- \n
- Tapping into a cost-effective, flexible contingent workforce.<\/li>\n
- Reducing labor and travel costs by being more proactive with on-site visits.<\/li>\n
- Using technology to increase efficiency.<\/li>\n
- Improving your employees\u2019 productivity and utilization rates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/a>
Affordable, flexible labor<\/h2>\n
Providing on-site services using a traditional full-time workforce can be expensive. MSPs must pay travel costs to send technicians to each location, or maintain an on-call staff and infrastructure in every area they serve. Few companies can make this investment without sacrificing profits.<\/p>\n
Organizations with full-time staff are also seeing big changes in the workforce. Retirees are being replaced by younger workers. These younger workers expect to stay with a single employer for only two years.<\/p>\n
The challenge is that finding, onboarding, and training each new employee takes time. Over fifty percent of MSPs report needing up to three months to get new technicians to eighty percent effectiveness. Couple that with increased employee churn, and it becomes more difficult.<\/p>\n
To remain competitive, MSPs need reliable access to cost-effective, flexible talent. The solution? Shifting from fixed-cost W2 employees to a blended mix of full-time and contingent workers. This gives you the freedom to pay for skilled labor only when it\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n
Independent specialists now represent every profession, including IT field service and equipment technicians. More people are joining the gig economy to work how, when, and where they choose.<\/p>\n
This growing contingent workforce enables MSPs to serve more clients at a lower cost. Forty-three percent of companies using a contingent workforce have saved at least twenty percent on labor.<\/p>\n
Accessing the gig economy can also help cut down on overhead expenses. By definition, contract technicians use their own vehicles and equipment. This reduces the investment MSPs need to make for expensive fleets and tools.<\/p>\n
Learn where to find high-quality IT technicians.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
Proactive equals productive<\/h2>\n
Emergency maintenance and repairs are rarely cost-effective. Last-minute work orders often mean overtime pay and inflated travel expenses.<\/p>\n
Reducing the number of these high-cost projects is critical for greater profitability. The more predictable your on-site visits, the more cost-effective your field operations.<\/p>\n
Scheduling routine maintenance and cleaning make far more efficient use of your time. You can pre-arrange and group on-site visits to reduce travel. Or, you can group similar tasks into multi-site work orders<\/a> and assign them to one technician.<\/p>\n
The return from providing predictable, on-site services can outweigh the cost of labor. ROI for on-site visits should include a client\u2019s potential lifetime value. Lost customers as a result of outages are expensive to replace. Reducing churn lowers the investment needed to bring in new business.<\/p>\n
Face-to-face contact creates more value and builds relationships. As IT gets more complex, customers rely on consistent guidance to help keep their systems operating smoothly. By going beyond break-fixes, you\u2019ll be in a position to set yourself apart as a trusted advisor.<\/p>\n
To do this, your field service workforce must be more than just technically competent. They need to act as brand ambassadors\u2014always on the lookout for new problems to solve.<\/p>\n
Here’s an example. While working on a client’s desktop system, a technician learns that they are also having server issues. This leads to a meeting with an account representative about additional service options and hardware upgrades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Creating these opportunities requires strong communication skills and emotional intelligence. In fact, fifty-two percent of service organizations see soft skills as crucial.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to attract technicians who know more than the basics. Encourage everyone on your team to always look for fresh solutions to each client\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Focus on efficiency<\/h2>\n
Combining the Power of RMM, PSA, and FSM<\/h3>\n
Working together, Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), Field Service Management (FSM), and Professional Services Automation (PSA) platforms help you keep up with complex day-to-day tasks. Automating more moving parts frees up time and energy to focus on your business.<\/p>\n
- \n
- RMM<\/strong> reduces your labor costs while increasing efficiency.<\/li>\n
- FSM<\/strong>\u00a0lets you tap into a blended workforce and merge project data into a single dashboard.<\/li>\n
- PSA<\/strong> improves your team\u2019s productivity and performance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
An RMM system gives you the freedom to access and update a client\u2019s devices from anywhere. Technicians no longer have to travel from office to office to handle many types of routine maintenance. This makes it far easier to serve more clients in less time.<\/p>\n
If you have an RMM for remote work, find out why you also need an FSM for on-site projects.<\/a><\/p>\n
Of course, there are situations when a technician will need to be on-site to service a piece of equipment. To consistently deliver an outstanding customer experience, you need an efficient way to manage your entire field workforce at scale.<\/p>\n
