Planteria implemented an ‘Open Reporting’ Software tool – providing instant, transparent access about our service visits. This is a ‘must have’ for Facilities Managers with multi-site responsibilities.
Lindsey Anderson, from the Service Management team explains more about our reporting tool, the benefits for our clients and its impact on our business processes.
“We went live with our new software in May 2013. In a nutshell it works from the technicians smart phones and it records technicians’ time on site. The software also runs the work flow processes seamlessly, recording any replacement plants used and ordering plants required for the next visit to a client. The technician writes a brief ‘report’ on his visit, and then it captures a customer’s signature. All this information gets collated into a client visit sheet and sent through to the client after each visit.
Our clients love it! It keeps them totally in tune with our service visits and provides a medium for the technician to communicate directly with the site contact, even when they are in and out before office hours. Multi-site managers can now benefit from instant reporting from all of their buildings, keeping them up-to-date every day.
As well as greatly increasing our communication with our clients, it has streamlined our internal ordering processes, and automatically runs a P&L report for us which helps with accounting.
The new system of working has improved things for our technicians too. No more scrappy bits of paper, everything they need is all there on one device. They can order plants quickly and smoothly, knowing they will be there labelled up with their name, and the customer’s name, ready to collect within the next few days at our nursery.
Finally the system has been a great advantage to me in managing the scheduling of maintenance rounds. Everything is all there on one system, with an easy to use drag and drop planner board all synchronised with the technician’s Smartphones. The technology allows real time allocation, updating and completion of field service maintenance jobs, linking the technician to the office based system, making processes much more efficient with less margin for errors”.
