That was the exact case in the past few months when gas prices have skyrocketed to a record level. Gas prices increased mostly due to the high rate of inflation, as well as sanctions on Russia, some flagrant profiteering from major oil companies, and field service businesses worldwide (not just in North America) are affected by these.
Then again, if you can’t walk or ride a bicycle to a client’s home (with your entire heavy gear weighing on you), avoiding the use of a car, a truck, or a van isn’t an option. And in many cases, you’re going to end up driving an hour or more to each visit simply because your clients don’t live next to each other.
That doesn’t mean that you should lose money even before arriving at the job site or that you should switch to biogas or increase your service rates just to cover gas costs. What you can do is pinpoint the scenarios where your team spends unnecessary time on the road and minimize them as much as possible. The following are a few situations in which a field service management system like Workiz can help you ease the burden of gas costs.
Common issues related to gas costs
Scheduling:
The problem:
The largest amount of gas is wasted when employees are driving to job sites that have been canceled or when they have to reschedule due to double booking.
The solution:
With Workiz, you can quickly check the status of appointments and make changes as needed without having to waste time on the road.
Routing and GPS Tracking:
The problem:
With gas prices as high as they are, every minute counts when your team is out on the job. You can’t afford to have them stuck in traffic jams or to make a bypass just to grab lunch when they can simply get one next to the job site.
The solution:
Workiz will enable you to optimize routes and track employee progress in real-time so that you can make sure they’re sticking to the plan. This way, you can avoid unnecessary side trips and get everyone back to the office.
Automations:
The problem:
It’s your dispatchers’ job to notify techs when a job is canceled so they can move forward to the next one. But these employees don’t also respond fast enough, either because of workload or since they weren’t at their post when the client tried to reach them. Plus, since your dispatchers are human, it’s only natural they make mistakes from time to time, even when mistakes cost plenty of money.
The solution:
Workiz enables you to assign techs to a different job automatically when the current one is canceled, even at the very last minute. You can also enable double booking for clients known to have a tendency to cancel jobs ahead of time, but use that with caution (in order to avoid having to appear at two locations at once).
Payments:
The problems:
Every once in a while, your techs might be delayed at the job site due to a payment issue. Either the client’s credit card doesn’t work, or suddenly they’re not OK with job costs. But nothing compares to the scenario where the client doesn’t have cash and asks you to return the next time to collect payment. That’s a 4-way drive for only one job!
The solution:
Workiz enables your clients to pay you in multiple ways. If they can’t pay with cash or a credit card, offer them a flexible payment plan using our collaboration with Sunbit. You can also avoid arguments over job costs by providing an estimate upfront.
To conclude
With gas prices continuing to rise, it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re not wasting any time or money on the road. Workiz can help you do just that by making it easy to assign jobs and track your technicians’ whereabouts.
With Workiz, you’ll be able to cut down on time spent driving and make fewer trips overall while making your business more efficient and less prone to human-made mistakes. That means big savings on gas that you can later use to grow your business, retain your top-performing techs/dispatchers, and improve your personal quality of life.
