Periodic Procedures

❑Use the Service Tracking System to help with the specific tasks that should be performed periodically (but routinely) to keep your Company's Service Department running smoothly.

•The outline below provides an overview of the repetitive tasks that should be performed from time to time, usually, at least each month.

❑Ensure Quality Customer Service - Providing a consistently high level of Customer Service is the best way to ensure the ongoing success of your Company's Service Department (and the business).

•The reports and system functions listed below will help attain this goal:

✓Unassigned Service Requests - When a Subscriber calls for Service, they actually expect to get Service.

▪The Unassigned Service Requests report will produce a list of pending Work Orders that have not been assigned to a Technician.

✓Recurring Service Preview - In addition to daily call-ins, what other Service Requests will need to be completed by your Company's Service Department?

▪The Service Department 's Recurring Service Requirements, which should be identified in the Recurring Service Form, can be quickly reviewed using this report.

✓Tech Status - Where is your workforce? What are they doing?

▪The Technician Status Form will provide this information in a virtually real-time basis and allow Status Update entries, whenever needed.

✓MKS Service Dashboard - This stand-alone application provides a continuous overview of four service related Lists - each displayed in its own tab

1.Unscheduled Appointments

2.Today Schedules

3.Tech Status

4.Tech Schedules

❑Complete & Print Time Sheets - Typically, Labor is the Service Department 's highest individual expense.

•Time Sheets - Maintaining accurate Time Sheets as each Technician completes a Work Order.

•Time Sheet Report - Printing the Time Sheet Report to account for their time, and prepare your Company's Payroll, will help then Service Department get a much better "handle" on where the time goes (the Technician's time cost, that is).

❑Create and Schedule the Work Orders for the previously identified Recurring Services

•Auto Service - Generate those required Recurring Service Work Orders .

•Technician Scheduling - Use this tool to manage the influx of work created by Subscribers' requests for service, and the monthly creation of the Recurring Service Work Orders

❑Review, Complete & Invoice Work Orders

•Timely Completion and Invoicing of Work Orders, once a Technician has provided the service requested on a Work Order, is critical to smooth operation.

✓To quickly review, complete, and invoice each finished Work Order.

a.Use the standard, full length Work Order Form, and/or

b.Use the Work Order Completion/Review Form

•Time Sheets - As noted above, accurately recording the time and charges assessed for the completion of Work Orders is very important.

✓ Print Time Sheet information, as needed.

❑Keep the Company's Database Current (and Accurate) - Garbage In = Garbage Out is the standard axiom used when speaking about maintenance of a computer database.

•Unfortunately, it is also true.

✓Unless a conscious effort is made to continuously maintained the accuracy - and more importantly - concurrency of your data, the quality of that database slowly erodes.

✓The database interfaces listed below are designed to allow quick access to accurate information, and so should always be updated with the most current information.

1.Service Information - The basic information in the Service Info Section within the Edit Tab of the Subscribers Form should be reviewed/verified whenever a Subscriber makes a request for service.

a.Did their Service Agreement change (or should they be solicited for a new Service Agreement) or the Term of that agreement get extended?

b.Should additional System Notes be entered because of changes of updates their system?

c.Are updates to the existing Directions required?

✓The simplest way to remind yourself to do this, is to make it a point to update the date of Last Service field on that Form as you examine their data.

▪Once the Service Request is completed, this Last Service field will be updated automatically.

2.Equipment - Update the Installed Equipment information.

a.Has the Subscriber's Alarm System and the associated installed equipment changed in any way?

b.Has there been any system additions and/or system component upgrades?

3.Monitoring - Update the Central Station Data

a.Has the Zoning, Testing, Medical Information, Call List, Open and Closing schedule, or Signal Verification rules changed for any Subscriber?

b.Establish a systematic method (e.g., after a False Alarm review is performed for a Dispatch; as part of an Annual Inspection service, when the People To Call List is periodically verified) that ensures these types of changes get recorded as they are received - not "when you can get around to it" - because you never will...

