Cleaning businesses are seasonal in nature with their market demand trends. Due to this, the cleaning industry faces an operational challenge in scheduling and dispatching. Manually managing the resources, workforce, customers, and jobs leads to errors that bring threats to cashflows.
Simple automation by implementing scheduling software can help manage the supply of the unpredictable demand in the cleaning industry. Read more about what is scheduling software, and how integrating it with your business streamlines field service operations.
What is scheduling software?
Scheduling software helps a field service business plan and manage the scheduling of jobs and dispatching of field service technicians.
For example, you can use the scheduling software to share the real-time location of assigned field service technicians via the mobile app.
How does scheduling software help manage cleaning business operations?
Scheduling software helps in digitizing your cleaning service business to remove manual work. Here are five key ways in which it automates scheduling and dispatching:
Doesn't allow scheduling conflicts
Manual scheduling often results in major errors like assigning of same jobs to different field service technicians. This results in a dominoes effect - wherein it can unnecessarily put stress on workforce availability. A scheduling software uses algorithms to schedule jobs such that no same technician receives a conflicting job that they already are working on.
Get visibility in managing schedules
A centralized dashboard helps you visually check the current job status and approve the assigned technician for the cleaning job. Scheduling software will also help prioritize the cleaning job based on urgency or the services chosen.
For example, based on the timesheets submitted by field service technicians, the scheduling software determines the availability of your workforce. This helps you make necessary hiring decisions based on available jobs and market demand.
Seamlessly manage rescheduling requests
Reschedules are a hassle - if done manually. Keeping track of available field service technicians, reallocating equipment or chemicals for the cleaning job, and coordinating with customers is quite a task for your teams.
Scheduling software can manage rescheduling requests quickly without the hassle of phone calls or email exchanges. It will also automatically notify the customers and field service technicians about the new schedules.
Real-time communication while scheduling
Scheduling done manually involves a lot of constant communication via messages, emails, or phone calls. Scheduling software allows your teams and customers to communicate via a single platform so that you don't miss any updates.
You can also manage time-off requests instantly by your workforce and consider those automatically while scheduling cleaning jobs.
Optimized travel routes
One way to improve the productivity of your cleaning service workforce is to optimize their travel routes. Scheduling software will provide you with a route that has less traffic and the shortest path to the job site.
For example, it is possible to schedule jobs that fall on the same route - and one can send workers in the same vehicle or assign these jobs to the same worker.
To streamline this process, you can also consider using Circuit as your free journey planner. It expertly coordinates the fastest routes for your workforce, ensuring optimal productivity and convenience.
Tips on integrating scheduling software for a cleaning business
Integrating scheduling software is a great first step towards a digitized cleaning service business and better profitability numbers. Here are some tips before you make a purchase:
- Define your scheduling system: as a cleaning business, you may have your own way of working. Documenting it helps your software vendor determine the best next steps for integrating with your existing systems.
- Provide adequate training to teams: adaptation to software can take time. Ensure your software vendor has resources for DIY training or workshops for onboarding into their software.
- Branding options: ensure scheduling software includes customization in terms of designing workflow automation.
- Enough app integrations: with integrations, it is possible to share data between different software for simplified operations management. This helps avoid data migration requirements, hence ensuring your existing software used has integration support is critical.
- Monitor software performance: measure KPIs to see if implementing scheduling software has improved your operations. If not, you can redo the workflows and continuously measure till achieving the desired outcomes.
Experience automated scheduling for your cleaning business today
Zuper is a field service management software that comes with integrated scheduling and dispatching features. Book a demo to understand how automated scheduling works, and how your cleaning business can implement it.