Case Study | ServQuick - A custom Field Management Web App

Upstate Amusements is an established business in the USA that installs vending machines, game rooms, ATMs, jukeboxes, and pool tables. Along with it offers maintenance and repair services. They have a team of technicians on the field to respond to customer queries and resolve them swiftly. But before approaching us, all their processes were manual. Consequently, with the rise in the business, inefficiencies started creeping in and affected business adversely.

The solution was widely available - field management software. Rather than opting for many field management software available in the market, they decided to automate their system with custom software. They did so to work on software built specific to their business problems and avoid recurring payments.

Our team assisted them with a roadmap for the automation of processes and built the Upstate mobile and web app.

Upstate for automating workflows

Upstate is a custom field management application that managers, technicians, and customers access. The software works on the web and mobile, and the whole application uses the AWS cloud service. We designed and developed a unique UI for different types of users. Customers raise a ticket from the mobile app, after which technicians and managers are alerted. Next, either respond to the ticket, and a technician is assigned to complete the work.

The custom solution has helped the company establish transparency among technicians and order management. The workload on the call center is significantly reduced. The managers have more time to strategize on expanding the business rather than merely managing it.

Challenges

The client's need was an app that would be accessed by three different sets of users - technicians, managers, and customers. So, our first challenge was to accurately understand the needs of all of them. For that, we did interviews to extract qualitative insights. Every interview teaches us something new as it exposes our invalid assumptions, challenges us to ask the right questions, and makes essential business and design decisions.

It would cost the company disproportionally if there were delays or lags in real-time updates and notifications. The task was to ensure that the most crucial features, like work order status, are updated quickly on slow networks. Also, real-time synchronization should happen between mobile and web portals.

From the onset, Upstate Amusement and NetMaxims aimed to develop a holistic solution that would integrate call center management, technicians, and managers on a single platform to quickly assess the state of operations for work orders.

Features our team implemented

A manager requires a more detailed level of reports and authority than technicians. Therefore, after analyzing their needs and responsibilities, we implemented feature variations for different users.

A dashboard that shows information relevant to users. Our team developed clear dashboards to provide an overview of operations. For the managers, it shows the total machines installed by the company, open orders in a month, total orders, etc.
Create order. An essential feature for work order management. In Upstate, all three kinds of users can create orders. Though customers only have access to a mobile app to create orders and get overview of them. Whereas both technicians and managers can add new customers using web portal.
Job scheduling. Available only to managers, they can assign work to technicians according to territory, machine, and work type. In case something happens with a technician on the way because of the vehicle or some other reason, quick rescheduling will make sure the customer’s issues are resolved anyhow.
Comprehensive details on work orders. Managers can go through more information like a list of technicians, work order types, location list, etc. In contrast, the technicians’ portal doesn’t include as many options managers have to view work orders. It is limited to work orders concerning specific technicians.
Smart notifications and messaging. Customers and technicians are notified via text messages and push notifications whenever a new work order is created or completed; a job is rescheduled, remarks are updated, payment is received, etc.
Search work orders. Search feature to find historical work orders. Search works on broad parameters like date, technician, and status - whether pending, approved, in progress, completed, or closed.

IMPACT

75% less delay in reaching to customer’s place.

20% more jobs done in a single day.

Better coordination between technicians and managers.

The Future

Our team is working on discovering and implementing more useful features to make business more seamless. One of these is thorough reporting. For instance, Upstate amusement installs vending machines of various brands like Pepsi. Currently, our team is developing a module to record the frequency of issues in a specific brand’s machine and export the data to that brand.