Australia’s summer months are the busiest time of the year for certain tradies. Whether you’re in pest control, pool maintenance, HVAC, or landscaping, you’ll likely experience a surge in service requests. In fact, these industries are expected to be even busier because COVID-19 restrictions are loosening in places like Melbourne and Sydney.
This is why trades businesses need job management software like WorkBuddy to stay on top of seasonal demands. With WorkBuddy, you get a host of features that make it easy to stay organised during the hectic summer months. Here are five ways WorkBuddy can help with seasonal demand jobs.
Analyse and optimise your workload
When organisations experience seasonal spikes in demand, there’s a tendency to hire new workers to cope with increased workloads. However, this could leave organisations with a large, underutilised workforce once demand falls back down.
WorkBuddy’s business intelligence module lets you monitor workload patterns and labour demands so you can anticipate and prepare for seasonal upturns. For instance, if you expect a surge in demand during January, you can prepare technicians well before the requests flood in. This may involve notifying them of increased weekly planned hours to cope with a backlog of requests. In other cases, you may find under scheduled technicians who could be better utilised to increase productivity levels.
Manage job quotes with ease
WorkBuddy facilitates accurate and efficient job quoting, so you can make more sales during peak season. It produces quotes on the spot by referencing company price books, material costs, and hourly rates. All you’ll need to enter into WorkBuddy are the job specifications, and the system will calculate the final price to send to the prospective client. This allows you to quote more clients in less time.
Of course, when you’re handling a large volume of quotes, it can be difficult to track all of them. WorkBuddy features a central database that organises and filters your quotes by client, date sent, and status (i.e., pending, received, lost, and won). If clients accept or reject a quote, the statuses are immediately updated on the database. Sales representatives can then respond accordingly by either following up to close the sale or negotiating prices so the prospect stays on board.
Mobilise teams quickly
When a quote is approved, WorkBuddy instantly converts it into an actionable work order. These work orders include the job description, work location, start and end dates, the client’s contact information, and estimated budget. They even specify the equipment, materials, and skill sets necessary for completing the job.
This information is used to automatically schedule and assign the job to the right technicians based on their availability, qualifications, and current locations. Job-specific checklists are also provided, so technicians know exactly what they’re supposed to do. Plus, WorkBuddy finds optimal routes to the job site to ensure that technicians arrive on time.
Schedule recurring jobs
Seasonal demand jobs will often have service contracts that require you to perform repetitive tasks for the same client. This includes regular maintenance, cleaning, and site inspection work. With job management software, you can automatically set recurring work orders based on your client’s contractual obligations. WorkBuddy, in particular, allows you to preset job templates, durations, client specifications, and qualified technicians for recurring tasks.
Once recurring jobs are scheduled, WorkBuddy sends auto-generated push notifications to the relevant team members. This not only saves technicians several trips to the dispatch desk, but it also means you don’t have to manually create new work orders for the same jobs.
Spend less time on administration
What’s great about job management software is that it reduces tedious and monotonous paperwork. Rather than relying on paper forms and error-prone manual data entry, WorkBuddy digitises various back-office processes.
For example, creating maintenance work orders is as simple as filling out client details and job specifications on online forms. Work orders can be automatically scheduled and dispatched to technicians without having to print a single piece of paper. Field technicians can also file progress and expense reports using mobile devices to update headquarters in real-time. Additionally, WorkBuddy enables technicians to generate invoices on-site based on expense reports and service rates.
With all this paperwork out of the way, you can reduce delays and ensure your on-site operations are running smoothly. In other words, you’ll be able to devote more time to keeping your clients happy.
If you want to take the stress out of the busy season, WorkBuddy is the key. Our solutions are optimised for various industries, from HVAC and landscape maintenance to pest control and pool cleaning. Book a demo today to see how our job management software can ease your workload.
