Fire protection is a cyclical business. Depending on the season, the region, and your trade(s), your business may experience a summer rush or a winter blitz. While other businesses plan vacations, counting down the days to relax poolside or hit the slopes, fire protection businesses are hard at work in their busiest seasons. And the Inspect Point team works hard alongside you to ensure our platform meets your needs.
Streamlining Fire Protection Workflows During Busy Seasons
Often, fire protection customers take advantage of certain seasons and more consistent weather to complete fire inspection and maintenance projects they put off during other times of the year.
Drawing on this understanding of fire protection’s cyclical nature, the Inspect Point team has some tips to help you effectively navigate busy seasons, balancing a greater workload while meeting customer demands and scaling your business. Take proactive steps to ensure your customers meet their regulatory and fire code requirements, create a safer environment for everyone, and protect your employees from burnout.
Optimize Online Scheduling
An easy way to prepare for the busy season is to implement an online appointment scheduling system to allow your customers to easily schedule inspections and other fire protection services.
While this is always a convenient scheduling option, you can expect your customers to take advantage of online scheduling more frequently during busy seasons when their schedules become increasingly hectic as well. How impactful can online scheduling options be? One survey revealed that as much as 40% of appointments are scheduled outside regular business hours.
Online scheduling can also reduce the number of calls your office receives, benefitting both your customers and your office staff. By freeing employees from answering phones, manually scheduling visits, and returning calls, they can focus on core tasks that protect your customers and help scale your business.
One report found only 33% of consumers want to book services by phone. No online appointment scheduling may lead to frustrated customers, who might turn to your competitors for convenience. Today, convenience is king. In fact, another study revealed 95% of customers are more likely to switch to a service provider with online booking.
In addition to happy customers and efficient processes, online appointment scheduling reduces the chance of errors and no-shows, improves communication with customers, and provides key data you can analyze. Online scheduling databases help you determine what types of jobs your customers most frequently schedule and when, and allow more comprehensive analysis of employee performance on those jobs.
Fire protection scheduling can be incredibly tedious and stressful to manage without the right tools.
Offer Flexible Scheduling Options
Your customers are busy, too. Whether they’re tending to their own business operations or traveling themselves, flexible scheduling benefits them–and you–significantly. You can increase customer satisfaction by offering flexible appointment times. About 20% of respondents in a GetApp study said being able to choose a convenient service time is a significant pain point. While each fire protection business needs to make decisions based on employee availability, you may find it helpful to offer alternative times in the evening or on the weekends for inspections or maintenance.
Keep Customers Informed with Omnichannel Updates
Many online scheduling solutions have features that allow you to send reminders and updates to customers about upcoming appointments via email, phone call, or text–whichever way your customer prefers.
In addition to sending appointment reminders before and on the day of scheduled service, you can also use digital methods to improve communication with your customers. Provide key information, such as the name of the inspector or technician who will be there and the systems due for inspection or service.
Some solutions even enable you to send additional information, such as forms or checklists, that should be reviewed before your employee shows up for service. This can also help employees tackle more jobs more efficiently by eliminating time spent waiting for systems to be made accessible. When customers know what the technician will need access to and can ensure proper access, the whole process is made easier for everyone.
Automated scheduling solutions also improve customer satisfaction, enabling employees to update them on changes to arrival time or any other issues on the go. While you try to stick to schedules as closely as possible, delays and challenges happen. Keeping your customers informed–and giving them simple rescheduling options–goes a long way in increasing customer satisfaction.
Simplify Scheduling, Streamline Success
Scheduling can be incredibly tedious and stressful to manage without the right tools. Inspect Point helps you protect your customers and ensure your business never misses an appointment. From our Dynamic Calendar and map-based scheduling view to the Customer Portal that makes customer communication easy, Inspect Point is a comprehensive platform that takes the guesswork out of administrative tasks like scheduling.
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