field Service engineer spends around 6 hours a week completing admin, most of which is duplicated by other team members in a business.
Each hour stolen by admin is one less that can be spent getting to a job, completing more repairs or spending that little extra time with your customers. Admin steals revenue and that’s why profitable Elevator Servicing businesses turn to Elevator Service Software to reduce unnecessary duplication and streamline how your back office team can share job details with the field team.
All the details recorded on an Elevator maintenance job are gathered once. They are entering onto a digital form using a mobile app and then synced with the back office team. No more writing up reports and emailing them later, no more delays in updating the invoice.
Cash flow issues
One of the key reasons Elevator Servicing businesses struggle with cash flow is due to ineffective quoting and invoice management.
There’s often long delays in getting invoices sent to customers because of the backlog of admin it takes to create the details needed in the invoice. There’s an initial delay in writing up the report because of the number of checks the engineer needs to make on each inspection and once the report is complete they need to email it to the back office support team who then write that up into invoice notes.
Every extra day it takes to complete the admin is another day away from being paid for the work and during busy periods where engineers might gather several inspection reports before sending them over, this can create a backlog. By integrating your Job Management with your Accounting you can greatly improve your cash flow. No longer will your office team need to wait for the engineer to write up reports, they receive all the details of the job instantly and can add that to the invoice records without extra admin.
Real time dashboards provide insight into your finance metrics so you can see job profitability and which invoices are outstanding.
Elevator Service Software is changing the way Elevator Servicing businesses manage their day to day operation. It helps them streamline how they go from a quote, to a job and a paid invoice, greatly improving cash flow allowing them to pay engineers, put fuel in vehicles and parts in their inventory.
Tracking Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) service dates
Keeping on top of service dates for elevator and lift equipment is challenging. Buildings can have multiple pieces of lifting equipment, installed and inspected at different times, resulting in staggered and difficult to manage schedules.
Elevator Service Software provides the perfect way to keep on top of these service dates and manage your PPM schedules by giving you complete visibility of each asset you’re responsible for and a rolling list of all the services due in the next week, 30, 60 or 90 days. One click and you can see exactly what jobs you’re expected to complete over a chosen time frame. This is vital when trying to navigate around busy periods, national holidays and team member vacations.
Automated Service Reminders can be set up to inform your customer when they have a service due. Let them contact you while you focus on getting the current job list complete. Time saving features such as these automated reminders are one of these reasons successful Elevator Servicing Businesses can complete more jobs and spend less time chasing clients, making phone calls and sending emails.
Creating Customer Reports
Many Elevator Servicing businesses are required to create reports for their customers after each job. This is likely to include details of who carried out the repair or inspection, what equipment was looked at, when the work was conducted and who approved or signed off the completed job.
Previously, this might have taken the form of triplicate forms, messy paperwork or typed up notes in an email. Elevator Service Software has simplified the process of creating these reports by pulling the details from the completed digital form on the job and formatting it into a professional, branded report.
Lift Engineers are able to collect the client or authorized signature directly on their mobile device and add that to the report. This creates a slick and impressive experience for the customer and stores a record of the work for future audits.
How to manage PPM Schedules with Elevator Service Software
Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) is the process of carrying out a scheduled, ongoing sequence of inspections or maintenance on customer equipment to ensure it continues to operate as expected and meet compliance standards.
PPM plays a huge role in Elevator Servicing and ensures that if the correct checks are made and recorded the lifting equipment remains compliance and operational. PPM also provides benefits beyond meeting standards, it can go a long way to reducing costs for the client due to reducing breakdown expenses and extending the life cycle of the asset.
Elevator Service Software simplifies PPM scheduling by giving you a single platform to manage all aspects of a well managed schedule of maintenance and inspections. Here’s how to manage a PPM schedule using software.
Create an Asset Register
Elevator Servicing engineers no longer need to keep a complicated and messy folder system on their computer for each client and their lift equipment.
