Shortlist UK’s Best Job Scheduling Software

Shortlist Job Scheduling Software to Improve Your Customer Service, Increase Cash flow & Reduce Overbooking or Double-Booking Engineers.

Job Scheduling Software

Job Scheduling Software eliminates the risk of overbooking, double-booking, or dispatching underqualified engineers. It lets you schedule jobs quicker and organise your teams’ calendars in a mobile app when away from the office. This reduces admin time, increases job capacity, and generates more cash flow. Job Scheduling Software is designed to simplify your planning, scheduling, and dispatch processes. Features like real-time tracking, drag-and-drop scheduling, and multi-calendar views make it easy. Optimising the job scheduling process means engineers can take on up to four more jobs each week. Most importantly, it saves you six hours a week in scheduling-related admin tasks.

Is Job Scheduling Software Worth the Investment?

Job Scheduling Software is an all-in-one easy-to-use mobile app that simplifies your scheduling processes. It focuses entirely on scheduling and assigning, ensuring the right workers are sent to the right job. This avoids poor customer experience caused by revisits or delays and increases job completion rates.

Job scheduling tools are used in multiple trades to:

• Schedule jobs quicker and as soon as a request is raised
• Organise your team’s daily, weekly, and monthly calendars
• Schedule jobs anywhere at any time, either at the office or on-site
• Assign jobs to workers based on real-time location
• Prevent job cancellations due to double-bookings and over-bookings

Purchasing Job Scheduling Software requires a yearly budget of between £500 and £6000. Albeit a significant investment, it’s essential if you’re:

• Spending too much time scheduling workers
• Receiving poor customer feedback
• Not meeting KPIs, like low job completion and first-time fix rates
• Having no uptake in new or repeat jobs
• Lacking organisational structure in your service scheduling workflows
• Experiencing cash flow problems

What you’ll get in return from this purchase depends on how you measure success. Whether it’s more jobs completed, less time spent organising schedules, or generating more revenue. On average, the return on investment (ROI) of Job Scheduling Software looks like this:

How Much Does Job Scheduling Software Cost?

The cost of Job Scheduling Software can be calculated based on the size of your team:

• Teams of 1-9 employees will pay between £7.50 and £720 per month
• A team of 10-20 employees will pay between £75 and £1599 per month
• Teams with more than 20 users will pay between £150 and £6000 per month

For smaller operations, an average first-year budget of £500 to £1000 is required. For mid-sized teams, you’ll need a budget of between £1500 to £3000. For enterprise field service organisations, you’ll need at least £6000 (as well as a more rounded Field Service Management Software solution).

For small businesses, upfront investments and yearly payments can be off-putting. 60% of SMBs regret new technology purchases after 6 months. With this in mind, there are two areas of advice:

1. Opt for short-term contracts: Avoid buyer’s remorse by opting for products with short-term contracts, either a monthly rolling contract or a 1-year plan.
2. Utilise free trials: Vendors offer free trials to ensure you’re happy with the product before committing to a purchase. Free trials can last anywhere between 14 days and 30 days.

Core Capabilities & Features of Job Scheduling Apps

Mobile Scheduling

Vendors package their products into apps. Desktop apps for office staff and mobile apps for field teams. Mobile apps let you carry out job scheduling admin from anywhere at any time, without the need to be in the office. You can view calendars, schedule jobs, and track workers. Engineers with mobile apps receive alerts to where and when their next job is. Managers can track when a worker arrives and leaves a job using the mobile’s GPS tracker.

Drag-and-drop Scheduling

Assigning workers and scheduling jobs is simple with drag-and-drop features. When planning for the week, you can see what workers are available and when. This makes it easy to drag the job request into the calendar view and drop it into the right engineer’s calendar. Jobs can be dropped in at specific times, like between 12pm and 5pm. Or they can be dropped in at periods, like mid-morning or late afternoon to give more flexibility.

Calendar Overview

Organisation is a key selling point of Job Scheduling Software. You can see your entire field team’s calendar in one place. This makes it easier to schedule work orders as you see what workers are available and when.

