Mobile Workforce Optimization Strategies to Boost Productivity

Many businesses haven't invested in tools to help them with mobile workforce management. They underestimate the usefulness of these technologies. In today's often remote work environment, companies must invest in good mobile workforce management. It helps them work better, be more efficient, and make customers happier.

Namely, managing a mobile workforce is indeed more challenging than managing office staff. This is because your team works at different locations in the field, making supervision and guidance harder.

Yet, managing your mobile workforce effectively is key to success in the field service industry. You need a solid workforce management system (WFM system) to handle them well.

This article explains the basics of mobile workforce management. It covers what it means, the significant advantages it brings, and what to look for in software that helps manage mobile teams.

Understanding Mobile Workforce Management (MWM)

MWM involves organizing a team of employees who work in different locations to optimize their job performance. Businesses often adopt a workforce optimization strategy to improve coordination and enhance overall efficiency.

This mobile workforce management definition highlights its role in ensuring efficiency and productivity across dispersed teams. Tools like mobile workforce management software offer solutions tailored to various industries, emphasizing mobile workforce efficiency and real-time communication.

It is particularly relevant for businesses with field service operations. These are HVAC companies, appliance repair and maintenance services, cleaning businesses, and non-emergency medical transportation services.

How Mobile Workforce Management Software Operates

Mobile workforce management software offers tools and systems. These enhance the coordination of field employees' work through improved efficiency, transparency, and communication.

By creating a smart mobile optimized workplace, these tools ensure seamless collaboration between managers and field employees.

An MWM software solution, like eLogii, empowers business owners and managers to do the following:

• Automate planning and scheduling of work orders
• Enhance route and schedule optimization
• Make real-time adjustments to routes
• Modify workloads based on shift times
• Deliver job information to workers with minimal paperwork
• Simplify tracking of remote workers during shifts
• Accurately record job start and completion
• Evaluate worker performance using built-in analytics tools

Why It's Good to Invest in Mobile Workforce Management

Using a mobile workforce management system can enhance productivity and efficiency for businesses. Simultaneously, it contributes to improved customer satisfaction.

Get More Done

Mobile workforce tools cut travel time between jobs, thanks to route optimization. This means businesses can do more service jobs using the same number of field employees. Adopting a workforce optimization model also helps streamline operations.

Mobile Workforce Management solutions deliver large productivity gains. Businesses can handle more jobs per full-time employee each day by implementing these solutions.

Enhanced Efficiency

Mobile Workforce Management solutions excel in accurately assigning workers to jobs. This minimizes inefficiencies, allowing businesses to meet demand in an efficient way.

MWM solutions consider various operational efficiency factors, like worker times and service windows. Other factors are skills and vehicle requirements when assigning orders to a mobile workforce. While manual teams can use these factors, it's slower and more prone to errors. MWM ensures technicians with the right skills and tools are matched to service calls. It results in a faster resolution of customer issues, furthering the goals of a robust workforce optimization system.

Boosted Customer Satisfaction

Technicians reaching customer sites promptly contributes to higher satisfaction. Additionally, resolving service issues during their first visit enhances the customer experience.

The First-Time Fix Rate is a metric in the field service industry. It gauges a business's proficiency in resolving work orders during their initial scheduling. Businesses with a higher First-Time Fix Rate generally experience increased customer satisfaction when compared to those with lower rates.

Elevated customer satisfaction directly influences your business's sales and revenue. Satisfied customers tend to recommend your services through word of mouth. That significantly affects consumer purchasing decisions. Thus, enhancing customer satisfaction positively contributes to your overall revenue.

5 Essential Aspects in Selecting a Mobile Workforce Management System

When selecting an MWM system for your business, focus on a solution that seamlessly integrates into your daily operations. Here are five crucial features to consider during your decision-making process:

1. Automated Planning

Advanced MWM solutions include automation tools and workflows. These are useful when allocating numerous employees to hundreds of tasks. They consider factors such as worker skills, service areas, and preferred service windows the customer has selected.

By using eLogii, Unimasters greatly improved how they work, especially with the help of automated planning tools. They made impressive achievements, like reducing planning time by more than 50%. Also, the planning process went smoother with fewer people needed. They also became 76% more efficient in how they plan routes and use their vehicle capacity wisely. It led to a significant 50%+ drop in the number of customer service calls they had to make. eLogii connected seamlessly with Unimasters' existing ERP solution, making their success even more evident. This not only saved them time and resources but also made their customers even happier.

2. Optimizing Routes

While we've discussed how route optimization boosts workforce productivity, the significance of this feature in MWM solutions is crucial.

Consumer routing tools such as Google Maps have limitations on stop points and lack functionality when it comes to constraints. MWM solutions tailor route optimization to your specific needs. A lot of businesses manage multiple service jobs daily with many technicians.

Minimizing time and cost inefficiencies due to suboptimal routes becomes paramount. Choosing a system customized to your requirements proves effective. It becomes more efficient to adapt a consumer routing app to meet route optimization needs.

3. Real-Time Route Adjustments With Mobile Workforce Management

Real-time route modification empowers you to adapt your workforce's schedule while they are actively working in the field.

A field worker or technician's schedule is flexible. To improve customer service, dispatchers need to handle last-minute calls, cancellations, and delays. Recognizing the importance of "quickly re-routing technicians," professionals in fleet management and mobile workforce businesses emphasize its high impact.

Field workforce optimization plays a crucial role in managing these adjustments effectively, ensuring that operations remain smooth and efficient.

eLogii's feature for real-time route modification simplifies the process for dispatchers. It allows adjustments to their worker's schedules, even after they have commenced fieldwork. Access any planned order and change order details effortlessly. This is possible using the manual scheduling option within the order.

You also have the option to insert new orders alongside an existing set of planned orders. This way, there's no need to redo the route sheet for a specific day.

4. Mobile Apps for Field Staff

Businesses use mobile apps to track their mobile workforce in real time. Employees use these apps on their mobile devices to provide instant updates to dispatchers while moving between service sites.

Mobile workforce scheduling becomes seamless with these apps, as they allow for quick adjustments and better coordination between teams and dispatchers.

Without an end-user mobile app, your team's performance data becomes unreliable. That makes it challenging to make informed decisions.

Many MWM solutions offer end-user mobile apps for live tracking. It helps you keep customers informed about technician arrival times. It also improves the customer experience by allowing them to plan around your worker's schedule instead of waiting all day.

5. Performance Insights

Effective MWM solutions present your team's data in a user-friendly dashboard for easy comprehension.

eLogii provides straightforward workforce analytics. Businesses in field service and mobile workforce rely on tracking key indicators like order status and arrival accuracy to maintain high-quality customer service.

These insights are essential for boosting mobile workforce productivity by identifying areas where efficiency can be improved.

Observing your team's performance on a monthly and quarterly basis helps identify patterns and trends. These assist you in making important decisions.

Optimize Your Mobile Workforce with eLogii

Now that we've highlighted the advantages of mobile staff management and using MWM solutions, we encourage you to explore this investment.

eLogii serves as a comprehensive mobile workforce management solution. It was created for field service businesses across various industries.

Use eLogii to optimize your workforce by streamlining operations and improving efficiency.

We collaborate with businesses globally to meet their mobile workforce needs, offering a flexible pricing model that aligns with their budgets.