Five out of seven South African businesses fail within the first year. Success is not guaranteed when you start a business in any field, including the field service industry. Whether you’ve just started a field service company or been in the industry for years, if your business is failing, these are some reasons why your business isn’t succeeding.
You haven’t identified your USP
A USP (unique selling point) is a factor that sets your service from your competitors. Your USP sets you apart from others in the market and shows customers what your business offers that your competitors don’t. If your business doesn’t have a USP, you won’t stand out in the market. It’s already challenging to convince people to spend their money or use your service. Without a USP, customers won’t have a reason to choose your service over others. Even if your service is better than your competitors, people won’t choose your brand if they aren’t aware of your USP, which is why it’s crucial to define yours and include it in your marketing efforts.
Your service doesn’t meet your customers’ needs
Your customers’ needs are constantly changing. If you don’t listen to them, you won’t know how their needs are changing, and you won’t know how to adapt your service to keep up with their needs. You need to ask them to share their experience with you so you can identify the aspects of your business that work well and what you need to do to improve your service. The goal of a field service business is to provide a service to customers. If your customers’ needs aren’t met, they’ll be unhappy and move to your competitors.
You aren’t upskilling your workers
With training and development, you can future-proof your business. Training technicians is vital for innovation, as it helps you and your team stay up to date with new technologies and trends. It’s also an effective way to improve your service quality, as it can reduce human error. Innovation gives your business a competitive edge, but you’ll struggle to keep up with your competitors without it. A lack of training could also increase employee turnover, with technicians leaving to search for opportunities to grow their skills. Unhappy employees tend to be less productive as they have little desire or drive to work hard.
Your marketing strategy is ineffective
Without an effective marketing strategy, you won’t be able to reach your target market. Your business won’t succeed if you can’t find the right people to purchase your service. With an ineffective marketing strategy, you won’t achieve your business objectives. If you don’t know what you want to achieve with your marketing efforts, you won’t be able to measure the success of your marketing strategy. The signs of an ineffective marketing strategy include a low conversion rate, a lack of new customers, receiving interest from the wrong people, and reduced traffic to your website.
You’re not using an effective asset management system
Effective asset management gives your business control over assets. It makes it easier to account for all your equipment and machinery, plan asset maintenance, deploy tools for jobs, and remove ghost assets from your inventory. When an asset management plan isn’t implemented, it can be challenging to keep track of assets. Equipment may get stolen or go missing, and you may not be able to find out what happened to the items without a system like Asset Management Software. You’ll have to replace these assets to avoid downtime or decreased productivity. If asset maintenance isn’t done regularly, your equipment and machinery may break down, leading to more downtime and increased repair costs.
How to prevent failure and guarantee success
There are ways you can avoid failure and keep your business on the road to success:
- Define your USP and use it to differentiate your brand from your competitors.
- Gather customer feedback and adapt your service to meet their changing needs.
- Invest in training and development.
- Develop a clear marketing strategy.
- Track and manage your tools and equipment with Asset Management Software.