There has never been a greater need for field services companies to be accurate when it comes to their data-driven decisions. From ensuring compliance requirements are met, to enhanced service quality, the benefits of data accuracy are both many and varied.
In just the same way that the presence of data accuracy can improve a business, so too can the absence of data accuracy harm it. And so, with that in mind, we’ve put together this article discussing the advantages of data accuracy, the risks associated with a lack of accurate data, and most importantly, how your company can ensure accurate data in the future.
The Importance of Data Accuracy
There are two main areas in which accurate data helps field services companies:
Compliance With Industry Regulations
The importance of compliance (especially in light of the recent Hackitt Report following on from the Grenfell disaster) can’t be overstated. A “that’s probably close enough” attitude just won’t cut it, so you need to have accurate means of recording and reporting your data. A failure to do so doesn’t just put a business at risk, it can put lives at risk.
Enhanced Service Quality
Another positive brought about by accurate data is improved service quality. It’s a simple enough premise, and it makes sense when you think about it; the more accurate the data a business can collect, the more accurate, tailored, and specific the service they can provide.
Having access to up-to-date information about customer preferences, service history and equipment specification enhances customer satisfaction, reduces downtime and means that first time fix rates are drastically improved.
The Risks of Inaccurate Data
If you’re a sucker for a nice, juicy list, then today’s your lucky day. Without data accuracy, you risk:
- Being incompliant
- Offering shoddy services
- Developing a lax workplace culture, and a sloppy attitude towards work
In other words, not exactly the stuff you want…
How Can You Ensure Data Accuracy?
So, now we’ve broken down just why exactly data accuracy is so crucial, how can you go about ensuring it? Well, the first place to start is with your guidelines and processes.
1. Clear Guidelines and Processes
It’s so much easier to gather accurate data if what you’re collecting, in what way, and at what time, is defined. The more specific and standardised you can be with your processes, the less variability there will be with any data accumulated. High standards start – well, they start at the start!
2. Employee Training
In a similar vein, you can have the smartest software known to man, but if your teams don’t know how to use it properly, then again, you’re going to be met with sub-optimal results, and inaccurate data.
Invest the time and resources to properly train your teams in whatever processes they’ll be carrying out, and your company’s data accuracy will soar as a result, trust us.
3. Validation and Verification
Onto some of the more technical aspects now, and it’s time to talk about data validation and verification. Implement verification measures so that data can be checked as and when it’s collected/stored. Think of it as a filtering or cleansing process that ensures any data that comes through is of an appropriately high standard.
Inaccurate information can be costly to a client, and at its worst can cause a company to be incompliant. Validation helps mitigate this. An example of this might be office-based members of staff checking that the right information has been placed into a form’s fields before sending it off to the customer. You can think of it as the checks and balances that a form should go through before clicking that submit/send button.
4. Regular Auditing
Even with validation and verification processes, some errors do slip through the net from time to time. By scheduling routine data audits, you can weed out any straggler errors that are lurking in your data. Standards are kept high this way and help establish whether the previous validation step is working properly.
5. Integration With Other Systems
The more separate parts a machine has, the more ways it can go wrong. Businesses are much the same. Your company no doubt has lots of different cogs, from accounting and invoicing to customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and many more.
If these cogs aren’t working in unison, and all turning the same way, then you don’t only get inefficiencies, you get errors. By integrating more of your systems using a mixture of apps like Rugged Data and other APIs to connect your systems, however, your processes become more streamlined, and the chances of inaccurate data are therefore lowered.
6. Use of Technology
Love it or loathe it, we live in a world of very impressive technology. By using specific software and technologies specifically designed for field service management, you can automate your data entry processes and reduce the chance of human error.
Even for you tech scrooges out there, surely that sounds pretty good?
7. Feedback and Improvement
Now, this is one of the most important steps but it’s also one of the ones that’s forgotten about the most. It’s all very well getting a good set of data-gathering processes in place, but guess what, they can become dated, too.
If you rest on your laurels thinking you don’t ever need to re-evaluate, then you’ll cease to innovate. There are always areas you can improve, and that should be a core mantra of any business.
How Can Rugged Data Help?
Simply put, we can ensure your data capture is 100% accurate, every time. But we know you want a bit more detail than that, so let us elaborate. Our mobile reporting apps are designed bespoke for your company, and have the following benefits:
Typing is Minimised
Technicians in the field want to spend as little time as possible typing. Say it again for the people at the back! With a bespoke reporting app from Rugged Data, forms have drop-down selections and auto-populating fields to reduce the amount that technicians have to type. Efficient and easier for your teams out on site. A win-win.
Specific Fields and Formatting Can Be Set
Maybe your reporting features very specific readings to many decimal places, or alternatively, you only need to take readings between a certain range, we can format your fields to take that into account. Again, this reduces errors, makes your data more accurate, and conveys greater professionalism to your clients.
Mandatory Fields (and Intelligent Fields)
There’s nothing more frustrating with manual reporting processes than when the report comes through to the admin team from the technicians out in the field, and for whatever reason, they’ve forgotten to fill out the most important part. Deep breaths, count to ten.
What if there was a way for that to just never happen? Enter mandatory fields (cue rapturous applause) and their young prodigy, intelligent fields. These are fields that have to be filled in order for a form to be submitted. Intelligent fields are those that change depending on what the technician wrote in the previous field.
For example, if the field asked “Did X meet compliance standard Y?” and the answer provided is “No”, a new field can be configured to pop up and ask “Why not?”.
Date/Time Stamps
We know that customers want complete peace of mind that their job was carried out in exactly the right way, and we also know that businesses want to be able to provide that peace of mind. A happy customer is a returning customer, and date/time stamps can help add another dash of respectability and reliability to a company’s reporting processes.
These automatically appear on before and after photos to help prove the authenticity of the evidence being provided. This reassures clients, ensures compliance measures are upheld, and provides technicians with the confidence that their work won’t be questioned.
Automatic Calculations
Only a select few people tend to like mental arithmetic, whilst the majority of us would probably rather do without. With a custom-made reporting app, calculations (like averages) can be worked out automatically. This saves technicians time and improves data accuracy. Two big ticks.
Easy to Follow Process (Set Out in the App)
Finally, the process is clearly laid out within the app. This way, field technicians follow what they’re supposed to be doing more easily and in a straightforward manner. This means you get a standardised approach from all your technicians, and data is more accurate as a result.
All of the Above… in Just 28 Days!
Now, we know what you’re thinking. Won’t this require a big disruptive overhaul? Answer? No. Not at all. In fact, here at Rugged Data, we’re able to take your core reporting process and design the app for it within just four weeks. If we don’t? You get your setup fee refunded, and we build your form entirely for free. Want a more detailed run-down of how the process works? Check out the image below, or get in touch directly!
