How are service companies and their clients dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic?

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the planet, and countries went into nationwide lockdowns, businesses have had to quickly adapt their operations for staff and customers.

Physical distancing, reduction of non-essential operations, and limited contact are fundamental in protecting human health—and also raise fundamental challenges about how companies can continue to reach customers and meet their expectations.  However, what else can be done to protect employees, customers and the general public from the spread of the virus besides minimising contact, and how can it be achieved?

In this article, we will discuss the possibilities of minimising this risk with the implementation of digital platforms for data collection and managing activities in everyday work. Furthermore, we will go through the most obvious benefits of this implementation.

Be responsible to your clients – offer paperless services

Automatic reporting not only brings efficiency and convenience – it also does much more.  Specifically, automatic reports can be sent after the dispatch of a  task and so remind the client or the supervisor of the assignment.  They can also be triggered automatically after the job is performed in the field and be sent again to one or many email addresses (e.g. to the client or supervisor if something goes wrong). Automatic reporting for clients will save time for all involved as there is no need for physical contact or paper reports.

Maintain your team’s health – keep them (almost) fully remote

With the implementation of digital platforms, you will not only minimise contact between your employees and clients, but there will also be less direct contact amongst your employees. With MightyFields,  workers don’t need to be present in the office to pick up work orders or to get instructions to perform tasks. They will get direct notifications on their mobile devices!

Maintain a general overview of your business operations

Less contact doesn’t necessarily mean you will have less of an overview of your company’s operations – in fact, it could be exactly the opposite – at any given time, you will know if your employee has already started to work on a task or has already finished the task. Furthermore, there will be timeslots and locations recorded for each task. It really is that easy.

No price is higher than an unhappy customer

In times of stress, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, some companies will try to cut costs to manage quarterly profitability.  Furthermore, management may also mistakenly think that, since there is less activity, there is less need for maintenance.  However, this approach is short-sighted and sets up the company for potential chaos and failure.  So, do keep maintaining your machines, and notify your clients about the importance of maintenance and how costly breakdowns can be.

Scheduling will help you reschedule any missed appointments caused by lock-downs or government restrictions

Management may cut costs,  and therefore servicing companies may also have a decline in service jobs, and especially in regular maintenance that does not form part of warranties or contracts.  Some scheduled tasks are just being postponed to a later date.   Our platform for managing tasks, Scheduler, can help to reschedule tasks more easily and in a more organised manner, while it also allows you to send a notification to your client to notify them of your arrival.

And finally – support your team emotionally

The pandemic has also introduced a disruptive level of emotional stress on the workforce. Consequently, the need for thoughtful, clear, simple communications is acute. Candour matters more than charisma in strengthening trust, and leaders at every level can be role models of empathy and openness. With people seeking stronger connections while navigating the crisis, now is the time for leaders to articulate a vision that imparts meaning in the work an organisation does and the future goals it wants to achieve.

Conclusion

What has become clear over this improbably turbulent period is that companies that have made investments in digital transformation pre-COVID-19 have responded much better to the new reality. Moreover, we can see a trend of accelerated usage of technology and that investment decisions are at the forefront of decision-makers’ thoughts. Organisations need to be making better-informed and faster decisions, focusing on automation, real-time risk assessment and mitigation, continuous value delivery and agile strategy making. And they need to be doing it now.