Anyone else struggling with technicians not using the mobile app consistently?

in my experience the stick doesn't work here. these guys have been through three software rollouts. they know if they wait long enough, you'll give up.

what actually moved the needle for us: we stopped caring about status updates and started caring about one thing — photo documentation. told them no photos, no invoice. that's it. suddenly everyone's an expert at the mobile app.

you want compliance, tie it to money. not your nagging.

Thanks so much for starting this thread — we're dealing with the exact same thing! Our team is about 20 techs and I'd say it's split right down the middle.

What ended up helping us was actually getting the early adopters to train the resistant ones, rather than management always being the messenger. We started a little friendly competition — most real-time updates in a week got a $25 gas card. Nothing huge but it made it fun? And the peer pressure did more than our reminders ever did.

But I'm curious — what do you do when the job runs long and they can't finish the paperwork right away? That's our big excuse lately. Also, has anyone tried just making the dispatcher do all the status updates instead? My manager suggested it but that feels backwards...

@deja.washington — the "run long" excuse is exactly what I hear. funny how the job always runs long right when it's time to do the annoying part.

your manager's suggestion... no offense, but that's how you get dispatchers who quit. we already touch every job twice.

Pro tip: The techs who resist this stuff usually have one thing in common — they don't see what's in it for them. Management sees reporting and metrics. Techs see extra taps on a screen.

I started showing our newer guys how real-time status helps them — like when dispatch can see you're still on a job and stops routing calls to you, or when customers stop calling your cell because they got the "on the way" text. Framed it as call-deflection, not compliance.

Also worth noting: some of the older guys legitimately struggle with small phone screens. We got two of them tablets and suddenly they were model citizens. Not saying that's your whole problem, but... don't assume it's all attitude.

lol @ tablets. my boss tried that and the first guy left it in his truck in august. cooked it

ngl tho josh is right about the why. i started updating status bc i got tired of dispatch calling me every 20 min asking where i was. now they leave me alone. worth it

We had this exact scenario and solved it with a simple rule that everyone understood: if the job isn't marked "arrived" within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, it shows up on a daily report that goes to the operations manager. No exceptions, no excuses.

Here's the key — we automated it. Nobody had to manually check. The report just existed, every day, and everyone knew it. Visibility drives behavior.

Also, side note: we paired this with a quick win. First month, anyone with 95%+ real-time compliance got first pick of overtime jobs. The resistant ones came around fast when they realized the early birds were getting all the weekend work.

the overtime thing is smart. we just get yelled at. id update the app more if it got me something

also tbh half the time i forget bc im driving job to job and the app logs me out and i dont remember my password. maybe make it stay logged in longer? idk if thats a thing

Thanks for sharing that context, Tyler! We want to make sure you're set up for success here.

The mobile app should stay logged in for 30 days by default, but if you're seeing more frequent logouts, that might be a device-level setting or a security policy your IT team has configured. Happy to help troubleshoot — I'll send you a direct message with some steps to check.

And great discussion everyone! We're actually gathering feedback on real-time compliance workflows right now. If anyone wants to share more about what incentives or nudges have worked (or failed), we'd love to hear it.

2 years of this. tried everything above. what actually worked: we stopped paying hours not in the app.

clock in via app or you weren't on site. one pay period of "where's my missing 6 hours" and suddenly everyone remembers.

harsh but we're not running a charity

Jumping in late here — the team just showed me this thread. We're a smaller operation (8 techs) and struggled with the same thing.

What worked for us was actually slowing down the rollout. We picked 2 techs who were already pretty comfortable with phones, got them fully bought in, then had them do brief demos at our weekly huddle. Peer proof of concept > management mandate, in our experience.

Also, we made sure every tech could force a manual sync when they needed to — took away the "it didn't save" excuse. Once they trusted the app wouldn't lose their work, compliance went way up.

Really appreciate everyone sharing the harder-line approaches too — good to know what's in our back pocket if this soft approach stops working!