In fact, for many equipment dealers, demand has never been higher.

Spring and summer bring a surge of contractors, operators, and businesses all looking to secure the machines they need to keep projects moving.

On paper, it should translate to more deals.

But in reality, many opportunities never convert.

Not because of pricing.

Not because of competition.

But because of what happens after the lead comes in.

1. Slow Response Times

In this industry, timing carries weight.

When a contractor reaches out, it’s rarely casual.

There’s usually a project timeline, a crew waiting, or a deadline approaching.

The first dealer to respond often sets the pace for the conversation.

And in many cases, wins the deal.

But inside dealerships, leads don’t always move that quickly.

They sit in inboxes.

They get forwarded manually.

They wait to be assigned.

And by the time a response goes out, the opportunity has already shifted elsewhere.

2. No Clear Ownership of Leads

One of the most common breakdowns is simple:

no one is clearly responsible.

A lead comes in.

It’s seen by multiple people.

Or worse — assumed to be handled by someone else.

Without clear ownership:

• Follow-ups get delayed
• Conversations stall
• Opportunities quietly disappear

It’s not a lack of effort.

It’s a lack of structure.

3. Disconnected Systems Across Locations

For multi-location dealerships, complexity increases quickly.

Leads come from:

• Website forms
• Manufacturer referrals
• Calls and emails
• Industry platforms

But they don’t always land in one place.

Instead, they’re scattered across systems, inboxes, and teams.

Which makes it difficult to answer simple questions:

• Who received the lead?
• Has it been responded to?
• What’s the current status?

Without visibility, opportunities fall through the cracks — not because they weren’t valuable, but because they weren’t tracked.

4. Delays in Quoting and Follow-Up

Even when a lead is acknowledged, the process doesn’t always move quickly after that.

Quotes take time to prepare.

Information needs to be gathered.

Internal coordination slows things down.

Meanwhile, the customer is still looking.

And often, they move forward with the dealer who responded and followed up first — even if the difference was just a few hours.

5. High Demand Exposes Weak Processes

Ironically, the busier things get, the more these issues show up.

When lead volume is low, inefficiencies can go unnoticed.

But during peak season, they become impossible to ignore.

• Delays multiply
• Missed follow-ups increase
• Visibility decreases

What felt manageable before starts to break under pressure.

The Bigger Picture

Most equipment dealers don’t lose deals because of a lack of demand.

They lose them in the way demand is handled.

Routing.

Ownership.

Speed.

Visibility.

These aren’t always visible from the outside, but they shape outcomes every day.

What This Means Going Forward

As the industry becomes more digital, more connected, and faster-paced, expectations will continue to rise.

Customers won’t just choose based on availability or price.

They’ll choose based on responsiveness and experience.

The dealers who adapt to that shift won’t just keep up with demand.

They’ll convert more of it.

Certinia (formerly known as FinancialForce) is a leading provider of cloud-based ERP and professional services automation (PSA) solutions. 

Their platforms are renowned for helping businesses:

• Streamline their operations
• Enhance financial management
• Optimize their service delivery

Our partnership with Certinia will enhance our ability to deliver exceptional results and drive even greater value for your business. We’re excited to leverage our new capabilities to help you achieve your goals more efficiently and effectively.

1. Einstein Analytics: Drive informed decisions by extracting insights from your data effortlessly with Einstein Analytics. Predict customer behavior, optimize sales strategies, and identify trends to fuel business growth.
2. Einstein Prediction Builder: Anticipate future trends with custom predictions tailored to your needs. Forecast sales revenue, predict customer churn, and stay ahead of the curve with Einstein Prediction Builder.
3. Einstein Next Best Action: Deliver personalized experiences at scale by leveraging real-time customer data. Recommend the most relevant actions and offers to drive engagement and foster loyalty.
4. Einstein Voice: Increase productivity with voice-activated commands and natural language processing. Update records, access insights, and stay connected on the go with Einstein Voice.
5. Einstein Discovery: Uncover hidden insights within your data using AI-driven analytics. Optimize processes, predict outcomes, and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

As a trusted Salesforce implementation partner, we’re here to help you harness the full potential of Salesforce’s AI capabilities. From initial consultation to implementation and beyond, our team of certified experts is dedicated to guiding you every step of the way.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you leverage Salesforce’s cutting-edge AI capabilities to drive business growth and success.

Streamlined Operations

Optimize production planning and supply chain management with automated workflows and real-time analytics.

Enhanced Customer Relationships

Centralize customer data, track interactions, and personalize communications to foster loyalty.

Data-Driven Growth

Integrate Salesforce for valuable insights into sales trends and predictive analytics, driving innovation and market expansion.

