Startup Idea: Automated Scheduling and Task Assignment Software for Consulting Business
I am the owner of a small business that does regional consulting for computer related products and services for small to mid size businesses. Typical tasks include recommending hardware or software vendors, one to one consulting to explain to less technical employers the benefits of various software applications for their business, and establishing or maintaining site security systems for small businesses by integrating any extant security systems with modular internet enabled locks or cameras.
Our business model relies primarily on hiring independent contractors with skills in the relevant fields, and paying them a per project fee plus a commission for upsales or securing a recurring customer. The problem is, while we have many qualified contractors in our contact list, many of them have other part or full time employment, and also they have different skill sets that make them good candidates for different work tasks.
This makes scheduling appointments with customers and contractors kind of a nightmare, because contractor availability isn't always reported accurately, or it isn't updated on our end correctly, and it takes a significant amount of time to choose the correct contractor for a given task.
What the ideal software would do would be to allow an arbitrary number of user defined score fields to measure each contractor, and the hours a contractor has free, to allow the software operator to sort and assign job tasks by highest rating in one category, highest average rating across selected categories, etc. compared against contractor availability and customer availability. The software could also allow for contractors to send availability updates, either weekly or ideally in real time, to reduce the number of incidents of scheduling a contractor only to find they were already otherwise engaged.
This seems like the sort of problem that could easily be handled by even one developer, as I'm fairly certain that I could build this sort of software myself if I had the spare time to do so, and I am certainly not a full time software developer. I've not seriously investigated this sort of scheduling software. Currently the problem is solved by comparing contractor availability to customer availability on a spreadsheet and then manually sorting through available contractors to find those contractors most able to handle the work task.