3 Ways Mobile Forms Drastically Reduce Conference Calls

| October 3, 2018

3 Ways Mobile Forms Drastically Reduce Conference Calls

3 Ways Mobile Forms Drastically Reduce Conference Calls

3 Ways Mobile Forms Drastically Reduce Conference Calls

By Shannon Corgan, Director of Marketing

Most field supervisors fill out daily progress reports to keep all the project stakeholders on the same page. It’s usually a handwritten or typed up report with project status updates to address so everyone knows the current status of the project. Typically, this text-only report requires multiple follow-up phone calls and conference calls to make sure everyone understands the current project status. Have you thought about embedding photos, sketches, and videos into your forms to improve this process? A picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s even better if you can visually communicate something faster and better in fewer words, right?

6 Reasons to Use Media on Mobile Forms

Here are some facts about visual communication:

  • Visual imagery is processed 60,000 times faster than text [1]
  • 65% of people are visual learners [2]
  • 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual [3]
  • The brain can retain only 7 bits of information at a time. [4]
  • Our eyes can register 36,000 visual messages per hour. [5]
  • Visual aids improve learning by up to 400 percent [6]

Now that you know why mobile forms with photos, videos, and sketches improve communication, here are three ways that they will reduce your conference calls:

1Reduce Conference Calls Between the Office and Field

Recently, I talked to one of our electrical contracting customers, R.J. Wolfarth of Service Electric and Control, Inc., and he shared the difficulty of getting accurate information from the field to the office and up the chain of command using paper forms without photos, videos, sketches, or photos with markup.
“Using paper and not incorporating specific project details in forms to capture the true, real-time information is like playing Telephone. We received inconsistent information from the project managers daily because we weren’t getting the information directly from the source.” said R.J. Wolfarth, vice president of construction, “By utilizing WorkMax mobile FORMS, we eliminated the project management role on all of our smaller-scale projects. We found that the project managers actually hindered our job-specific milestones because of inaccurate information regarding overall progress. WorkMax mobile FORMS now answers all the questions and delivers the information more accurately than we have ever seen.”

2Reduces Status Update Calls to Clients – R.J. also likes to share the photos, sketches, videos, and photos with markup with clients. The mobile forms are available at his fingertips to quickly share progress updates with them. His clients don’t have to open individual photos and video attachments and wonder why they need to look at it. The photos and videos are all in one document, along with any written descriptions.
WorkMax mobile FORMS enables us to keep the customer fully updated with no gray areas. They no longer require weekly conference calls, because we answer their questions with WorkMax mobile FORMS. We can devote our time to answering specific questions or troubleshooting for the customer versus trying to identify what has actually happened,” said RJ Wolfarth, VP of Construction for Service Electric and Control, Inc.

3Reduces Conflict Resolution Calls to Clients –

Building clients’ trust takes time. Clients can be skeptical when you let them know about issues that arise on your projects, especially if the project isn’t in the same town they live in. It’s not always workable for your clients to drive to the job site or jump on a plane to inspect the issues in person. This can lead to lengthy conference calls with your clients to explain the budget increases or schedule delays. When you use mobile forms with photos and videos, you can send your clients marked-up photos and videos to show them what’s happening without being on the job site. Seeing is believing. You can visually communicate information more clearly and quickly with your clients. It also doesn’t matter where the project is or where your clients are. Everything is available to all your project stakeholders anywhere, anytime, and on any mobile device with WorkMax mobile FORMS.

Watch a video or see a WorkMax mobile FORMS demo to improve how you manage your communication from the field to the office to the clients.

 

View Video Green                              Watch Forms Demo Now 01  

References:
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20001014041642/http://www.3m.com:80/meetingnetwork/files/meetingguide_pres.pdf
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2013/01/08/what-is-an-infographic-and-ways-to-make-it-go-viral/#33f0f1ba7272
[3] https://justin.vashonsd.org/Resources/HOM/Learning&LeadingWithHabitsOfMind.pdf
[4] Burmark, L. (2002). Book Visual Literacy Learn See. Assn for Supervision & Curriculum. https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Literacy-Learn-See
[5] Jensen, Eric. Brain-Based Learning (Revised). p 55. CA:The Brain Store, 2005.
[6] http://web.archive.org/web/20001014041642/http://www.3m.com:80/meetingnetwork/files/meetingguide_pres.pdf