For years, Excel Fitness Equipment experienced tremendous growth. The regional fitness equipment sales and maintenance company enjoyed an expanding customer base, making hundreds of field installation and service calls per month. Their rapid top line sales growth supported expansion into larger territories and new product lines. Business was good. However, rapid growth was hiding operational inefficiencies that became exposed during the recent economic turmoil. Sales of new equipment began to fall and inaccuracies in services billing were extending the billing cycle. All of this was putting great pressure on the company, in some cases challenging their very survival. Management was convinced that they needed to dramatically increase the efficiency of their processes or face dire consequences.

The Challenge

First, it was clear that their inventory management and accountability controls were lacking. Excel inventories thousands of parts from a multitude of global manufacturers. “Mobile service technicians are required to carry a large inventory of these parts in their assigned service vehicles and are responsible for stocking parts used in work order completion,” said Justin Price, Excel’s Vice President of Operations. “Historically, all this was accomplished and tracked using paper requisition forms. Unfortunately, inventory was not always recorded correctly as it was received, multiple visits to customers by service technicians were required because the proper parts were not always in the trucks and inventory turnover was low as slow moving parts were often incorrectly reordered.”

Second, the paper based system of work order dispatch and tracking was error prone. Excel used manual dispatch boards to coordinate a day’s activities for their service technicians and required technicians to complete forms to support billing for installations and warranty reimbursement. Unfortunately, the static dispatch system did not easily allow technicians to be rerouted for emergency support. Also, paper forms were often lost or there were discrepancies created when work order information was copied from the forms to the billing system, significantly impacting the billing process.

Finally, the proof of performance control system was breaking down. “Excel service technicians are required to get a customer signature on work orders to authorize the completion of installation or service work. In some cases, customer representatives were not present for authorization when a technician completed their tasks and in others cases, technicians were so rushed to get to the next location that they omitted this step. This lack of performance proof often created billing issues if customers questioned work order activity,” said Price.
Understanding that their key challenges revolved around the operations of their mobile field workers, Excel management began to search for an experienced industry partner to help.

The Solution

Broad Reach Mobility is an enterprise solutions provider partnered with AB&R and is focused on helping organizations more effectively manage and support their mobile workforce to drive greater efficiency and productivity. In consulting with Excel it was clear that their challenges were similar to that of most organizations with mobile employees.

After discussions with Excel management it was obvious that the mobile workforce management suite was the right platform. Using rugged, handheld computers from industry leaders like Motorola, ServiceReach simplifies mobile work order management, automating dispatch and managing work flow to ensure that all required information about a work order is captured and tracked properly. In addition, ServiceReach provides powerful inventory and asset management tools. Not only did ServiceReach address the technical challenges faced by Excel, it directly addressed their investment challenges. “Excel required a solution that could be quickly deployed, but they had no existing budget for a solution,” said Fildey. “ServiceReach is a hosted solution that eliminates costly infrastructure investment and is provided on a pay-as-you go basis. This was perfect for Excel as any low monthly costs were immediately recouped with savings from improved productivity and better cash flow from accurate billing.”

In addressing the inventory issue, ServiceReach enabled Excel employees to automate the equipment management process. First, equipment being received in the warehouse is barcode scanned to ensure shipment accuracy. Then, using their handheld devices, technicians review inventory required for their day’s work orders and electronically reassign any needed warehouse parts to their service vehicles. At a customer site, technicians easily assign installation and maintenance parts to the work order ensuring that every component is tracked at every step of the process. “Technicians now arrive onsite with the proper parts and complete tasks in one visit improving customer satisfaction and speeding billing,” said Price.

Next, ServiceReach eliminated the need for error prone work order paper trails. With a web management interface, ServiceReach simplifies the work order dispatch process, giving field technicians access to all information about their day’s work order activities. Work orders are assigned to specific technicians based upon work criteria, location and required skills. While on site, important data, such as warranty reimbursement information, is automatically collected properly and accurately transmitted back to Excel’s billing system, eliminating the need for data reentry. “By automating our work order fulfillment and data collection process we can more effectively track our progress and ensure that we bill for our services accurately in a timely manner. This has had a tremendous impact on our cash flow,” said Price. “In addition, because information is captured more easily, our technicians spend far less time filling out reports and more time in the field generating billable hours.”

Finally, ServiceReach provided many tools to ensure proof of performance. “Technicians now have customers electronically sign work order receipts,” said Price. “And, in the case when a customer simply is not available to sign, we can use the system to electronically capture detailed images and notes of work performed that can immediately be shown to our customers if they have any questions at a later date.”

The Result

Prior to the implementation of the ServiceReach mobility solution Excel was struggling to manage existing business in a cost effective manner. Revenues were down and customer satisfaction was at an historic low. Upon implementing ServiceReach, Excel began to see results almost immediately. “Once our field technicians were equipped and trained we quickly began to realize the benefits of our effort,” said Price. “We had much better visibility into inventory levels, which helped us manage our suppliers more effectively. With the automated work order management capabilities our technicians have increased their billable time by over 20% and, because we are more successful with first visit resolution, our customer satisfaction scores have jumped over 30%. But the best news is that our billing accuracy in the first quarter of using the solution improved over 20%, which is already translating into more timely payments by customers.”

In addition to solving the core challenges presented by the Excel management team, ServiceReach is providing additional benefits. First, the automated dispatch capabilities are allowing Excel to easily change their routes to respond to customer emergencies. Second, the integrated navigation has reduced their mileage and fuel costs by over 10%. Finally, the ability to document site visit information and review job history in the field has allowed technicians to upsell additional products and warranty work, increasing revenues.

“Not only are we on track for recovery, our business is poised for strong growth, particularly as economic conditions begin to improve,” said Price. “The best part is that it was very easy and cost effective to implement. Simply put, we wish we had done this sooner.”