4.Contract - Update the Subscriber record with the latest Monitoring Contract information.

a.Use the Subscribers with No Contract report as an information source

5.Insurance - Has their been damage to a Subscriber's system?

a.Should you notify their Insurance Company?

b.Have you sent an Alarm Certificate to every new Account?

c.Having up-to-date Insurance information - including coverage, provider and agent - for Subscribers provides another way to provide customer friendly service in a quick and easy way when insurance related emergency/damage occurs.

6.Transfer Service - Is a new Account taking over an old Account's system?

a.Be sure to transfer the previous Service History for that premises to the new Subscriber.

b.Provide that new Subscriber with information on available Service Contracts.

7.Purge Appointments - Purge old completed Appointments

a.Particularly for larger companies, be sure to Purge Appointments

b.When Work Orders are Completed , there will be a suggestion to Delete the Appointment(s) associated with that Work Order which may be accepted.

▪Implementing either of these options will help maintain the speed of the Technician Scheduling system.

❑Solicit New Service Contracts - A new Service Contract can be just as valuable to your Company as a new Monitoring Contract.

•Why? Because of its residual value to your Company, and because it assures that your Subscriber's system will continue to operate reliably for years, thereby keeping that Subscriber happy.

•The three reports listed below will provide the information that will be needed to successfully market Service Contracts to your Subscribers:

1.Eligible for Service Contract - Who should be contacted to suggest they subscribe to a Service Agreement?

a.This Eligible for Service Contract report will list those Subscribers whose Warranty is about to expire.

b.If marketing time is available, this report will also list all Subscribers who have not yet subscribed and are now out of warranty.

2.No Service Since - It's a fact: Ignored Accounts will eventually drift away.

a.When there has been no Subscriber contact from your Company for some time - one, two, even three years with no equipment tests, no alarm tests, no solicitation calls - they forget who you are and are ripe for loss to, or take-over by a competitor.

b.Additionally, this lack of contact means their system may not be working at all, or at least not the way it should be operating.

c.So, you also may have a liability (not to mention, a poor customer service) situation on your hands.

d.Use this No Service Since report, in conjunction with the Monitoring module's Panels with No Signals Since report, to identify those Accounts.

3.Subscribers with No Contract - Is your Company providing Monitoring and/or Extended Warranty?

a.Are these Monitoring and/or Extended Warranty services being provided without a signed Contract?

b.Locate those Subscribers with the Subscribers with No Contract report.

❑Other Management Reports - There are three more critical situations within your Company's Service Department that, if not managed properly and effectively, will quickly erode it's profitability and customer service level:

1.Having Subscribers - particularly those with Service Agreements - who make frequent requests for service. This makes the customer unhappy and could also cost your Company's Service Department far more than is being Paid for those Services.

2.Having Technicians who are demonstrably less productive/effective than their peers.

3.Having Work Orders that are not Invoiced in a timely manner.

a.The longer it takes to send the Invoice to the customer, the more likely it is that they will have forgotten what great service you've provided - or worse, they will think it was "free"

b.So, the less satisfied they will feel about that service when that Invoice finally does arrive.

•Use the three Service Tracking Reports listed below to address each of these issues:

1.Determine Excessive Services - Based on a User specified Number of Service Calls; and whether to report on all Subscribers or just those with an existing Service Contract; this report creates a list of problem Accounts that may be viewed, printed, and/or exported as a spreadsheet file at any time.

2.Technician Performance - How are the Technicians doing?

a.Is one Technician considerably better or worse than the rest?

b.Would this information help as a training tool, and for an improvement review?

c.This Technician Performance report will show how much actual "work" is being accomplished by each Technician.

3.Work Orders Not Invoiced - As hard as you try, there will still be Work Orders that don't get Invoiced in a timely manner.

a.This Work Orders Not Invoiced report will identify the Work Orders that should be Invoiced.