An easy nightmare for a project manager is how the project estimates are way off from the actual on-ground numbers. It’s because not being able to meet estimates by margins is the first and final indicator of a failing project.
Spreadsheets work only to a certain point to track your project estimates. Once your business starts to scale and your number of projects increases, you may want better visibility on your estimates.
For this purpose, estimating software is a good investment to make.
But it contributes way more than just budget estimating – read more to understand why estimating software makes sense for your growing field services business.
What is estimating software?
Estimating software helps you determine accurate estimates for quotations, jobs, and project budgeting.
It typically includes features like invoicing, quotation generator, budgeting, preparing projections, estimating tracker, etc. New-age estimating software like Zuper is enabled by the latest technologies and provides integrations to streamline your estimating workflows. They also leverage Artificial Intelligence to analyze past and current data to make better estimates and draw conclusions.
Why invest in estimating software? – 5 benefits for your field service business
The main purpose of estimating software is to provide better visibility for your estimating workflows to make quick business decisions. It also improves your customer satisfaction as you can align them with the job’s projections.
Here are five ways in which it helps you grow your business:
Respond to customers on time using templates
Estimating software will help you get ahead of your competition when it comes to sending quotations to your customers or applying for a tender.
Such software includes ready-to-use estimating templates that you can quickly edit and send. You can mention details like material costs, amount of equipment required, pricing logic, manpower required, etc. You can also include expiration dates so that you can send across limited offers or change your quotes if required.
Zuper, a field service management app, has estimating features that allow your customers to sign the quotes digitally and share them as approval.
Generate accurate estimates
It’s important to send estimates that are accurate, especially when bidding for a contract. Otherwise, if you win a bid with an inaccurately estimated proposal, you will have to bear the difference in actual costs.
From making assumptions to ing for market fluctuations – your estimating software should have the necessary fields to make room for errors. These software programs also help you use your past data to prepare accurate estimates as per practical knowledge.
Automate follow-up with your customers
Following up is a pain, especially when you are targeting multiple potential customers or applying for tenders. Estimating software like Zuper provides you visibility across all quotes shared via dashboard access. You can track the progress of the estimate shared, send reminders to customers, track the number of estimate revisions made till client conversion, etc.
Following up with customers is an important part of business development for field service businesses. With estimating software, you can automate quotation tracking for better client pipeline generation.
Get insights from your estimates
Do you know if your efforts to create estimates are working for your customer?
Which customer is not punctual with their payment cycles?
Does your estimating expiry policy need a retouch?
You can know a lot about your field service business’s ing health via estimating software. Using data analysis, it will share insights on your customers, conversions, expenses incurred for sending quotes, etc. You can realign your estimating strategy based on this data to implement better processes. It’s also possible to visualize data into readable formats for easier understanding.
Align stakeholders about the project
Estimating software also allows you to create reports and one-pagers that you can use in your meetings for discussing your quotation for the client. By generating reports, you can track the performance of your business strategy and discuss the next steps as per insights gained.
You can also use estimating software to glance through the customer for your quotes shared and solve complaints.
You can also counter your vendors and field service technicians regarding their job delivery by tracking on-ground estimates.
Get perspective on your field service business with estimating software
Adopting software for estimating is necessary as your number of transactions increases with business growth. Ideally, you should choose field service management software that can include estimating capabilities within the full feature package.
By providing timely and accurate estimates, you earn your customer’s and relevant stakeholders’ trust in your brand.
At Zuper, we can help you streamline your estimating workflows with our field service management software – Book a demo to have a look into our estimating capabilities.