Field service management

Field service management is the set of tools and habits that get a technician, the right parts, and the right customer onto the same job. Schedules, work orders, status from the truck, and sometimes inventory live here. It is the operations layer. A CRM is the relationship layer: who the customer is and whether the lead is still alive.

The two get confused because both touch the job. A dispatcher wants to know that a tech finished and can take the 2pm no-cool call. An owner wants to know that yesterday's quote has not been followed up. One screen that tries to be both, on day one, is why small shops buy a suite and then keep using texts. The suite assumed a coordinator. The shop has an owner who also turns a wrench.

A honest split looks like this. The CRM holds the inquiry, the quote, and the promise to call back. When the job is sold, the work can live on a schedule, a whiteboard, or a field-service product if the crew is large enough to need one. Job costing, truck inventory, and membership billing are field-service jobs. They are useful. They are not what saves the lead that called while everyone was on a roof.

Puffly does not dispatch a fleet or track warehouse bins. It keeps the lead, the contact, and the next task. Shops that already run a field-service suite can still use a CRM in front of it for the calls and forms that never became work orders. Shops that do not need a suite yet should not buy one to solve a missed call.

If you are comparing the category, ask what happens to a call that nobody answered. If the answer is "it sits in the phone," the field-service product is not covering the top of the funnel, no matter how complete the schedule looks.