6 Reasons to Deploy Dispatch Software to Grow Your Service Business

For a field service company with residential and commercial customers, dispatching is the bedrock of business. Quality customer service and optimum profitability depend on all-in-one dispatch software to make sure the right service technician gets to the right job as efficiently as possible.

Recent studies show customer experience drives more than two-thirds of customer loyalty—even more than price. Conversely, a customer is 49% more likely to switch companies after a poor customer experience, and more likely to share the negative experience with others. Service businesses (such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical) need to provide a great customer experience, from start to finish, to avoid these issues.

An accurate and dependable dispatch software solution keeps your company operating smoothly, adds efficiency to job scheduling, and puts dispatchers, technicians, and customers on the same page—in real-time.

In this post, we share six ways that ServiceTitan’s dispatch software helps field service companies (with commercial and residential customers) to:

1. Optimize routes and your team’s schedule

2. Connect your office to the field

3. Improve customer experience

4. Prepare for jobs in advance

5. Stay mobile and efficient

6. Track metrics and total revenue

To find out how ServiceTitan streamlines your dispatch process and provides a full range of tools to manage your entire workflow, schedule a free personalized demo here.

What is ServiceTitan’s Dispatching Software?

ServiceTitan’s dispatching software is a cloud-based solution for the trades with dynamic features such as service scheduling optimization and technician tracking to keep your team efficient and mobilized.

ServiceTitan lets you ditch pen and paper and focus on what your company does best—giving quality service to customers—all while providing the tools you need to make sure your business stays on track for growth.

When a customer calls your service company, ServiceTitan’s field service dispatch app shows your team whether they are a repeat customer. If so, the dispatcher automatically sees the customer’s address, past completed jobs, property data, and more.

From the first call, dispatchers can assign the job to a technician based on skill level or service location via the ServiceTitan dispatch board. From there, ServiceTitan users can oversee every technician and job, from one central view.

Describing dispatching as a “symphony” and a “puzzle I like to solve,” Jessica Smith says she’s a big proponent of using ServiceTitan’s dispatching board to streamline HVAC scheduling and routing in her role as business operations manager for Hurley & David, an HVAC and plumbing company that serves western Massachusetts.

“I love organizing the board, making sure guys are going on the right calls, people aren't passing each other on the road, and getting the right tech in the right place for the right calls,” she says.

Here are six ways that ServiceTitan’s dispatch software increases efficiency, improves customer satisfaction, and helps grow your field service business:

1. Optimize Routes and Your Team’s Schedule

Optimizing route planning and service scheduling reduces drive time and fuel costs, and ensures you send technicians with the right skills to the right jobs. Dispatch system software keeps technician schedules on the move, which means more completed jobs and more revenue. 

Prior to signing up for ServiceTitan, Georgios Gounaris, Senior Operations Executive of Cyprus Air in Alexandria, Va., and a former dispatcher for the HVAC company, says he used a convoluted process to determine each day’s schedule.

“We used to do the schedule by printing out the jobs, laying all the papers on the floor and kind of making it into a puzzle to see if the areas that we can easily send everything matched correctly,” Gounaris says. “And of course, we didn't have any GPS trackers in the trucks. We had to call technicians to find out where they were.”

In contrast, ServiceTitan’s dispatch software provides color-coded, drag-and-drop flexibility so scheduling changes can be made quickly without manually moving multiple pieces of information. You can book appointments days, weeks, or even months in advance, and use custom tags to flag technical specs. This is particularly useful for large commercial jobs or those that require a technician with specific skills. 

Our software allows companies to streamline operations and make adjustments when a customer reschedules or a different technician needs to be assigned to a job. Dispatchers can easily change duration, if a job takes more or less time than originally anticipated, while ServiceTitan’s route optimization tool navigates any traffic problems to minimize delays. 

2. Connect Your Office to the Field

Dispatch software that allows instant communication with real-time data between office staff and field technicians provides flexibility and means that everybody’s on the same page at the same time.

From the ServiceTitan dispatch board, dispatchers in the office can text technicians if there are any unexpected changes. If a customer is running late, technicians are notified immediately via their mobile device, and time isn’t wasted. 

Notifications can be sent if a job needs to be adjusted, if there is a particular issue on the property, or if a gate code needs to be relayed.

Dispatchers who use ServiceTitan can track their technicians, the delivery process, and job status via the activity feed. This plots the technician’s location at various stages of a job—when they arrive, when they are driving between jobs, when they complete a job, and when they are ready to move on to the next one. These features ensure that the office is always up-to-date on the job and technician status and provides key information to improve customer management.

3. Improve Customer Experience

For dispatchers, the customer experience starts in the call center where custom prompts are used to ensure the right questions are asked on every call. ServiceTitan’s dispatch software records all phone calls with clients, which is helpful if any problems arise, and provides coaching opportunities, if required.

