The demand for service comes from many channels in modern field service operations. A critical consideration for field service operations is offering customers a channel in which to request service that is easy to use, responsive and can be done from anywhere, at any time and from any device. Social media and 24x7 connectivity have changed consumer expectations. Phone calls with long wait times are no longer acceptable. Best-in-class field service organizations offer customers the ability to schedule service via branded web portals, directly from their website, via mobile apps or via IVRs and even via some social media platforms. IoT is one of the newest ways service can be requested, and it doesn’t even have to be initiated by the customer. Connected machines can alert field service organizations of required maintenance and pending failure before customers are aware of issues. The key here is that businesses need to create easy ways for customers to request services from their operation and mobile workforce.
Managing demand, however, includes more than the service request. When a request is initiated, depending on the actual service requested, estimating and triaging prior to onsite arrival may be required and is a critical element of workforce management, since a variety of personal may be required to complete the entire work order from initial request through onsite completion.
Once those initial processes have been completed, the job must be scheduled to the best employee or contractor based on skills, geography and schedule availability, within its contractual response or SLA times, with the parts, accessories and additional helpers, for instance, to complete the work in the expected time frame. The field service organization and its workforce must also proactively communicate with customers regarding scheduled work, and any potential changes to expectations, which leads directly to the next category.
Scheduling work can take many different paths, which ultimately provide varying levels of automation, productivity and customer satisfaction improvements to the organization.
Often, smaller, less complex organizations rely on basic or manual scheduling or rules based scheduling.
A critical component of field service execution is mobile technology. A survey of consumers by The Service Council indicated that at least 50% of the time, field technicians arrived on-site with NO mobile technology. Mobile technology is more than a cell phone. Mobile field service applications provide field techs with the process, information and access needed to complete a job in a single truck roll. Using configurable, cross platform technology, field service organizations can provide employed or contracted technicians with the ability to clock in or indicate work commencement, provide a schedule including the parts, tasks, forms and data to be collected, navigation including traffic information, as well as the ability to deliver estimates, process payments and collect survey responses. Field technicians need mobile technology to do their jobs and delight your customer.
Business intelligence in today’s field service operations is a collaborative, real time experience that extends from forecasting and planning through service delivery and claims reimbursement. Using the latest in cloud technologies, data can be collected from across the operation and used to plan labor supply, including utilization of third party contractors and analyze technician data, including productivity of staff and response as well as potential fraud within the contractor ranks. More importantly, BI solutions should provide field service organizations with the ability to feed data back into the business, in real time, so that adjustments can be made to fine tune operations to deliver the best customer experiences, while decreasing costs and improving productivity.
According to Gartner’s report “Key Processes for B2C Field Service Management”, published 14 December 2017 by analyst Jim Robinson, some field service management solutions support service delivery to both B2B and B2C customers to varying degrees. Consumers increasingly desire faster onboarding and shorter arrival times, and have an overall expectation of a better customer experience, but will often move on to the next provider if forced to wait to schedule or receive service. B2B customers often have contractual guarantees in terms of response time or SLAs and direct support channels used to request services.
When choosing the best workforce management solution for your business, define your customer’s desired service journey and configure processes and technology to support it each step of the way.
Listen to your customers. Understand how they want to interact with you, what they expect from onsite personnel and how quickly they expect you to respond and ensure that your training, processes and technology support their expectations, especially when there are differences between what a residential customer expects than what a commercial customer expects, and tailor your services to each.
Every industry is different. Where consumer centric industries might be focused on turning wrenches to fix broken products, an industrial industry may be focused on using IOT data from connected machines to prevent broken products. Insurance teams may be focused on not only policy holder response, but also on the safety of staff in hazardous conditions, whereas a retailer is focused on the speed of delivery and installations of products. Even the length of a work order varies greatly between industries, with appliances repair averaging 45 minutes, whereas telecom or utility maintenance work or security installation in a new construction could take days to weeks. Define the kinds of work your team must perform, and deploy process and technology which supports each specific instance.
The field service industry in general has begun to increasingly understand the benefits of deploying a hybrid workforce model which incorporates contracted and employed labor. However, the adoption of that model varies between industries. It’s important to evaluate whether the hybrid model works for your business, and if so, to select and deploy technology which intelligently and seamlessly enables you to dispatch either or both. Most importantly, recognize that if the hybrid or a fully outsourced model works best for your operation, that contractors are managed differently than staff technicians. Gartner states that it’s important to deploy process and technology for contractor management which:
Onboarding, credentialing and dynamic dispatching is also important when dealing with contractors. Your customers trust your organization to send safe, skilled workers into their homes and businesses. Do the homework to ensure that is in fact, true. Using technology which enables you to use rules and ranking, such as quality, costs or even OEM authorization, provides you with a mechanism, much like AI used in schedule optimization, to select and dispatch the best contractor for every individual work order.
It’s also critical when dealing with contractors to recognize the power of the checkbook. Volume speakers louder than demands. Contractors are more inclined to adhere to your rules and processes if they are receiving large volumes of work in one software solution. Forcing a new technology with a single workflow adds overhead for them. Aggregation platforms drive volume through a single pipe, with common processes, increasing contractor adoption of the technology, and your processes, exponentially, therein enhancing your ability to deliver seamless service with contractors as well as your own staff.
In this case study, Brandsmart, a US based retailer used ServicePower’s field service management solution to manage its repair field technicians, as well as file claims under manufacturer warranty. Key Improvements from deployment of ServicePower included:
AIG Warranty uses a contracted network to deliver repair service under service contract and extended warranty, using our Contractor and Warranty Claims Management and business intelligence solutions. Key Improvements from deployment of ServicePower included:
Learn how to ensure success with Optimization Technology in this new report from Gartner!
Where must you invest in field service operations to drive results for your business?
Learn how to improve your customers' experience with this new report from Gartner!