This is where an FSM platform is indispensable. An FSM system consolidates employee, contractor, customer, and project data into a single dashboard view for greater visibility and control.<\/p>\n
Nearly sixty percent of organizations across the globe leverage online talent platforms<\/a>. Best in class FSM users also outperform<\/a> service industry averages for productivity and utilization.<\/p>\n
An FSM enables you to:<\/h4>\n
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- Find the right talent fast.<\/strong> Hiring and project managers can quickly engage contract technicians based on skillset, experience, certifications, and location.<\/li>\n
- Shorten onboarding.<\/strong> The average onboarding time is less than eleven days for eighty-eight percent of FSM users.<\/li>\n
- Dispatch work to your entire pool of employees and contractors efficiently.<\/strong> Dispatchers can automatically assign projects to available salaried staff first. They can then reroute work orders to contract technicians to fill coverage or skill gaps as needed.<\/li>\n
- Gain pricing insights with full visibility into labor costs and regional pricing differences.<\/strong> This can help you negotiate fees and get the best possible price for each service in each geographic area.<\/li>\n
- Track projects.<\/strong> Dispatchers and project managers can get a complete birds-eye view of every work order, track progress in real-time, view photo uploads, identify at-risk work orders, and manage every aspect of a project from one screen.<\/li>\n
- Coordinate back-office paperwork and manage payments to all labor.<\/strong> Oversee contracts and paperwork, prepare tax forms, and automatically disburse payments to both contingent and W2 technicians.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Adding PSA software can make your day-to-day operations even more efficient. A PSA organizes your business around a unified operational platform. It also gives you visibility into key metrics. This makes it easier to improve performance throughout every step of a project.<\/p>\n
The core purpose of productivity software is to help you run your business more smoothly\u2014not add additional layers of complexity. Take the time to find a solution that\u2019s the right fit for your unique needs. Most software packages come with dozens of integrations and options to choose from. Trying to incorporate all of them may only overwhelm you further. Start small and take your time integrating each feature.<\/p>\n
FSM integrations<\/h3>\n
Relying on outdated systems to manage multiple service requests can be overwhelming. You\u2019re stuck using one tool to talk to technicians, another to relay information back to clients, and yet another to track incident tickets.<\/p>\n
Isolated data makes critical day-to-day decisions far more difficult. Which support requests need an immediate resolution? Is there more than one technician or stakeholder involved with the project? What\u2019s the most efficient way to resolve the situation?<\/p>\n
Unnecessary manual processes get in the way of the right answers and waste valuable time. And when you\u2019re trying to juggle dozens of customer issues, every second counts.<\/p>\n
A fully integrated FSM connects seamlessly with your existing systems, streamlining your operations by:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Providing a unified view of every important incident detail.<\/li>\n
- Connecting communication channels\u2014phone, live chat, emails\u2014to one platform.<\/li>\n
- Consolidating ticket status, category, tags, labels, priority, history, and associated SLAs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Discover the three types of software that every MSP should have.<\/a><\/p>\n
Analyzing field service spend<\/h3>\n
To understand the impact that field services have on profits, you must first track every single expense. What\u2019s the exact labor cost for a typical on-site service visit? Is it lower or higher for different technicians or clients? If so, why?<\/p>\n
Making the best use of your field service workforce starts with utilization rates. How much time do your technicians spend working on customer-related services? The lower the utilization rate, the lower your potential profitability.<\/p>\n
To measure each on-site technician\u2019s utilization rate, add up the total number of hours of work order activity over the past twelve months. Divide that number by their total paid hours. For example, a full-time employee has 2,080 hours of paid time and 1,352 hours of project time. The utilization rate is sixty-five percent.<\/p>\n
Next, calculate the labor costs for each hour of on-site service you provide. Divide each employee\u2019s total compensation by their number of productive hours. If an employee has 1,352 productive hours and makes $50,000 in total compensation, the hourly on-site cost is $36.98.<\/p>\n
The higher the utilization rate, the less it costs you to provide every hour of on-site services. A similar employee with 1,757 productive hours would have a utilization rate of eighty-four percent. Their hourly on-site labor cost is $28.45.<\/p>\n
Remember, labor costs aren\u2019t limited to gross salary. Benefits alone can account for more than thirty-one percent<\/a> of the average total compensation package.<\/p>\n
- Shorten onboarding.<\/strong> The average onboarding time is less than eleven days for eighty-eight percent of FSM users.<\/li>\n
- FSM<\/strong>\u00a0lets you tap into a blended workforce and merge project data into a single dashboard.<\/li>\n
- RMM<\/strong> reduces your labor costs while increasing efficiency.<\/li>\n
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