Mobile Phone Apps.

[astarquitefrankly]

Morning,

I hope you don't mind me picking your brains? i run a boiler breakdown company and am having a small app made to help me track my engineers to see where they are and book jobs in with them including addresses and postcode etc im considering putting in the option to let my customers track the engineer when they are due to attend their job (maybe an hour before booked in time to help them know how far away they are) and also direct message the engineer rather than having to call the office and then office call them.

im just wondering if this is an idea you like the sound of and if you would ever use an app like this, it could be done from a computer or mobile too so no ned to download the app.

Thanks for any opinion and don't hold back as all this is really gauging is if its worth bothering putting the option in.

 

[rules&rulers]

Best have this thread moved to the plumbing/heating section.

Plenty of guys there working on these apps,

Ps how many field service operatives do you have ?

 

[seasickstevie]

It's not something that only applies to plumbing/heating obviously. I take work from a few maintenance/emergency call-out companies, and it's something that would make a lot of sense.

But having said that, I'm not sure if many engineers / tradesmen/women would actually want to be tracked!

Also, as far a being in direct contact with the client, some companies won't even allow that, never mind actually encourage it.

 

[333rocky333]

Me and all my fellow engineers are tracked, the vans, phones and the tablets, as they are all company owned, I suppose we have no choice, we dont let it bother us too much, but your proposal to let the customers have access changes things and sure that would cause uproar.
Ours are all timed response and if the clients paid for a 4 hour response they constantly pester the firm after 2 hours asking where we are, if they were contacting us direct that would just delay us more,