Founded in 1985 Locators is an independent provider of an extensive range of forklift trucks and storage equipment. They pride themselves on delivering high quality reliable products and outstanding service.
Ever keen to further improve their external service and internal efficiency, Locators looked at mobile worker solutions to see how they could advance their service management process.
The Key Solution
Locators chose a Key PDA solution for their field engineers to keep them in touch with the service desk, send and receive job information and ensure a smooth workflow. Initially PDA’s were set-up for 3 field service teams.
Results
The initial results were outstanding, with tangible increases in efficiency. The Key solution also provides very valuable management information, which is helping Locators to further refine and improve individual service areas and most importantly increase their competitive advantage by doing so.
Within 2 months Locators recorded a 73% decrease in the number of open field service jobs, due to faster job processing and improved job management by engineers
The decrease in open jobs/work in progress resulted in a reduced time to invoice, improving turnover and cash flow
Better job visibility for engineers has empowered them to take greater control of their work load, thereby further improving customer service
Improved job management for service desk staff allows them to manage a reduced set of jobs and to “see the wood for the trees”
More timely information is provided to customers, by emailing/faxing a job sheet within minutes of job completion
The ability to instantly send job sheets to multiple customer contacts has improved customer communication
Drastically reduced paperwork processing time and costs has meant the support desk has more time to pro-actively communicate with customers
Invoicing queries are reduced and when raised, can be dealt with more efficiently
Reduced time pressure and improved job visibility at the service desk allows better focus on other tasks, such as managing sub-contractors
Management information and reporting has identified key areas to focus on to further improve customer service
Testimonial
“Being able to see the wood for the trees has helped the service desk and engineers enormously. They have much better visibility of workload now and paperwork is completed quickly, improving customer service and cash flow for the business.
Management information has identified new areas where we can increase efficiency and monitoring of sub contractor work is now much easier and less time consuming.
Finally…I wish we had done this years ago, the engineers have taken to it and like it, anyone who doesn’t do it is just mad!”
Tony Stevens, Customer Services Director