Customers appreciate up-to-date communication now more than ever. ServiceTitan’s dispatch software uses automation to send email or text appointment reminders. These (and all call recordings) are automatically fed into the dispatch board, job records, and job audit trail, so everything is stored in one place.

ServiceTitan users can notify customers when a technician is en route, and send them the tech’s photo and profile so they know who is coming. Real-time travel information via GPS tracking lets them know exactly when their technician will arrive.

It’s handy to notify customers of their technician’s ETA, says Josh Bigelow, founder of Great Dane Heating & Air Conditioning in the Detroit Metro area.

“We’re able to put a message on the bottom with a picture of the technician stating that your technician is equipped with personal protective equipment,” he says.

With ServiceTitan, you can monitor and improve the customer experience. After the job is complete, ServiceTitan's dispatching software sends out a survey or link to your company’s preferred review site, so customers can share their experience with others. 

In addition, ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro Reputation management tool lets you reply to reviews, show appreciation to customers, and get insights into which technicians or jobs relate to which reviews so you can reward or coach your employees accordingly. 

4. Prepare for Jobs in Advance

When technicians arrive for a job, they should already have the proper tools and equipment needed. Driving back to the shop only means wasted time and fuel. It’s also important to know the job history, the status of any service and membership agreements, and if there are any outstanding estimates that need closing so that revenue can be maximized.

To ensure technicians are adequately prepared, dispatch management software generates up-to-date inventory lists so everyone remains on the same page about equipment location, supplies, and shop inventory.

ServiceTitan’s software logs the complete customer history, including job specifications, tools required, memberships and contract statuses, and any estimates given. It also logs property information and any warranty details. This allows technicians to fully prepare for each job and get jobs completed as quickly and efficiently as possible. It also means that techs have the opportunity to upsell services (such as maintenance agreements) and to confirm any outstanding estimates given while they visit the job site. 

“The power with ServiceTitan isn’t that we get a truck to the house 10 minutes faster,” says Andy Piercefield, President of Coolray Heating and Cooling LLC, serving the Atlanta Metro market. “The power is that we know what that house bought from us before, we’re able to access them easily, and we can cross-sell them other products.”

5. Stay Mobile and Efficient

Dispatch software helps dispatchers and technicians with route planning and empowers dispatchers to make the best scheduling decisions based on job priority, technician skill, number of assigned jobs, and location—supercharging dispatch operations.

Smart routing keeps techs moving—and if your company dispatches techs from home, you can assign work orders based on their local area. 

ServiceTitan Mobile helps your business stay agile wherever your technicians are. Technicians can access all the customer information collected by the dispatchers, such as contact details, property data, job histories, prior invoices, membership statuses, notes, and more.

You can also use ServiceTitan’s mobile app to upload customized forms and pricebooks. For example, certain forms, such as checklists, can be triggered as a job progresses. This means techs know which steps to take (e.g. diagnosis, repair, invoicing, or asking for a review), at each stage of a job, so nothing is missed.

Technicians using ServiceTitan Mobile can also close out open estimates and take credit card payments while on site. Check and credit cards can be captured via the tablet camera, or a swiper can be used. This makes the payment process easy for customers, and faster for your business. 

6. Track Metrics and Total Revenue

ServiceTitan’s dispatch system software not only boosts the efficiency of day-to-day operations, but tracks job and technician information so you can analyze the performance of your delivery service and overall business. 

You can view metrics via the technician scorecard (such as generated revenue and memberships sold) to see which technicians are selling and closing jobs. To measure how well your technicians manage customers, you can view technician satisfaction metrics and reward or provide coaching, as needed. 

Dispatchers and CSRs can be monitored, too. ServiceTitan’s CSR scorecard lets you review incoming phone calls, see the number of leads that were converted into new jobs, and view other helpful metrics to improve customer satisfaction.

You can filter dozens of KPIs (e.g. response times, number of jobs completed per tech, number of memberships sold by CSRs and techs, marketing campaigns, and more), and view these via ServiceTitan’s dynamic dashboard to get the big picture of how your business is performing and where improvements can be made. 

Want to Try ServiceTitan Dispatch Software for Your Service Business?

ServiceTitan’s dispatching software provides super-efficient dispatch management and gives service companies the tools they need to optimize their fleet management, improve customer experience, and strategize for growth—right down to the last mile.   

In addition, ServiceTitan is not just service dispatch software. The cloud-based mobile app is a wide-ranging management solution that includes automation, integration with QuickBooks accounting software, marketing solutions, invoicing for your trade business, and more.

To find out whether ServiceTitan is the best dispatch software to help grow your business, schedule a free personalized demo here.