One mistake many small to medium-sized home contractor businesses make is thinking that back-end business management software is just for the big dogs. This is simply not true.
It makes sense that a large residential home service business would benefit from having software to track a large number of workers, phone calls, time on job, billable hours vs. non billable, leads vs. conversion and how many leads were lost in the pipeline. However, a small to mid-sized business can potentially benefit even more from SaaS that can streamline its business practices and fine tune its sales processes on a smaller scale.
But what exactly should operational software be able to accomplish for your residential home service business? Here are five things to look for:
- Worker productivity tracking – How many hours are billable hours for each worker? How many hours were spent on administrative duties? How productive is each employee? Back-end software can track many worker activities depending on what is most important to your business.
- Business forecasting – Compare your company’s productivity from year-to-year, month-to-month and more with software that also helps you predict how your business will perform (and is currently performing) with more accuracy.
- Scheduling – The software you select should be able to take the guesswork out of creating/updating/changing worker scheduling with the ease of a dashboard. A scheduling dashboard should allow for easy managing and changing schedules with a click and drop capability or with a simple system. Color-coding each worker by status can be a helpful tool, as well.
- Dispatch capability – An essential component of a good management software system for service industry businesses is the dispatch function. Efficient dispatching of workers can save money by improving workflow and making it easy to supervise and adjust time management.
- Extraordinary customer service and support – Any operational software needs a superb support staff who can answer any questions that might arise and can address them quickly and effectively with minimal hassle. Look for customer testimonials and references before choosing a system for your business.
Andrew Loschert is Manager of Marketing Analytics and Optimization for ServiceTitan.
ServiceTitan is the #1 software platform for managing a home services business, incorporating the industry’s best practices to help you run a better business, lower costs, improve sales, provide a better customer experience, and manage your business more easily.
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