Solar service business involves employees operating from remote areas as technicians are mostly in the field installing, repairing and maintaining the solar devices of customers. In a disconnected environment, it gets difficult to keep tabs on where your field teams are, and what are they working on.
Unless you know the whereabouts of your solar technicians, you cannot rightly assign them jobs or monitor their work progress. Manually calling every technician multiple times to track their mobility and activity is time-consuming and exhausting.
What if you can automate solar service technician tracking? Use GPS-based solar technician tracking software that provides you with real-time visibility into every technician’s mobility and travel history. These programs improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, increase productivity, and streamline operations.
This article explains how you can use solar employee tracking software to benefit your solar service business.
What is GPS-based Solar Technician Tracking Software?
GPS-based solar technician tracking software helps solar dispatchers track their employees’ location, productivity, and performance throughout the course of a job. The employee tracking app record the GPS coordinates of the employee which helps the manager to locate the technician’s mobility on the map.
By having access to real-time data, employers can see exactly where their employees are and what they’re doing at any given moment. This information allows the solar service manager to understand better how their team members perform at work and what they need to improve.
What are the features of Solar Technician Tracking Software?
i) Real-time Technician Tracking
GPS-based solar technician tracking app installed on the technician’s mobile phones keeps the in-office solar service manager aware of the technician’s real-time location. For customer service requests that require quick service dispatch, the solar service manager can quickly view all the technicians’ live locations on the map.
Integrating GPS tracker with solar scheduling and dispatching software automates technician scheduling based on their skills and proximity to the customer location. This way you can quickly dispatch technicians for the job and provide prompt service to customers, boosting customer satisfaction.
ii) Route Optimization
The route optimization feature allows you to quickly calculate optimal routing based on factors such as distance, fuel consumption, speed limits, time, number of stops, etc. You can even add custom parameters to calculate the best route for technicians.
For example, if a technician needs to travel to multiple job sites, he or she can simply log into the system and see where each site is located. If the technician is running late, he or she can quickly find out what jobs are still left to complete and make sure to arrive on time.
iii) Alerts & Notifications
Solar service managers can set real-time alerts when the technician reaches the customer’s location and when he/she exits it to keep track of how much time each job takes.
Also, the geofencing feature notifies the solar service manager when solar technicians enter areas that do not fall under customer service location as per their schedule. This feature helps solar service providers monitor technician activity and leave no room for trickery.
iv) Solar Employee Attendance Management
Solar service software automates attendance management. The technicians can simply begin their work day by logging into the solar service app. The attendance management feature of the GPS-based solar technician tracking software keeps track of the working hours of the solar field employees. You can even see how much overtime each employee works.
At the end of the day, the technician logs out of the app and the attendance for the day based on the number of working hours gets marked. Automated attendance management prevents errors and chances for trickery.
v) Travel History Monitoring
The concept of real-time mobility monitoring is quite simple. Imagine having a group of solar technicians working in different locations. You want to know how many hours each person works per day, how much he travelled every day etc. But you don’t want to ask him every single day. Instead, you want to know about his activities once in a while.
With real-time monitoring, you can do exactly that. All you need to do is install the Solar GPS tracker app on solar field service technicians’ mobile phones. This software monitors the travel history of the solar service technicians and sends information to a central server where you can access it anytime you want.
This method of tracking solar technicians’ travel history and mobility saves you a lot of time and effort. You no longer need to call the employee every day to find out where they have been. You can simply log into the central server whenever you want and see everything happening there.
vi) Mileage Tracking
You can use GPS-based solar technician tracking software to monitor fuel usage and mileage covered. The mileage tracking feature lets you see how much distance individual technicians travel over a day, week or month. You can use this mileage tracking report to approve the fuel expenses claimed by the technicians. Integrating GPS tracker with solar field service management software automates reimbursement calculation of fuel costs.
Why do you need a GPS-based Solar Technician Tracking App?
The solar technician tracking app gives you better visibility into your field team’s activity and helps you manage them well. Here are a few benefits of solar employee tracking software.
i) Better Scheduling
Realtime visibility enables field service teams to see where they are and what is happening around them. This gives them the ability to make better decisions about how to best utilize their resources.
The solar service manager can schedule jobs for technicians closer to the customer’s location than assigning someone who has to travel miles to reach the place.
ii) Enhanced Customer Experiences
With the route optimization features, the technicians quickly reach the customer’s location, providing prompt service response. Additionally, as the solar service manager can track the technician’s real-time location, he/she can notify the customer of the technician’s ETA so that the customer stays informed and is available at the place when the technician arrives.
iii) Minimize the Labour Costs
Another advantage of real-time monitoring is that it reduces the cost of the labour force. If you hire someone to watch over your employees, you’ll pay him/her a salary plus benefits. However, if you use real-time monitoring, you won’t need to pay anything extra. You’ll still get the same level of visibility and security, but without paying additional costs.
iv) Increase Your Business Efficiency
Real-time technician tracking increases your business efficiency and technician’s travel efficiency. When you’re able to track the activities of your employees, you can take action immediately.
For example, if one of your employees travels out of the proximity of customer locations to perform a freelance job or for other personal work without informing the manager, you can quickly get notified on the solar technician tracking app.
In short, real-time monitoring makes it easy to keep tabs on your employees’ activities. When the technicians know that they are constantly monitored by the solar service manager, they work with better efficiency and do not involve in trickery.
v) Increased Employee Productivity
Employees spend more time working because they don’t have to waste time searching for customers. The route optimization feature gets them straight to the customer’s location. They’re able to focus on what matters most – completing work tasks.
vi) Reduce Fuel Costs
The use of field service management software with a GPS tracker reduces fuel costs while increasing customer satisfaction. This combination helps companies reduce downtime and improve efficiency across the board.
Conclusion
GPS-based solar technician tracking software simplifies certain solar service operations for solar service technicians and solar contractors. While this works well, integrating a GPS tracker with solar field service management software further simplifies solar business management and helps solar contractors run their businesses more efficiently.
By implementing a system like this, companies can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and save money. Try Unoservice solar service software that comes with a free solar employee location tracking app.
Frequently Asked Questions about Solar Technician Tracking Software
How can Solar field service management software with GPS increase customer satisfaction?
GPS-integrated solar FSM software helps solar contractors provide prompt services to customers with features like route optimization, real-time technician tracking, intelligent scheduling, remote data access and real-time job monitoring. On-time services boost customer satisfaction.
How do solar contractors track employees working in the field?
Solar contractors can track the real-time location of their solar technicians using GPS-based solar technician tracking software on the technician’s mobile phones.
Can I track my solar technician team from the office?
With a GPS-enabled employee tracking app, you can track your employee’s mobility from anywhere even while being at your office.