New clients and their Asset Register can be quickly created and updated with minimum fuss. Elevator Servicing Software is designed to be accessible by anyone, even the biggest technophobe can easily create a new client and add a piece of lift equipment to their asset register.
Details such as model, range, serial numbers, location, installation date, Warranty dates, PPM schedule and even photos can be added in a few simple clicks.
Set up service reminders
Automated Service Reminders are a huge game changer for Elevator Servicing businesses. These can be set up to send bespoke emails to the client notifying them of an upcoming service date at a frequency or notice period of your choosing.
These notifications create an excellent experience for your customer who will be filled with confidence that you have their service schedule under control and they are unlikely to experience any disruption of equipment usage.
Empower your engineers to add details on the go
By using their Elevator Service Software mobile app your field team can update asset records on the go. Photos of the elevators or lifting equipment can be collected and instantly stored on the asset record. Your team can also add notes in real time which means your engineers will always have access to the most up to date details.
The audit log documents any changes made to a client asset during its lifetime and you can filter the search this log or choose to export this information for your client.
A single view of all assets
Elevator Service Software gives you a complete view of your assets in just a click of a button. You can view all the equipment you are responsible for in an intuitive dashboard. This will show you your upcoming service schedule, the number of assets you currently maintain, details on each client and their assets allows you to filter these results if you want to look at a specific client.
No more managing multiple folders. No more questions over what is the most up to date information. Elevator Service Software provides the correct details to all members of the team, keeping everything on the same page and your clients’ assets up to standard.
Elevator Service Software Dashboard give you greater insight into your business
Real time Dashboards provide the visibility needed to maximise the productivity of your team both in the field and in the office. Elevator Service Software has enabled business owners to get a clearer picture of the number of jobs currently unassigned, assigned, in progress, scheduled, unscheduled and pending completion to the value of those jobs.
This visibility extends beyond job progress as financial information such as the number of purchase orders, quotes and invoices progressing and the status of those such as awaiting payment, paid or overdue.
Having a clear picture of the planned job schedule allows you to build ‘wiggle-room’ into your plan and spotting trends of reactive jobs early helps lessen the impact they have on your schedule.
For more on the benefits of Dashboards check out this summary: Click here
Elevator Service Software gives your Lift Engineers access to more on the go
To ensure the correct repairs are made and little times is wasted gathering information, having accurate details at their fingertips is important for Lift Engineers.
Over the last year years the industry has seen a move away from using paperwork and referring back to emails and PDFs. Modernisation has taken hold of the Elevator Service Industry and engineers expect to be able to use mobile apps to view their job information.
Job Forms on a Mobile App
It’s time to ditch the filing cabinet. Say goodbye to lost paperwork, tattered forms and slower job processing by using digital mobile forms.
Make paperwork history in your organization and switch to digital mobile forms.
Form Builders help you create what your team needs to complete in the field and templates give you industry standard forms to work from ensuring that all required checks are made and every engineer is using the most up to date information.
Lift Engineers can work offline
The nature of the work requires Elevator Engineers to operate in locations that might not have mobile or wifi signal. They still need access to their job management software to view details on the lift equipment to complete the repair or inspection.
Elevator Service Software allows your mobile workforce to sync their device and still gather the asset details they need, even without a mobile signal.
Elevator Service Software helps you deliver real time communication
The modern field service customer expects excellent communication and updates from the service businesses responsible for getting their lifts and elevators up to code or in the instance of a breakdown, getting them operational again.
When an Elevator Servicing team uses Elevator Service Software for their job management they can automate communications with their customers.
Upcoming service? Job Booked? Engineer on route?
All of these questions are answered with automated customer communications. You can provide an ‘Uber Like’ experience for your customers in a simple and easy way.
Reduce no-shows and miscommunication with automated SMS and emails
Your customers expect to know what is happening on their jobs and who has been assigned to them. Without this information they will likely be frustrated at not having the information or potentially miss the appointment all together, resulting in wasted time and unnecessary fuel costs.
