Hey! I’m Ben Barr, and I recently took over product marketing here at Dispatch. As we release new products and features, I’ll be pulling back the curtain and sharing a little bit about the motivation behind the improvements we make to our platform.
Dispatch relies heavily on feedback from our customers to help shape the direction of our products. One of the most requested features for our Field Service Management tool was the ability to track technicians on the map in a real-time fashion.
Well, we’re happy to announce that starting today, Dispatch allows service providers to track their techs on our updated Schedule page.
Technician tracking can increase efficiency and reduce overhead in two ways:
#1 Seeing your technicians wherever they are can help service brands identify which techs are closest to any given job, and assign the right service provider accordingly.
#2 Tracking your tech can help service brands manually optimize their routes on the fly. It’s more than just knowing where techs are at any given time — it’s a way to optimize your day and reduce wasted time.
When looking around the market, we found technician tracking to typically be a premium component of FSM tools. Historically, tracking your tech required placing beacons in your trucks to provide up-to-date GPS locations of your team. This approach provides highly-accurate tracking but is costly and inconvenient.
Today, technicians are carrying little GPS beacons in their pockets everywhere they go — their smartphones! We can take advantage of this technology that is already sitting in someone’s pocket, and translate into real-time, trackable location — with nearly the same accuracy.
Ultimately, the days of expensive GPS features are over.
Tech tracking is another great example of creatively using everyday technology to provide premium functionality to small business owners without breaking the bank.
