Transforming a Disaster Response Company With Salesforce Field Services
Inovi Solutions has worked closely with a leading disaster response and construction company in Atlanta for more than six years, and we are proud to be one of their longtime trusted business partners. We are embedded with the company’s senior leadership team and oversee their daily IT operations, and we have successfully spearheaded migrating their entire operations to Salesforce, implementing Field Service, and we often develop new applications and components that propel their business to new growth and greater productivity.
As part of our ongoing Salesforce consulting and development engagement with the disaster recovery company, we recognized the enormous potential that Salesforce Field Service. could have on their business.
Salesforce Field Service tools would let the company optimize the way they provide service to customers, increase productivity both online and offline, enhance scheduling and dispatch, and reduce costs for labor, equipment and materials.
More importantly, it would help the company provide a better customer experience with Live Agent and chat features, alerts when crews are en route to provide service, and seamless processes for billing and payments.
However, there were some challenges to overcome. Some employees were hesitant to change the way they’d been running field service operations for years using Google Docs, Sheets and other manual and inefficient tools that kept them operating in silos.
Inovi Solutions led diagnostic and discovery sessions with stakeholders from every major department at the company to ensure we thoroughly understood their needs, wants and pain points.
We identified internal champions who would be first movers and beta testers in adopting SFS, and integrated the concepts of change management from the beginning of the project. We demonstrated the benefits of SFS functionality and capabilities, and showed the return on investment in terms of both time and money.
“It was critical that we could demonstrate the immediate and ongoing ROI, and show every employee how this would free up their time for more valuable tasks while also saving the company money,” said Faiz Mannan, Founder and President of Inovi Solutions. “The designated internal champions who embraced SFS also helped train their peers and accelerate adoption.”
Inovi Solutions developed and customized a Salesforce Field Service environment that met the company’s exact needs — and we implemented the entire project in less than six months. We invested in learning and development courses to support the rollout, and offered ongoing training and support to ensure employees were comfortable using SFS.
Salesforce Field Service has completely transformed the disaster response and construction company’s entire business.
Incoming calls and new customer inquiries occur through omnichannel routing, including Live Agent chat through the website, phone calls, texts, emails and other touch points. Schedule and dispatching is more seamless and efficient, and takes into account equipment availability and location, crew skills and other jobs ahead in the queue.
Customers receive SMS notifications when crews are en route, with real-time map tracking that gives an accurate estimated time of arrival and updates if crews encounter traffic jams or other delays.
Employees use barcode scanning with smart phones to move and track assets, and also account for how long each piece of equipment is used on the job site.
Managers can view inventory in real time for complete visibility on the exact location of equipment — such as whether the item is on a job site, on a truck, at loading docks, being cleaned, or stored in the warehouse.
Logistics is fully integrated with accounting software, and receipts and invoices can be easily uploaded.
Employees can send each customer customized daily updates about work that was performed, work that will be completed soon, and decisions that need to be made such as flooring, tile or paint selections.
The company’s custom SFS instance features:
- Create and manage work orders based on equipment availability and crew skills and location
- Time entry and approval functionality
- Twilio implementation to send SMS notifications when crews are en route, along with links to crew bios and details of the job request
- Samsara integration with a live tracker on a map for a more accurate ETA
- Deployment of Salesforce Knowledge articles with useful tips and actions customers can take before we arrive, such as how to shut off water valves to minimize damage and reduce the magnitude of insurance claims
Deeper Logistics Tools:
- Customized inventory management and tracking for multiple warehouse locations
- Real-time inventory tracking using barcodes and smart phones to move assets from one location to another, and give employees complete visibility into which equipment is at a jobsite, on a vehicle, at dockside or in the warehouse
- Full integration with AccountingSeed for more accurate client billing and transparency, plus receipt and invoice uploading capabilities
- Allows customers to create purchase orders
- Detailed recap reports at the end of every job
Customer Contact Center integration:
- Omnichannel communication with Live Agent and other tools
- Incident management on the Service Console from inception to work order to specific line items for each job
- CTI integration using Five9 to record and sync customer calls to work orders and service records to enhance transparency, reduce confusion and improve training and service audits
Inovi Solutions provides ongoing support and development for the company’s daily operational and business needs across the Salesforce platform. We are constantly adding new functionality and features that help the business run more smoothly and efficiently.
Find out how Inovi Solutions can transform field service operations for businesses in construction, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, landscaping and other industries. Schedule a free discovery call today .