Tailored Solutions

Customize Salesforce for CPQ solutions and IoT integration to meet unique manufacturing needs.

Proven Success

Join leading manufacturers in improving efficiency and boosting sales with App Solve’s.

Ready to Elevate Your Manufacturing Business? Contact us today to streamline operations, enhance customer relationships, and drive growth with App Solve.

At App Solve, we’re a company that helps transform and streamline the current CRM, customer service, and field service management for a variety of small to medium-sized businesses. We’ll work with you to deliver outstanding results from your daily business interactions and ensure exceptional service from your employees. 

For water service companies, we’ll be focusing on how our field service management apps and software systems help your business increase their revenues by 15% through multiple channels. The field service app will effectively provide your workers with all the key insight they need to deliver the service they provide to their clients. 

What Is A Field Service Management App?

A field service management app uses software that automates the deployment and tracking of field service personnel in different areas. In addition to water service and distribution, these apps are heavily used in the HVAC, plumbing, telecommunications, automotive, and healthcare industries among many others. Each solution is specifically tailored to that company’s mode of operations and customer service. Field service management apps also support warranty or service contracts with clients and provide important analytical information to assist the actions and decisions of on-field technicians. 

These app solutions also provide businesses with distinct features and capabilities such as dashboards and customer-service support personnel for both technicians and managers. Field service apps are also highly mobile in remote spaces, allowing personnel to report on their progress, order parts, draft and present service reports, or send invoices to customers through a virtual portal.

Field service management apps also carry many benefits for companies looking for ways to streamline their CRM technology. 

What Are The Benefits of Field Service Management Software?

The benefits of field service management software includes the improvement of agility and efficiency for a variety of remote teams. It assists managers in scheduling and dispatching technicians to different areas, helping to track their location, and access their work progress through an app dashboard for more efficient time management. Additionally, you can also track key performance indicators (KPIs) within the software to track and manage your company’s annual goals.

Field service management apps also help organize your clients’ appointments and timelines, allowing you to proactively monitor inventory and work progress. It will also mitigate any invoicing or workplace errors that can unexpectedly pop up on your field team. The goal of these apps is to streamline the work process by removing repetitive, manual administrative processes. 

Most importantly for your business, field service management software will help Increase communication and transparency between different parties, such as the on-field workers, management staff, and customers. It will boost efficiency with tools and processes that replace outdated manual systems, ensuring efficiency and productivity from your team. The software on the field service app also provides more visibility to help collect, track, and analyze data like completion times, expenses, and other miscellaneous field notes. 

Overall, the benefits of field service management apps far outweigh any potential risks. They’re ideal for companies looking to optimize their business for installation, maintenance, and repair of products through solid solutions. 

What Is The Best Field Service Software?

At App Solve, the best field service software should be one that fits the needs of various small and medium-sized enterprises best. They can be easily integrated with a company’s HR and inventory systems, optimizing the knowledge management systems and self-service customer portals. This eliminates any needless deployments and extraneous costs related to your business operations. 

If you’re a water service company looking to enhance its CRM technology and improve customer-worker relations on-field, contact App Solve today so that our team can provide meaningful assistance. Work with us now to integrate your current systems with an advanced field service management app that will improve your workflow. 

Gartner has named Salesforce a Leader in the 2021 Field Service Management (FSM) Magic Quadrant for the second consecutive year. Salesforce is positioned highest for execution in the Leaders’ quadrant.

The ability to safely and effectively deliver field service was critical to many businesses last year – with over 80% of decision makers considering field service to be key to their overall strategy,” said Paul Whitelam, SVP and GM, Field Service at Salesforce. “Salesforce has remained focused on our customers, delivering connected and intuitive service experiences from the contact center to the field, and we believe that commitment has contributed to us being named a Leader in the Field Service Management Magic Quadrant for a second consecutive year.”

Connected Service Experiences Anywhere

Field service management and customer service have experienced massive transformation in the last year, as in-person safety became essential for businesses to reopen and effectively stay open. Salesforce technology has empowered service employees – from agents in the call center to mobile workers in the field – with the right tools and data to quickly deliver the best experiences to customers across multiple channels. And, because Salesforce Field Service is built on the Customer 360 platform, businesses can create connected service experiences from anywhere. 

Features include: 

• Appointment Assistant delivers real time updates and reminders to customers through digital channels using email, SMS, or WhatsApp. This helps them schedule, reschedule or prepare for help to arrive. 
• Visual Remote Assistant reduces time on site by allowing technicians and agents to see what the customer sees through video support, so they can resolve complex issues from anywhere.
• Einstein Recommendation Builder enables organizations to rapidly deploy machine learning models to enhance service, including AI-powered recommendations to help ensure mobile workers always have the right parts for the job. Einstein will scan past work orders for similar jobs to identify which parts will be needed for the current one.

