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

Look, I know this isn't a new problem, but I'm hitting a wall here. We've got 14 techs in the field, and I'd say maybe 6 of them are actually updating job status in real time. The rest? They'll mark everything "complete" at 4:30 PM from their driveway. Or worse, they don't mark anything at all and I spend my mornings playing detective.

We've tried:

  • Weekly reminders in the team meeting (ignored)
  • Making it "required" in their performance eval (too vague to enforce)
  • Texting individuals when jobs sit open (works for a day)

The frustrating part is the app works fine. They all have company phones. It's not a technical problem, it's a... I don't know, behavioral thing? Cultural?

I'm not looking for lectures about accountability. I want to know what actually worked for your teams. Bonus points if you figured out how to get buy-in from guys who've been doing this job for 15+ years and think paperwork is for "the office people."

...and yes, I've seen the mobile app update post. New dashboard looks nice. Doesn't help if they don't open it.

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  • 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.

  • 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

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