Will technician planning software pay for itself? How to work it out

Nobody can tell you in advance whether technician planning software will pay for itself, because the answer depends on how much time currently goes on coordination in your company. But it can be calculated, and only in one way: by measuring the starting point before the rollout. After the rollout you can no longer reconstruct it, because you get used to the new way of working within a few weeks.

• There is no general return figure; it is always calculated from your own operation.
• Measure the starting point before the rollout, afterwards you cannot reconstruct it.
• Track events, not feelings: wasted site visits, calls per appointment, time spent on the plan.
• Only documentable items belong in the calculation, not hypothetical orders.
• Measure comparable periods, otherwise the season determines the result, not the software.

Why nobody will give you a figure in advance

Because there is nowhere to get it from. The cost of coordination varies between companies more than anything else: a company with regular customers and a fixed schedule gets coordination almost for free, a company that takes orders by phone all day pays for it every hour.

The second reason is that the saving does not arise evenly. Most of it is concentrated in a few situations: the morning reshuffle after an emergency, arranging an appointment with the customer, finding a free person with the required qualification. Anyone who deals with these situations once a week saves little. Anyone who deals with them three times a day saves a lot.

The third reason is that part of the benefit is not in saved time, but in damage that never happened. A site visit that did not take place needlessly does not appear in any report, because it did not happen.

What to measure before the rollout

This is the whole trick. Anyone can measure after the rollout; the starting point can only be captured beforehand.

1. Wasted and duplicate site visits per month. How many times a technician arrived and could not work because a part, a qualification or access was missing. How many times two people went to one site.
2. Calls per arranged appointment. For twenty consecutive orders, write down how many calls and messages it took before the appointment was confirmed.
3. Time to put together the weekly plan. How much time a week goes on planning and the morning reshuffling. Measure it as time, not as an impression.
4. Jobs postponed for lack of knowledge of capacity. How many times you told the customer you would get back to them, and got back to them only the next day.
5. Technicians' calls to the office. How many calls a day are just checking where to go or what was done there last time.
6. Time from job to record. How many days pass before the work is written down where others can find it.

Tally marks on paper for one month are enough. Precision is not important here; what matters is having something to compare against.

What to compare after the rollout

Fill in the table twice: a month before and a month after. Compare similar periods, not December with July. For companies with a small number of jobs, measure for two months, otherwise one unusual week will determine the result.

A note on the second row: office time is easy to underestimate, because it breaks up into ten-minute pieces. That is exactly why it pays to count it in calls, not in hours. The cost of interrupted work is covered in more detail in the cost of a technician's lost hour.

Where the return comes from

From three places, and it is worth distinguishing them, because each shows at a different speed.

Needless site visits that never happen. The fastest and best documented item. When the plan shows who is going where and a clash is flagged on save, some of the cases where two people went to one site disappear. That is visible in the very first month.

Shorter arranging. When the customer has the free days in one link and picks for themselves, the number of exchanges per appointment drops. With the appointment offer this step disappears entirely, because the choice arrives without a phone call. That shows within a few weeks.

Faster answers to the customer. When you can see who is free and who has the required qualification, an appointment can be offered during the call. Capacity and skills show both at once. This shows slowest and is hardest to measure, but has the longest reach: an order the customer did not place elsewhere never appears in the savings.

What does not belong in the calculation

Saved time that nobody used. If the dispatcher saves four hours a week and spends them on other administration, it is better work, but not a return.

Hypothetical orders. The sentence "we could handle a third more" is an estimate, not an item. It belongs in the calculation only once you actually take on those orders.

And finally, satisfaction you do not measure. That the technicians find planning easier is a good reason to roll out, but not an argument that holds up in a spreadsheet.

What you are left with is a calculation from items you can document. It tends to be more modest than the one in the brochure, and has the advantage that it can be defended.

From how many people does it pay for itself

From three. Up to two people, coordination is cheap: one person holds the plan, asks the other across the street and can offer an appointment from memory. The cost the software would remove is small there, so there is nothing to recover.

From three it changes, because combinations grow faster than people. Technicians take turns at the same customer, the question of qualification is added to free time, and appointments still being negotiated and not yet confirmed are added to today's plan. It is precisely these combinations that cost the dispatcher time.

One could object that an experienced planner can manage even five people from memory. They can, as long as they are at work. In such a company the cost is not paid every day, but all at once, in the week of their holiday.

The pricing frames it simply: the software costs EUR 20 per user per month, so the monthly cost is known in advance. The only unknown is the other side of the equation, and that you have to measure yourself.

What must hold for the calculation to work out

That the plan is created in one place. Two plans side by side, one in the app and the other in someone's head, bring the cost of both and the benefit of neither.

That the technicians really do record in the system. A history that is written up every other day and at random does not save calls to the office, because it cannot be relied on.

And that you measure after six months too, not just in the first enthusiastic month. The free trial lasts 30 days, but the real answer to whether it paid for itself only shows in the second measurement.

Frequently asked questions