With high inflation causing rises in travel, labour and parts costs lots of businesses found themselves losing margin on contracts. This resulted in some providers choosing to avoid offering service contracts all together, preferring to not tie themselves or customers in, so they have better flexibility on visit schedules, lead times and prices.
Winning service or full maintenance contracts sounds like a great idea, secure customers, with known business requirements means service providers can plan resources and use the contract base as a platform to grow from. But all too often that’s not the case, as contracts can be difficult to run and even harder for managers to assess their profitability.
The problem centres around data, without being able to plan work, allocate resources and track costs you can’t propose effective pricing to maintain a healthy profit margin. Neither can you easily make adjustments; such as charging for extra work or parts, or track when and where you may need to implement a price increase to maintain your profit margin %. Managing all these variables by different customers, contract types, sites and equipment requires a good service management software to give contract managers visibility of what’s required and help them to agree profitable pricing models.
Service Geeni’s service management software enables you to accurately track your travel and labour costs, parts and more. When you have visibility of the true costs involved, you can be confident in your profit margins, often resulting in the ability to undercut the competition and gain more business as a result.
Why different servicing contracts matter
Service contracts work on a pay as you go model with the provider delivering agreed service visits at set intervals providing a basic level of support.
Maintenance contracts encompass both planned service visits and a provision for reactive visits in the event of issues or breakdowns, some may include providing basic parts too, with customers paying a fixed monthly fee.
Advanced reporting for profitability analysis
Reporting is another powerful feature that puts you in control. One common complaint we often hear from companies is the challenge of reporting useful data. This is where Service Geeni’s innovative ‘charge codes’ comes into play. By utilising charge codes, companies can easily assign specific work to different job types, making it effortless to generate accurate reports so you can see where the costs are and ensure your pricing is correct. Whether it’s warranty work, service work, or repair work of a particular type, the charge codes allow for precise categorisation. This approach provides a clear and detailed overview of all activities performed which can be handy when dealing with any disputes that may arise regarding contract coverage and billing.
Customer sign off & accurate invoicing removes disputes and helps cash flow
Engineers have the ability, through mobile software, to capture images, data and other relevant information during their service visits. This reduces billing errors, ensuring parts used and work completed is accurately charged for. Helping to reduce invoice queries and disputes, which supports a healthy cash-flow and maintains healthy and transparent working relationships with customers.
Why Service Geeni?
Service Geeni helps you track the performance of your contracts, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. Whether you choose to focus on service contracts or venture into full maintenance contracts, having accurate reports at your fingertips will improve your contract pricing, provide transparency for customers, and most importantly maintain healthy profitability.
If you would like to learn more about how to gain greater visibility for effective contract management please contact Service Geeni today or visit our website www.servicegeeni.com
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