Running a Business with a Paperless Solution

ServiceBridge is a technology company that revolutionizes the service industry. With cloud based job scheduling tools and mobile features it accelerates the way your business functions in many ways. Most companies today still use pen and paper which results in a total fiasco when it comes to organizing all of your files, accessing customer history, and dispatching jobs. With ServiceBridge you run your business without any use of paper, access to all customer data, and on the fly dispatching tools. When a new customer calls you and requests a service such as rodent removal you must be as organized and quick as possible to get to the customers location to resolve their issue. You begin by entering the customer information into the database. If a customer already exists, the system will notify you so you do not duplicate a record. The auto suggest features do not require to enter the full customer location as it will pre-populate the fields for you. Once the customer is created you can proceed with creating a job. Once the job is created it will appear on the dispatch board. The dispatch board shows all technicians jobs for the day and their duration. This let’s you see which technician is available to perform the job. To bring it up a notch, the Geo-Tracking feature opens up a map which displays all of the technicians routes and their exact location. This allows you to view the unassigned job and see which technician is the closest to the customer’s location and can address their issue quickest. As soon as the dispatcher assigns the job to best fit technician, then they receive a push notification on their mobile device saying that a new job has been assigned to them. All they have to do is refresh their device and it will appear in their Jobs Due Today category. When the technician arrives at the job, the office is able to see the exact arrival time back in the office. The technician can then add products/services to the job, add notes, capture photos, collect a payment, and have the customer sign off on the job illustrating that the job has been done to complete satisfaction. The best part is that all information syncs back to the office in real time. Once the job is finished, then both the office and customer receive a copy of the work order receipt with the photos attached and signature printed. Since ServiceBridge is fully integrated with QuickBooks, you can then push the finished into QuickBooks online with one click, and invoice the customer. The best part is that ServiceBridge cloud is optimized to run in any browser, including an iPad. So just try to image how nice it would be to run your entire business from a beach sipping on a margarita.

 

Why do you think so many businesses are still running their businesses using pen and paper opposed to going paperless with the latest tools and technologies such as ServiceBridge? Has a technician ever preformed a service at your home that while documenting all information using a mobile device such as a tablet?

Source: https://www.servicebridge.com/

10 thoughts on “Running a Business with a Paperless Solution

  1. This is such an interesting topic you present and the way you do so is clear and concise, great job! Where I work at, we use a software very similar to ServiceBridge and find that so many of the benefits you touch on in your post apply to my job. It is truly efficient to work with a software that updates both ends of a transaction (worker/office and customer). I don’t know why business, specially bigger ones, still use pen and paper rather than technologies such as ServiceBridge. I find it is simply productive to enhance services with tools like this. I guess I could think of boutiques businesses who find pen and paper more sophisticated and personal, but I think tools like ServiceBridge are sophisticated and useful.

  2. I’ve never had a technician performing a service and documenting everything using a mobile device. I can say from my job’s standpoint on why we haven’t gone paperless is because some methods in going paperless are too costly and the others don’t exactly work with our system of operations. The closest thing to paperless I have gotten my store to perform is simple recycling of paper and plastics that we use every day instead of them throwing it away in the trash.

  3. This is an interesting topic I have never really thought about that. I think some companies still use pen and paper because the information will be kept for other workers to access easily. When I worked retail we had daily task in a binder and it was just easier to putt the binder out compared to logging on the computer. Another reason is its a lot cheaper to just check off you did something on a piece of paper compared to employees each having to have there own computer.

  4. I have been blown away by places that still use paper to document everything and hold all their records, it is insane! I see this mostly in doctor’s offices or similar places and I don’t know how they keep up. I can only assume they don’t have the time or money to pay people to transfer everything to be digital, but I think everyone will eventually need to. My dad owns a high end electronics business and I know we use quickbooks and are constantly searching for the best way to digitally document everything and get information to everyone in real time, which is becoming easier and easier in this day and age.

  5. I worked in a garage over the summer for a sheriff’s office. An entire wall of the office is made up of nothing but filing cabinets full of files on all the different vehicles that com through the shop. It occurred to me many of times that it would make a lot more sense to have all those files on a computer data base. When I had to look for a file, it would take me about thirty seconds to locate the file folder and find the necessary documents. If everything was digitized, a simple search would make it possible to find files instantaneously. In this aspect, they should go paperless now. On the other hand, the cost of changing the way they run the office may be too high. The system would cost money to create, training would be required, and it would take quite a bit of time to transfer all of the existing files. The real question for any organization or company deciding on going paperless is, is it truly worth it?

  6. So as I understand it it’s dispatch program. Very nice innovation I am curious if it has competitors and how it is differentiated from those competitors. One of the reasons that businesses still run pen and paper is because of their target customer base. For example I used to work at the bank and we were offering paper statements but majority of our elderly customers were not opted in to that service because they were old fashioned or didn’t have an email.

  7. I think this is an awesome program to implement in multiple business’s.I would love to have this program for my own work. I am an ADA dispatcher for a MLB team in California, which has me dispatch people to take care of our ADA services around the stadium. The last time the software provider’s representative came in I talked with him about a new system to be installed and it had a similar feature. I really hope I can be using something like this very soon because it sounds like it would make life so much easier.

  8. This type of service would be ideal for all companies to have, not only is it more efficient, but also helps save the environment by eliminating the world’s paper usage. However, I think the biggest reason companies are not jumping on the bandwagon right now is because of the time and cost associated with switching from paper to electronic files. For newer companies it would be much easier to make the switch but for established companies it is a lot harder. They really have to forecast if the cost and labor is really worth it.

    I predict that most companies will eventually have to move to this type of system in the future, so it is probably in companies best bet to make the switch sooner than later.

  9. It is truly surprising that some companies still use pen and paper. In all my previous jobs I have had some type of software that would automatically update the system, weather it was customer information or inventory, and it makes your life a lot easier. Just like you mentioned before, there is no duplication of information, and it speeds up the process. However, the new and improved technology also eliminates jobs. My accounts payable part time internship position used to be a full time position, until technology came into the picture. I am not quite sure how I feel about machines taking over our jobs just yet, but I am sure we will soon see more of that in the workplace.

  10. I see that you are talking about service companies and how some are converting over to using technology to more effeciently serve their customers. I think so many businesses still use traditional techniques because they figure that it works for them so why change it. I think this is especially true for small to mid-size companies. Imagine converting over to a new system, one would have to obviously front the cost of the software itself but then also the mobile technology to use on it and then invest even more resources into training their employees on how to operate it.

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