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. 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 employees’ 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 rely on cash or checks expose the business to several liabilities, including loss, theft, check fraud, bank holds, and delayed cash flow. By accepting secure digital payments through a mobile solution, you eliminate these physical payment risks.
By accepting card-present payments via an EMV-compliant mobile card reader, you make these payments significantly safer. The data is secured using tokenization and encryption, which protects the customer’s sensitive card information and reduces your business’s PCI compliance scope. This secure, instantaneous payment collection is facilitated by the Stax mobile app and our certified mobile card readers, which instantly link the transaction to the customer’s work order in your system.
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 drive a clear return on investment (ROI) by increasing technician utilization and reducing the Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)—the time it takes to get paid.
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, verify that your payment provider’s mobile POS hardware supports store-and-forward mode for payments taken during service. While the best practice is to always process payments in real-time, store-and-forward allows your field users to securely capture card data and transaction details when offline (no Wi-Fi or mobile data) and automatically submit the payments for authorization once connectivity is restored.
After that, you’ll want to consider:
- The provider must offer a seamless API or pre-built integration with your core field service management (FSM) software or other critical tools like accounting software. This data sync ensures that payment details, service reports, and inventory updates flow automatically without manual double-entry.
- 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, which directly impacts adoption rates and reduces training time for field users. The mobile app must be intuitive and reliable in varied environments.
- The full range of payment options the provider accepts—including all major card networks, ACH/eCheck processing for large invoices, and contactless NFC payments like Apple Pay and Google 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, unified payment solution for businesses that take payments online, over the phone, or in the field. With simple invoicing, recurring charges, and online bill pay, as well as robust mobile card processing, 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.
