It is essential for field services businesses to improve their field service management (FSM) and keep their employees up to date with the latest technologies – like mobile payment solutions. The objective is to efficiently manage a team of service technicians and focus on increasing the value of your business.
From cloud connectivity to real-time ticket management, proper utilization of technology can add value to your field service management by saving time, minimizing hassles, and increasing efficiency. That is why the field services sector often makes use of the latest advancements in technology.
The field service management industry is massive. It’s expected to be worth nearly $30B by 2031, and technological optimization is driving that.
With this in mind, it is no surprise that mobile payment solutions and field service apps are also rising in use left, right, and center. This is not only for the sake of operational progress but also due to the advantages that these solutions offer in improving FSM processes. Updating your technology is more than just preventative maintenance – it’s how you’ll get your business to the next level.
To help you learn more about how mobile app payment solutions can benefit your business, here are five reasons why mobile payment systems are a critical part of your mobile field service toolkit.
1. It Improves Revenue Generation Processes
One of the biggest challenges that your field service employees may face comes with collecting timely payments from customers.
More often than not, you have to have more than one department to communicate with customers to complete the payment collection process. This aspect takes away from your employee’s time on multiple fronts and adds unnecessary steps to the process.
By setting up mobile payment solutions through your field service app, your operations employees can collect payments and customer signatures immediately and on-site. This way, you can cut down the processing times accordingly. Streamlining will also improve your customer experience.
2. A Field Service App Makes Your Payments Safer
Field service employees who do not have mobile app payment solutions or supported devices often need to accept payments in cash or check. This component creates a liability on your business until your accounts or finance departments receive the cash or check at their end.
By accepting payments from mobile solutions, you can make these payments safer. Since you are receiving payments directly from customers into your business account, it exposes your business to less risk.
3. You’re Able to Digitize Your Processes
For your employees, conventional payment processing comes with additional paperwork, which is crucial for your accounts department. If any piece of information is lost from your service history records, it can cause several compliance issues.
Using a field service app (especially one that offers mobile payment solutions) helps you digitize your processes. For instance, you can capture and save invoices through the solution, as well as related data for your records. When you combine this with technologies such as cloud storage and work order management, you can benefit from wireless connectivity to a large extent.
4. It Improves Efficiency
Mobile payment solutions improve efficiency by a large margin. Your employees do not have to go through redundant processes, manage paperwork, and wait for confirmation from backend systems when performing service work or writing up service reports.
As a result, your employees can complete more visits and complete more service requests in a single day. This aspect leads them to be able to manage a higher number of customers as well as exceed customer expectations.
5. A Field Service App Saves Costs
From faster payments to improved efficiency, these benefits come together to provide you with higher productivity at lower costs.
By making mobile app payment solutions a part of your field service app, you will not only cut costs and increase your overall profitability but will also improve your FSM processes.
How to choose the right provider
Choosing the right payment provider for your field service application is a big decision – and there are some key considerations.
First and foremost, is to make sure that your payment provider is able to process payments when offline. Given that FSM pros are likely to get themselves into scenarios with no wifi or even mobile data, the provider’s offline capabilities are a key consideration.
After that, you’ll want to consider:
- If the payment provider is able to integrate with your field service management software (or other tools you use regularly). Ideally, your service team should be able to work seamlessly on work orders from their mobile device, without having to switch between a variety of software like their field service mobile application, the CRM app, and the the payment provider’s app.
- The provider’s reputation and customer service offerings. Payments are a critical aspect of field service businesses, and customers will not be happy if payments are held up and experience poor support.
- The provider’s ease of use, not just for admins, but for field users as well.
- The payment options the provider accepts (ie beyond credit card transactions, does it take mobile payments like iOs’ Apple Pay?).
- The automation features that the provider offers. For instance, do they have invoice templates? Will it speak with not just your field service solution, but also automatically update any inventory management system you may be working with?
- The provider’s pricing.
Take the Next Step with Stax
The Stax Platform is a smart solution for businesses that take payments online or over the phone. With simple invoicing, recurring charges, and online bill pay, you’ll get paid faster with Stax.
At Stax, our mobile payment solutions are built with Apple and Android mobile app functionalities to help improve your on-the-go operations. With cloud connectivity, real-time updates, and faster processes, you can count on Stax and its mobile payment systems to accept payments anytime, anywhere.
Whether you are looking for a mobile payment system for your new business or need our suggestions on improving your current operations, don’t hesitate to reach out to Stax today to see how it works for your workflows and business needs.
