Suppose your maintenance company carries out work on clients’ assets, whether or not through various subcontractors. Or your maintenance department provides services to other parts of your organization and deals with internal budget holders. In both cases, you face the challenge of making your services as transparent as possible, for yourself and for your clients. What can they expect from you, for what price? How do you ensure that the service is carried out according to the agreements made? And how do you arrange invoicing quickly and efficiently? Of course, you also want to know what you have left at the bottom line.

With special software for service providers, it is possible to make all these matters transparent and to maintain control over your services. This starts with recording price agreements per service and per customer. For example, do you charge a fixed maintenance fee and no man-hours, but do you pass on the material costs with a certain margin? And what do you do with work that falls outside the contract?

Every service also includes a plan of approach, complete with task lists and internal procedures. In such a plan of approach, you record which activities you perform for the client, what the working method is and who performs the activity. With this information, the software for service providers automatically guides your services in the right direction. This ranges from checking whether the client is entitled to the service to the execution and invoicing according to the price agreements made.

For example, if a fault report comes in, the software for service providers knows the priority of this report. It then ensures that the right people take action. Do scaffolders need to be sent out, are several mechanics needed or just an electrician? And what about parts or tools? A report can also be forwarded directly to a contractor for further handling. Whoever is involved in the work, the software keeps everyone informed of the progress.

Do you receive a lot of reports, up to hundreds per day? For example, because you maintain and manage large quantities of assets? You can simply have these reports come in via e-mail or a help desk employee without in-depth knowledge of the matter. The system ensures that each report is handled in the agreed manner.

The software for service providers keeps track of all reports and services performed and prepares the invoice at the end of the period you have agreed with your client. If necessary, you can make manual adjustments. Does your client want to see the bill first? That is possible, then the invoice will only be sent out after his or her approval. The invoicing of fixed amounts for subscriptions can be done completely automatically.

Man hours, materials, purchased services, … in the software for service providers you simply register everything per service activity, also for the work that falls outside the agreements. This way you can always be accountable to your customers. Moreover, you have insight into the results of your activities. Even if you have dozens of clients, to whom you provide services based on different agreements, everything you do is transparent.

At Gemba, we have good experiences with IBM Maximo for Service Providers. With this software, specially developed for service providers, we help various clients to streamline and make their service activities transparent, from maintenance companies to management companies.