Partnerships help drive platform success

Gartner recognized Salesforce Field Service as a Leader in part because of the platform’s partnerships, noting that Salesforce has more Independent Service Vendor (ISV) partners for its FSM solution than any other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Field Service partnerships support capabilities like complex assets, project management, payments, forms, and industry-specific field service. Salesforce Field Service partners include:

• Asset 360 for Salesforce, a solution with ServiceMax, helps businesses manage both staffing resources and physical assets such as complex industrial equipment. The offering drives operational efficiency, increases service revenue, and maximizes asset uptime with a 360-degree view of assets.
• Vlocity, acquired in February 2020, extends our industry solutions for communications, media and entertainment, energy, utilities, insurance, health, and government organizations with out of the box, trusted best practices.
• Servicetrace, acquired in August 2021, will enable service teams to automate repetitive tasks and integrate data from older systems (those which don’t have APIs) to Service Cloud to create an even more robust, complete picture of every interaction the customer has with the company. 

Scaling service from the call center to the field

As of August 2021, Salesforce has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 in the Field Service Management category on Gartner Peer Insights, based on 53 reviews.

• “This product has completely transformed our business. The embedded functionality just works and the real time analytics possibilities mean we can react to change nearly instantly.” – Technical Director in the Communications sector
• “It’s been 10 months since we went live globally and the program has been very successful, the feedback from the Field users has been extremely positive. The relationship and partnership with Salesforce through the engagement also has been noteworthy with access to product experts as needed.” – Director of Business Transformation Office in the Manufacturing sector

Gartner Disclaimer

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, 31 August 2021, Jim Robinson, Naved Rashid. This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Salesforce 

GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Learn more about Salesforce Field Service innovations and learn more about the Gartner report.

About AppSolve

App Solve chooses to work with the absolute Leader in Cloud-Based Technology and the World’s Number 1 Customer Success Platform, Salesforce.com, to be our avenue to do so.

Partnerships help drive platform success. Gartner has recognized Salesforce Field Service as a Leader in part due to the platform’s partnerships, noting that Salesforce has more Independent Service Vendor (ISV) partners for its FSM solution than any other vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Field Service partnerships support capabilities like complex assets, project management, payments, forms, and industry-specific field service. Salesforce Field Service partners include:

If you’re a small-medium business to enterprise-size company that wants to experience extraordinary results, then we should talk.

Field service management and customer service fields have undergone massive transformations in the last year, as in-person safety became essential for businesses to not only reopen, but remain open. Salesforce technology has empowered service employees – from agents at the call center to mobile workers out in the field – with the right tools and data to quickly deliver the best experiences to customers across multiple channels. And because Salesforce Field Service is built on the Customer 360 platform, businesses can create connected service experiences from anywhere.

Being a preferred and Silver Certified Salesforce.com Implementation Partner, when you work with AppSolve, you benefit from our over 500 Salesforce implementation and consulting projects, our breadth of sales and service industry experience, Salesforce deployment best practices, and our understanding of how ‘Salesforce uses Salesforce.’

You get all our best practices and the support of a team that truly cares about the long-term success of your business.

Take advantage of our experience with field service CRM for your telecom/utilities/energy service company. Let us show you how your field service staff can contribute to your increased revenues, customer satisfaction, and easier billing and AR.

Schedule a free review of your specific business requirements with us, it’s free and we are happy to get to know you.

✓ Digitization of work order life cycle including automating invoice generation, so that every work order has line item level detail, traceability and history.
✓ Detailed Asset history at your team’s fingertips.
✓ Cross-sell / up-sell through mobile digitized service reports and quote creation for new business.

Field Service is the complete solution to run your entire field operation.

Businesses looking to implement a field service management software anywhere in US and Canada including specific field service applications for industrial and machinery, facilities and commercial, home appliances, home automation, water / electrical and construction or fleet management can now benefit from affordable prices and professional service – contact App Solve today!

App Solve is a leader and early adopter in the Salesforce.com Field Service platform (formerly known as Field Service Lightning). In April 2016, we implemented the very first Field Service solution that was ever purchased in all of North America in Salesforce.com’s small-business vertical to an exciting business experiencing exponential growth in Boston, Massachusetts. App Solve implements Field Service for the first time with customers but also specializes in migration projects from previous platforms as well as ‘rescue projects’ after an unsuccessful implementation.

If you have people in the field and are looking to scale your business or be a disruptor in your industry, contact App Solve today!