Written by Managing a team in the field is tough, but it doesn’t have to be as tough as it used to be. Thanks to some exciting new changes in technology, you can manage your team more precisely than ever before. In fact, it’s one of the ways we can help.
Even if the word “geolocating” is new to you, it’s applications probably aren’t. Geolocation simply refers to determining the real world location of an object using technology such as satellites. While uncommon only a few years ago, geolocation is now used by almost all phones and in many of the newest apps.
Geolocation was the power behind some of the biggest recent breakouts in modern business. The cab company Uber, for example, incorporates geolocation into their app so that drivers know exactly where to pick up their passengers.
Geolocating is particularly useful to field service businesses.
Field Service and Geolocation
Any field service business has a lot to gain by using geolocation. Managing a team from a distance is very hard. It’s easy to lose track of your team throughout the day, and to dispatch people inefficiently. If you examined the paths your field service team members are taking, you may find that a lot of time and gas is wasted.
Obviously, you’re losing money whenever this happens. Sometimes a little, and sometimes more than you can justify losing when there are more effective modern technologies out there. After all, it’s very easy to use geolocation to your advantage.
Using Geolocation to Your Advantage
Probably your most significant waste of time and money comes from inefficient dispatching. You want your team to be able to manage as many jobs as possible, and they can’t do that when they have to spend too much time traveling. Making dispatching more efficient used to be a real headache, but geolocating has opened up some great new ways to manage it.
The number one new advantage? Visual display. This one development that resulted from geolocation took pretty much all the frustration out of dispatching in one fell swoop. If you want to know where any of your team is now, you have the option of choosing an application that will allow you to simply open a map and see their locations listed on the map—exact locations in real time.
This means that you can tell by eye who should be following up on which customer appointment. You’ll also be fully aware if any team members take liberties with their reported locations. All in all, using geolocation means a team that runs more smoothly.
Last modified: December 14, 2016
