One of the biggest challenges a small paintless dent repair business has is growing beyond the a single owner/manager. The owner/manager has a passion for building the PDR business and providing the very best services possible to please the customer and grow the business. The owner/manager paces the floor at night thinking through all the business processes, customer service issues, sales, marketing and accounting processes. Often times an employee does not have this same level of commitment.
As the PDR owner/manager begins to hire additional service technicians to expand the number of customers and locations that can be serviced, quality assurance, and effective business processes quickly become a problem. How do you ensure that you aren't immediately buried in paper, duplicate billing disputes, late payment issues, customer complaints, payroll confusion, etc. These are the problems that often stop small PDR businesses from expanding.
Deploying a field services management application in the office that synchronizes with a mobile handheld computer is a very effective tool for helping to ensure a quality and controlled growth pattern. One can answer calls, dispatch work orders and synchronize completed work orders for instant invoicing all from a PDA. New services can be dispatched, work completed and invoiced, again from the handheld computer. When the handheld computer is synchronized all of this information is immediately imported into the accounting system in the office.
The key to managed quality and growth is to automate the business processes. Take out the uncontrolled human factors. Mobile handheld applications can direct the user to complete the forms correctly. They can alert managers when incomplete processes or data is submitted. There are all tools for assuring quality in the field.
MobileDataforce's FieldSync Automotive is a good example of this kind of solution in action.
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