asnow
Valued Contributor II

A couple of weeks ago we shared an article on nine best practices on how to effectively schedule technicians. We are going to take a deep dive into those 9 best practices over the next couple of weeks. We’d love to hear your thoughts and insights on these 9 best practices. 

Let’s start with Best Practice number 1:

Evaluate Tech Capacity When Scheduling Jobs

At our company we meet each morning in a daily huddle to discuss several key performance indicators. One of those being service/maintenance technician capacity. We review the capacity that we reached the day prior, the current day capacity (which should be near to 100%), and the next day capacity (which should be around 75% full). 

To determine the capacity, we look at the number of service and maintenance technicians that are scheduled to work and run service and maintenance calls.  

Work with your service and maintenance department managers to determine the amount of time you will allocate to each job. For ServiceTitan users, this was probably done when you set up your job types for both residential and commercial jobs. 

Allocate how many jobs each service technician will run in a day. Most service and maintenance technicians will run 4-5 jobs per day. Of course there are some jobs that will take longer than others or projects that have multiple systems to work on, and all of that should be taken into account when determining the daily capacity. 

These standards for scheduling should be determined, documented and communicated to the service team so there are clear expectations when it comes to scheduling calls and making schedule changes. 

It’s easy to create different sections for different departments or teams on the dispatch board so that you can easily see the schedule and organize calls. 

Another great feature you can use to help with this is the Adjustable Capacity Planning (ACP) feature in ServiceTitan found under the schedule tab. When turned on and set up properly, this feature allows you to see at a glance the capacity available for each job type and the number of available time slots allocated throughout the day. 

When capacity is not being met, it’s a good idea to start reaching out to your customer base via outbound calls or texts. Give a special offer for maintenance to help book additional calls and meet technician capacity requirements for the day and following days. 

For more information on ACP, you can learn more in the Knowledge Base, or check out this 4 and half minute overview video on ACP in the Academy. You can search “Adjustable Capacity Planning” to see all live and recorded training options in the Academy. 

We'd love to hear your tips when evaluating technician capacity for your schedule board. 

Comments
Zakw
Contributor

I like how you said: "We review the capacity that we reached the day prior, the current day capacity (which should be near to 100%), and the next day capacity (which should be around 75% full). "

Before everyone says "why would you not aim for 100%?" Let me jump right in with this. The reason I personally try for less than 100% full is to allow room for the unknown, imagine being 100% full and a high priority customer calls with an emergency, there is always traffic, road closures, bridge openings, leaving a little wiggle room helps to prevent disappointing customers.

Remember that you the dispatcher are the best arrow in the quiver for your technicians.

asnow
Valued Contributor II

Great point @Zakw ! That's exactly right. 

RebeccaSantiago
ServiceTitan Certified Administrator
ServiceTitan Certified Administrator

We've been using Capacity Planning for a few months and I love the potential of it to maximize our technicians availability!

The struggle we've been running into is how to handle the call outs from the technicians. Customers are booking throughout the week and we're hitting our max, but then when a tech calls out, we put a non-job event in their schedule to block them out, but now the amount the ACP thought we had has just reduced and we're having to reschedule jobs. When technicians schedule time off, it's fine because ACP understands they're not available, but day of call outs are hurting us.

Do you have any ideas on how to stay ahead of this?

Zakw
Contributor

@RebeccaSantiago 
This goes back to that less than 100% full that I was talking about. However, the unexpected call out especially same day can really put a crimp in an otherwise darn good plan. Here are some tips I've used when it comes to call outs I hope this helps:

1. Ask the tech if they think they'll be in the next day, I know people don't always know but this helps you plan not only today but tomorrow and so on. It is better to plan ahead if possible. 

2. You know your team better than anyone, is there anyone willing to take on some overtime to help balance out the day (provided that is allowed and that they are qualified for any type of work). In cases like this I've offered to pick up dinner and even had pizzas delivered to job sites to keep people going! Keep the morale up and the appreciation felt! 

3. When rescheduling is unavoidable....Prioritize the customers. Everyone has a ranking system, No heat, club members and so on. Remember a club member is a client and they are loyal versus a customer who is willing to shop around. I use a custom tag in ST that says "rescheduled" once someone is rescheduled, this is a flag so at a glance everyone knows that we need to do everything we can to ensure that the new appointment is adhered to. 

4. There is ALWAYS a solution, the tricky part is having it work for all involved. Never ever give up without trying. 
I truly hope this helps

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‎01-06-2023 06:05 PM
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