These guides will help your surveying company succeed.
Everything from starting your company, to getting more clients.
Things to consider when choosing asbestos surveying software.
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76% of asbestos surveyors say they couldn't be competitive in today's market without good software (Asbestos Industry Tech Review Survey, 2024).
So, with asbestos reporting software being such a critical part of your business, what should you look for when choosing software?
Once upon a time, tablets were the default choice for surveyors. However, nowadays, most surveyors prefer phones over tablets, so choosing software that works on mobile phones is a must, especially if you plan to expand your surveying team in the future.
Usage by device type *:
It's no surprise that phones are surveyors' preferred choice; they have many benefits over larger tablets, including better cameras, more portability, and longer-lasting batteries. Tablet users are more than seven* times as likely to experience hardware frustrations with issues like poor cameras and missing flashes.
Learn More About Phones vs Tablets for Surveying
iOS and Android usage
When choosing software, you should also consider what operating system it will work on. iOS and Android devices comprise around 99% of the global mobile market share. So, if your surveying software doesn't support both IOS and Android, it's a bit of an antique.
* Stats from The Asbestos Industry Tech Review 2024 Survey
Depending on the software provider, software installation may be either a complex process or a simple one.
The bad way:
Some software providers force you to use a specific phone or tablet device to conduct surveys. This is an old-school way of installing software and should be a warning sign when choosing software. The reason that software providers limit software to specific devices is to prevent license sharing. However, it can be a real inconvenience, as the software needs to be installed by a specialist team member. This comes with hidden costs; for example, there might be delays waiting for your device to be configured.
Another pitfall with this type of software installation is that if you forget to take your specially configured mobile device to the site, you'll be unable to complete your survey.
The good way:
When considering ease of installation, look for asbestos surveying apps you can download onto any phone or tablet from the App Store (Apple) or the Google Play Store (Android). This means you're not restricted to a specific mobile device.
Some software costs thousands of pounds just to get started —that's a lot of money, especially for start-ups. And the worst part is that you haven't even completed your first survey yet!
Ask the software provider to specify any setup and ongoing costs. We believe in only charging clients when they're getting value, so we swallow any setup costs and recoup these later through your monthly subscription fee.
Offline support is a must-have feature. As a surveyor, you'll often conduct surveys in areas without an internet signal, for example, rural areas or high-security areas like prisons or defence sites. Since an internet connection isn't guaranteed, your app needs to have excellent offline support.
You know your software has good offline support when completing a survey with or without an internet connection takes the same amount of time. When you get an internet connection, your data should sync up automatically.
Some surveying apps will require manual data sync, which is OK too. We suggest giving the mobile app a good test drive somewhere with a patchy internet signal to see if the offline support is truly robust!
Learn More About Working Offline
How will you be drawing your floorplans? This is an important consideration when choosing reporting software.
Some software products like TEAMS or Alpha Tracker® have built-in floorplan drawing tools that allow you to draw floorplans on-site. However, this could be a feature you don't actually need.
Other software products like Flow Mobile Surveying encourage you to draw plans using a third-party floorplan drawing tool. You can then upload and embed the final floorplan into your survey report. So, your process could be to take an on-site sketch and finalise the floor plan later on using dedicated software when you're back in the office.
Of course, you may not require any floorplan drawing tools if you outsource your floorplans or if your client provides plans that you annotate manually.
Learn More About Floorplan Software for Asbestos Surveyors
No two surveyors have the same report styles. You'll want to add things like:
Most surveying software products will be able to replicate your existing report contents and styles to some extent. They'll either use Word-based editors, which are quick and easy, but the styles will be restricted to those available in Word, or code-based editors, which are more flexible but require specialist technical knowledge.
At Flow Mobile Surveying, we create report templates using a code-based editor. Our clients tell us what they need, and we update their report templates.
In any business, you'll need more than one piece of software. You'll need software to track your sales interactions (CRM Software), quotes and invoices, and create survey reports. But how do you get these software products to talk to each other?
The answer is integrations. To pass data between software products, each one must be able to communicate with one another. This requires an API (Application Developers Interface) and the technical know-how to set up an integration between different products —something your software provider may be able to help with.
It's worth noting that you may not actually need integrations, although it'll save you some admin time!
Of course, we recommend Flow Mobile Surveying - as we believe it's the best product 😉
However, there are lots of other products available, so we suggest you check them out!
There are plenty of asbestos surveying apps on the market. We recommend doing your research and trialling as many as possible.
Contact us for a free online demo of Flow Mobile Surveying, the fastest asbestos surveying app
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