Automation is the way to go for any business that seeks growth. This also applies to the plumbing business, especially as it has teams in the main office and in the field. Therefore, communication and workflow should be streamlined for the fast completion of tasks. Running tasks manually will slow down the workflow, and could be a cause of errors. Therefore, it’s imperative to automate your plumbing business.
There are different ways that you can achieve automation in your plumbing business. But first, you’ll need to prepare your business and team for a digital transformation which includes training. Second, you’ll need to get the right tools like plumbing software that will help with the automation processes. For instance, getting Thryv’s plumbing software or other secure plumbing programs will help with invoicing, scheduling, and managing booking capacity.
With everything set in your plumbing business, you can then move to automate your workflow using plumbing management app. Here are the different ways to do so:
Table of Contents
1. Automating Your Accounting Function
Keeping your cash flow consistent and updated will help the business grow. You have to know how much money you make and how much money goes into expenses and taxes. Having an accounting function that updates seamlessly will help you know whether your business is meeting its revenue targets or not.
Using accounting software will make your business more productive, efficient, and accurate with the finances. Any error in the numbers will be flagged immediately before it leads to major financial losses. The accounting solution can also integrate with tax systems to ensure that the business taxes are filed on time. This automation allows your plumbing team to focus on delivering quality service to clients as the computer handles the accounting.
2. Field Service Automation
How your field service team performs can be a make-or-break moment for your plumbing business. Therefore, your field team should respond to clients’ requests in time and communicate with supervisors to give the customers a good experience.
Automation of your field services by getting a field service software will help you handle all these problems in the following ways:
3. Dispatch By Geolocation
Any plumbing business will receive multiple calls from clients seeking repairs or other services. The difference will be how fast the business will respond to the clients’ needs. With field service automation, clients can be connected to the nearby available field agent.
The software will automatically dispatch the agent to the client and can reduce customer wait time. In turn, clients will appreciate your quick response. They might give you a good review or recommend you to their friends and family.
4. Automation Of Billing And Invoicing
This will help the field team get the correct invoice for their services to the customers. The invoice is updated immediately and closed, hence eliminating duplication risks. The field team, therefore, don’t need to communicate with the office team to request the invoice.
Also, clients can access all the billing information on the customer portal without calling the office. This helps achieve easier and faster payments and processing of receipts.
5. Digitizing Of Information
Any data stored in a manual form, such as paperwork, might slow down the workflow as they need to be processed manually. Therefore, if you want to automate your plumbing business, consider digitizing all your business and client information.
Here’s how you can do it:
6. Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Customer relationship is essential, but businesses can still get it wrong. As such, you need to get a CRM software that’ll help offer your customers a unique and seamless experience. With the software, you don’t have to keep any manual record of your customer data. When customers submit the data to your plumbing business, it’ll be captured in real-time and stored in the software.
Moreover, if the customers want to access their billing records and other personal data, they can do so from their customer portal. This automation requires very little human intervention and helps to speed up the process.
7. Use Cloud Storage And Backup
Cloud storage and backup are essential in storing your business and client data, eliminating the need for manual storage and backup. When you incorporate cloud solutions into your plumbing business, all your teams can access the data from a central location, even when working remotely. Check Does Tractor Supply Accept EBT?
This will help speed the workflow by eliminating wait time caused by approval requirements and data transfer between teams.
Conclusion
Automating your plumbing business will enable your team to respond to clients’ requests and complete tasks faster. Therefore, it’s crucial to adopt task automation in different areas of the business for maximum efficiency. However, before automating your business, you should first prepare your team for a digital transformation by training them and getting the right equipment.
