What Is Dispatch Management? Tips for Efficiency
Here’s how dispatch management can increase operational efficiency, reduce costs, and improve dispatcher and customer experience.
Sophia Le-Dimitrova
Here’s how dispatch management can increase operational efficiency, reduce costs, and improve dispatcher and customer experience.
Sophia Le-Dimitrova
Dispatch management is the process that helps your dispatchers schedule, manage, and track the resources needed for field service requests. Our research finds that 72% of consumers say they’ll remain most loyal to the companies that provide faster service. That’s a lot of pressure for your dispatchers who must make sure every customer gets the right help when they want it.
It’s not easy to be a dispatcher. They sit at the intersection of customer experience and field service management, making it one of the most demanding jobs in field service. Their job is hectic, fast-paced, and stressful.
There’s a lot that can go wrong everyday. Dispatchers have to juggle different types of appointments, may have to find multiple contractors and specialists for a single job, and even handle requests for emergency situations, like floods. Managing all of this efficiently is hard.
You can make your dispatchers’ jobs easier and less stressful with the right field service management software that includes key dispatch management capabilities. This solution streamlines the entire process with automation, AI, and data. Plus, your dispatchers get a full view into the availability, skills, and proximity of the mobile workforce — both employees and contractors — in a single dispatch console.
Keep reading to learn the ins and outs of dispatch management and how you can use field service management software to make your dispatch process more efficient and effective.
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At a high level, dispatch management is the process of overseeing the scheduling, planning, and tracking of resources to ensure timely, efficient, and effective field service for a range of functions. These include repairs, installations, maintenance, emergency response, home healthcare, insurance claim assessments, deliveries, and much more.
Resources are people, tools, parts, equipment, vehicles, and more. Use cases vary from fixing a burst pipe in a home, to installing solar panels for a business, to performing preventative maintenance on an ultrasound machine in a hospital, to rerouting technicians and emergency personnel to assist with natural disasters and utility outages.
No matter the request or industry, the goal of dispatch management is to maximise resources, minimise costs, and deliver exceptional service to customers — when they need it. This starts by connecting the right field service technician to the customer. Remember: “right” means the assigned mobile worker has the right skills, tools, equipment, vehicles, availability, and other requirements to make sure your customer gets fast, complete service — the first time.
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Nobody wants to wait — whether they’re in a real hurry or not. What if your strategy for managing service requests was first come, first serve? You could wind up with all your field service technicians handling low-priority jobs in one section of your service territory when a high-priority request comes in from the opposite side.
Dispatch management helps you:
Successful field service is tied to effective dispatch management. It’s the difference between jumping from job to job as fast as you can and using your team for maximum efficiency and customer experience.
Dispatch management offers several benefits. Let’s look at three:
To summarise: effective dispatch management improves overall operational performance and customer experience.
The dispatch process touches every aspect of field service — from taking initial requests to analysing post-delivery data — and aims for high efficiency and maximised usage of resources. Dispatchers must balance shifting and competing priorities to make sure everything operates smoothly.
At a high level, here’s what a typical dispatch process includes:
These are a lot of steps and factors to get your dispatch process right. Let’s look at how field service management software with dispatch management capabilities can improve ease, efficiency, and effectiveness.
The right field service management software has key dispatch management capabilities that benefit your dispatchers, customers, and business. This solution works by automating and streamlining the process of assigning, optimising, managing service requests, resources, and schedules.
Your dispatchers have a full, real-time view of the mobile workforce in a dispatch console and can use automation and AI to optimise schedules. This lets them get your customers the right help when they need it. Generative AI helps your dispatchers be even more efficient.
This solution can adapt to your changing business needs, allowing you to scale your operations and handle increased field service volumes effectively.
Let’s look at this solution in action and what it does to improve dispatch management:
Bottom line: there’s a lot involved to get dispatch management right. But the right field service management solution with key dispatch management capabilities makes the process easier, more efficient, and effective. You’ll improve dispatcher and customer experience and get your business ready for the future of field service.
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