Smart Service: Are You Providing It?

Regardless of whether you provide home warranties, appliance services, security, telecommunications, or any other field-driven service, it's important to provide a smart service. Customers want more from businesses. If you want to deliver premium customer service, you need to make sure that you deliver in a big way.

What is a Smart Service?

A smart service is all about being dialed into the data that allows field service technicians to work smarter. No home or business owner wants to have a field service technician in front of them that doesn't know what's going on. It can take a significant amount of time if the technician doesn't know everything there is to know about the the problem, as well as the customer. Additionally, if the technician doesn't know how to get the job done because the work order had limited information, it's only going to take longer to perform the desired service.

There is a better way to provide service. When you can provide a faster, smarter service, you will provide better customer service and ensure that people rely on your business time and again. It doesn't matter what size business you are – you need to make sure that your workforce has the tools needed to get the job done.

Smart Scheduling

You need to make sure that you are assigning the best technician for the job. This is based upon the unique skills that they offer as well as the parameters of the job. When you are able to optimize schedules and send out the best technician for the job, you improve staff productivity. You also increase first-time-fixed rates as well as decrease the amount of time it takes to get the job done. This will allow you to establish more billable service events each day while delivering better customer service.

Manage the Customers

You want to make sure that your field technicians have everything they need in front of them. This includes understanding the history of the customer, such as past repairs. Warranty claims should also be made readily available so that your technicians are working digitally as opposed to piles of paperwork. It can reduce fraud and claims costs, while also protecting any equipment that belongs to the customer.

Use Digital Solutions

There are all sorts of digital solutions available to you. You will be able to manage work orders, establish asset and contract management, as well as track assets, including where your field technicians are at every point throughout the day. Additionally, you will be able to receive advanced reporting and analytics to learn more about what's going on with your technicians. You will be able to make better decisions and improve the quality of the experience given when you have hard numbers to look at. Having metrics in hand that use AI or IoT technology will have a dramatic impact on your business.

Understanding the Metrics

One way to make sure you are delivering a smart service is to look at the metrics. You should always be able to achieve metrics from your employees that are out in the field. This includes identifying how long each technician is spending on the job, how many jobs they are able to complete in a day, as well as their overall service rating provided to them by the customer.

By having these metrics in front of you, you can see what areas need to improve. You can also start to create benchmarks in which to make improvements on a regular basis.

Field service management can be complicated, but only if you aren't using the best tools available to you.

Learn more about how your field teams can start to deliver faster, smarter service by contacting ServicePower today. Our innovative, field-service technology platform has the right tools to help your organization provide faster, smarter service.