Many tradespeople and trade businesses are using more traditional methods when it comes to scheduling. This is mainly because they’ve been using these methods for some time and aren’t aware of the improvements their business would benefit from by making changes. Many are still using paper diaries, wall planners, whiteboards and spreadsheets to keep on top of scheduling. These options can mean you spend way too much time scheduling, lead to human errors and also don’t allow much room for flexibility, which can have a big impact on your business. 

Workever is job scheduling software that allows your business to leave traditional scheduling behind and step into the digital world.

What Are Traditional Scheduling Methods?

There are many different traditional scheduling methods available for trades businesses to use. Whether it’s a paper diary, printed job sheets, whiteboards, or Excel spreadsheets, these all, at some point, would have been the modern way to complete scheduling, but those times have changed. 

These traditional methods mean scheduling takes longer than it should and often result in office staff having to make phone calls to communicate updates to field agents. These methods can lead to human errors, such as double booking or missed appointments, that can have a negative impact on your reputation and cause you to provide poor service to your customers. 

They also don’t provide much flexibility, which means your business can struggle to adapt to emergency appointments. They also make it difficult for you to store or track customers’ history and job details, which can cause delays when customers use you again in the future.

Meet Workever: A Modern Scheduling & Field Management Platform

At Workever, we have the digital solution for you with our field management software that allows you to forget about your traditional schedule methods and step into the present day. Workever is a cloud-based software that is accessible on desktop and mobile and has been designed to streamline field service operations. 

As our software is available on iOS and Android on a smartphone or tablet, it means scheduling, along with other tasks, can be completed anywhere at any time. You’ll no longer have to sit at your desk in the office to make important changes. You’ll be able to use our drag-and-drop scheduler, which will allow you to assign jobs to available technicians in a matter of clicks. 

You’ll also be able to improve scheduling based on location with our GPS tracker. This allows you to see the live location of every field agent, meaning you can reduce the time each agent has to travel between jobs and be better equipped to deal with emergency appointments by viewing the closest available agent and sending them to the job.

Key Differences: Workever vs. Traditional Scheduling

Accessibility & Flexibility

As our software will be accessible to every member of your staff, your office staff and field agents will have more flexibility compared to more traditional methods. Office staff can schedule from anywhere at any time, meaning if an emergency appointment comes in while they’re out of the office, they can still respond. 

Your field agents will be able to update job details regardless of their location. We understand that sometimes field agents are sent to the most remote locations where internet connection is poor, which is why our software works offline, ensuring your tradespeople are still able to complete their work without any delays.

Job Visibility & Tracking

Traditional scheduling methods mean there are no centralised job records, which makes it hard for your office staff to establish what stage the job is at or who completed it. With Workever, you can track every individual job from quote stage all the way through to invoicing. Your field agents can make notes, take photos and even get customer signatures all through the app. As this data is automatically synced, it means your office staff can access this information in real time instead of having to wait for job sheets to come in at the end of the day or the next morning.

Team Coordination

When it comes to using Workever, team coordination is drastically improved while reducing the time your team spends on scheduling jobs. This is because every time your office staff make a change to a field agent’s scheduling, your field agent will automatically be notified through the Workever app. This ensures they know exactly where they need to be and at what time, and saves your office team time having to send emails or make calls to confirm the updates.

Customer Communication

Switching to Workever’s software doesn’t just improve things for you and your employees, but it also improves the service your customers receive. That’s because our software will send automatic updates via SMS or email for appointments or payment reminders. 

Your customers will also have access to their very own customer portal, where they can view job updates and documents. This improves communication compared to more traditional methods and ensures customers are always kept in the loop. Your customers will no longer have to wait on hold to get updates from office staff, and your office staff will no longer have to spend a large part of their day answering customer questions.

Payments 

Traditional methods have seen customers left waiting hours or days to receive their invoice before being able to make payment. With Workever’s job payment tools, your customers will benefit from instant invoicing with payment links. This means they can pay for the service they’ve received while your field agent is still in their home. Faster payment means better cash flow, which is important to every trade business.

To summarise, swapping from more traditional scheduling methods to Workever’s digital scheduling software can improve your business overnight. Remember, Workever doesn’t just improve scheduling but a number of different job management tasks. 

Our software has been designed to be user-friendly, which means it’s quick to learn and easy to implement. Sign up for our 30-day free trial today, and your business can take that step to improving a number of its day-to-day processes.