Real-time Tracking (Engineer & Job)

Mobile GPS tracking alerts you when engineers clock in and out at jobs. This gives you a prewarning to schedule the next job based on location and availability. On top of this, real-time updates are issued for job status and estimated compilation time. This notifies customers if engineers are delayed due to traffic or a previous job.

Third-party Integration

The flexibility of modern software products makes it easy to integrate existing systems. That includes accounting systems like Sage and Quikbooks, or payment channels like PayPal and Stripe. For job scheduling tasks, that includes calendars like iCal, Google Calendar, and Office 365. A handy integration for workers is maps, including Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze. They click on a customer address and open navigation in their chosen app.

Route Optimisation

Route optimisation features are prominent in field service tools and Job Management Software. With a calendar overview, you can schedule jobs within a set radius of each other. That includes prioritising jobs based on the order of location. Route optimisation reduces weekly fuel costs by 10% and travel time by 11%.

What Trades Benefit Most Using Job Scheduling Software?

Job Scheduling Software benefits daily work processes that consist of single and multiple job visits. Apps are used for big-team efforts, single work orders, repeat or reoccurring jobs, and emergency call-outs. That includes trades and jobs such as:

• HVAC maintenance and repairs
• Gas, heating, and plumbing maintenance or installations
• Landscape, gardening, and grounds maintenance
• Property and facilities maintenance
• Building and Construction
• Electrical
• Carpentry and joinery
• Roofing
• Domestic and commercial services
• Tiling and flooring
• Painting and decorating

3 Steps to Finding the Best Job Scheduling Software

To avoid buyer’s remorse and generate substantial ROI, you must find Job Scheduling Software that fits your processes. This starts at the research stage of your software-buying journey.

1. Understand Your Paint Points

For most field service providers, pain points are the main drivers for software adoption. Whether staying competitive with local competition, losing jobs due to job delays and poor customer feedback, or not taking on new jobs and losing cash flow.

Reasons for adopting new technology may not be reliant on point points. You may have noticed an opportunity in your processes, like reducing time spent on manual scheduling or speeding up the job scheduling processes to help take on more jobs.

2. Identify Must-have Features

To address paint points head-on, you need to have the right features at your disposal. Most job scheduling tools have similar features, but some have features that are best suited for smaller and larger organisations. To get clarity on what you need, organise features into three sections:

1. Must-have features (required to meet pain points)
2. Nice to have features (not essential but could be useful)
3. Extras features (add-ons that may be useful but will cost more)

3. Sign Up For Free Trials & Product Demos

When you have narrowed your list of products down – ideally to three – you’ll want to test them out. The best way to do this is using free trials; try-before-you-buy. Most Job Scheduling Software vendors offer free trials. They’re an essential part of the software-buying process as they give you a sneak peek into how the product operates.

To make the most of a free trial, ensure you:

• Dedicate time to understanding and using the product
• Recreate real-world job scheduling scenarios to see if it does what you want it to
• Include employees (office staff and engineers) to gather honest feedback

Some vendors may not provide free trials. If not, contact them and ask for a product demonstration with a salesperson.

Potential Risks of Implementing a Job Scheduling App

Like with any purchase, there are risks and challenges attached. Before making a final decision, identify the risks that may impact your business when implementing a mobile job scheduling app. They include:

• Entering into a long-term contract: You may feel that after 6 months the product isn’t delivering on your goals. But if you’ve signed a 1-year or 2-year contract, you may be stuck in that deal. Any contract breach will result in a one-off payment.
• Poor product implementation: Ensuring good company-wide rollout of your job scheduling tool is essential. Vendors often help with setting up the product and pushing it live. If implementation goes wrong, you risk losing key customer and job data. Not to mention the risk of losing jobs due to delays and cancellations while the system is being fixed.
• Employee friction: Often overlooked, employees are used to doing things their way with tried and tested methods. Without proper training and support, employees may reject the new technology. This is why users should be involved in the research stage.
• No ROI within 6 months: It’s possible that even though the product is right for your job scheduling needs, it is not delivering. Ideally, you want to see a return within six months, if not you’ll need to decide on the next steps. You could wait six more months, end the contract early, or shop around for a different tool.