AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Across April and May of this year (2014) Field Service News in partnership with mplsystems undertook a research project to assess the current usage of field service software...

The survey was split into four categories. Scheduling systems, integration and interaction, management reporting and future options. In total we spoke to over 120 field service companies of differing sizes and differing industries. These were predominantly UK based although there were respondents from all over the world including Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

Scheduling Systems:

Whilst Service Management software as a whole is about far more than scheduling there is no doubt that it often dominates conversation. This is likely due to the sizeable improvements in efficiency that scheduling software can deliver. In fact companies that were using any sort of scheduling software, be it batch, automated or optimised, showed considerable improvements in the efficiency of their dispatch units with 39% of companies using scheduling software having a ratio of more than 16 engineers per dispatcher.

This figure reduces to just 8% when we look at companies who still operate with manual dispatch systems. In fact of those companies operating without scheduling software virtually half of them (49%) are only able to manage a ratio of 5 engineers per dispatcher at best.

With developments in mobile technology opening up opportunities for field staff to establish new revenue streams (whether directly or indirectly), the greater the ratio of engineers to dispatchers, the more a company’s labour resources are placed in positions which could potentially generate revenue.

With companies shifting away from manual based scheduling and starting to utilise scheduling software, the question of how well that software is performing takes on even greater importance.

The majority of companies (46%) identified their current scheduling system as average, with both extremes (excellent and very poor) being the least common response at 7% each. 14% of respondents identified that they felt their systems were poor, whilst 27% rated their scheduling system as good.

Taking a broader view this does indicate that 80% of scheduling systems being used are operating at an acceptable level of average or better, although it would also indicate that there is plenty of room for improvement as well

Integration and interaction:

There has been much talk of late around end to end service management solutions, whereby all systems across the customer lifecycle such as CRM, Service Management Software, and Asset Management Software are fully integrated with each another, offering full transparency across multiple divisions of a company. This in turn creates greater opportunities for improving customer satisfaction levels, improving efficiency and establishing new revenue streams within a business.

Specialist field service software has been available for some thirty years now, and as the industry has evolved a number of differing elements of service management software has developed such as scheduling, routing, and asset management software etc. In fact a fifth of companies are still working with five or more software providers.

With so many different products in the mix its little wonder that there are issues with integration in field service companies.

Well over a third of companies (38%) are still facing issues with integration stating “We have a number of different systems across different divisions and it makes communications between departments tricky”. This represents a sizeable section of the industry that has the potential to improve the overall efficiency and productivity of their field service operations.

Given that the integration of systems is not fully ubiquitous across the industry, it is important to see how companies ensure that their service management software supports their business processes. The most common means of ensuring this is through customisation by software providers, with 34% of companies taking this path.

With competition amongst software providers high within what is a relatively niche sector, it is such additional layers of customisation that can make a difference when implementing a new service management software system.

Yet conversely almost a quarter of companies (23%) admit to having to fit the way they work around their software.

This represents a real issue, if a company has to change their processes to accommodate their software then there may be a danger of efficiency bleed, in which case the surely the software isn’t fit for purpose? This serves to further highlight the importance of ensuring that you choose software provider wisely. Perhaps the cheaper ‘off the shelf’ solution doesn’t always offer the best value in the long term?

In part two of this feature we will look at what of management reporting software is being used and what fears companies have when adopting new systems.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

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As the organisers of the Field Service Solutions Theatre at this year's Service Management Expo, Field Service News was on hand to speak exclusively to a number of leading industry professionals straight as they stepped off the theatre podium. In this video series we are pleased to bring you the highlights from the Field Service Solutions Theatre and the first of these is Gerard O'Keefe CEO of Irish mobile workforce management software provider.

In his presentation entitled "Enhancing IT systems with Cloud mobility" O'Keeffe explored why mobility is important to business executives. Drawing on research from Accentur, Forrester and IBM highlighted why Mobility Solutions and Cloud based infrastructure were at the top of the agenda for field service companies,highlighting competetive edge, cost pressures, compliance and the smartphone revolution as major drivers for the shift.

O'Keeffe then outlined how mobility was an essential connector for business before highlighting the benefits of Cloud mobility in particular with increased productivity and efficiency the most prominent of these before closing with a real world example of how Accident Exchange had used the GeoPal  platform to improve their business processes.

To download the slides from his presentation click here

Software provider Fast Lean Smart (FLS) have recently announced that they have secured a significant new customer win in the form of Mitie’s pest control division.

German owned FLS who operate their UK division for their Reading office are providers of specialist mobile workforce management and scheduling software and in Mitie they have won the business of the UK’s third largest provider of pest control services. Having seen consistent organic growth greater than their peers within the last decade Mitie were in the market to support yet further development and growth by implementing optimisation solutions for both routing and task scheduling as part of a drive to improve their service offering by responding quicker to customer call outs.

With a client base that encompasses both residential and commercial clients, Mitie offer a ‘one-stop-shop’ service offering that covers everything and anything to do with pest prevention and eradication. They maintain their high standards of service by undertaking all services in-house and as a business they employ a nationwide field force of pest technicians.

Commenting on the agreement with FLS, Peter Trotman, Mitie Pest Control Managing Director said ‘Our success has brought us many challenges, especially in organising resource to meet our objectives which include continuously improving customer service, but also to reduce operational costs. We already differentiate our services through advanced management information and customer portals and we are now embarking on a dynamic enterprise to interface a route planning and resource optimisation tool to further our leading edge technology”.

Trotman added “As part of a year long evaluation of potential vendors, we completed a successful pilot with FLS which proved FLS VISITOUR technology was flexible to meet our requirements and the ideal choice. We are now pleased to appoint FLS as supplier and implementation partner for this immensely exciting project from which we already know the opportunity for performance improvement is significant”.

Jeremy Squire, FLS UK Managing Director, also commented saying “FLS are pleased to welcome Mitie Pest Control to our growing family of UK customers, the mix of routine visits, booked appointments and requirement to quickly react to emergency callouts make excellent use of FLS VISITOUR real-time scheduling capability. We look forward to making this deployment a showcase for the dramatic efficiency gains achievable and the ease of configuring our technology to meet unique customer needs.”

 

Resource: Five key steps to make field service profitable PLUS James Automation Case Study
Format: PDF
Abstract: Is field service seen as a cost centre at your business? Providing field service can be a complex process, but that does not have to mean it’s unprofitable. Every field service interaction is an opportunity to not only delight customers, but also increase revenue. This resource covers five easy steps to get your field service organisation in the black this year, as well as a case study of how one field service organisation did so. click here to download this resource now.  

Making field service profitable:

Operating a service division as a profit centre rather than a cost centre has been at the top of the agenda for service professionals for many, many years. After the global economic downturn in 2008 companies cut margins as far as possible to remain competitive, making the shift to profit centre even more prominent and important.Whilst the economy has improved somewhat the ability to establish service revenue streams remains a priority, and with the technology now available acting as an enabler the move to profit centre continues at pace. With this in mind ServiceMax have put together a handy guide for companies looking to turn their service division into a profit powerhouse. The guide, which includes a case study from James Automation detailing how they increased service revenue by 30% is available to download here.

The resource also lists the key steps that you should consider if you are going to make field service profitable which include:

1. Just say no to giving away free service – a fairly obvious point but one that gets overlooked by so many companies. If your field service engineers have no visibility into whether your customers have an up to date warranty then they are either potentially missing sales opportunity  or worse giving your valuable service away for free.
2. Optimise scheduling – One of the biggest areas that field service companies can see profit drain away is through inefficient scheduling of their engineers. With modern scheduling systems being far more affordable than before it really is inexcusable for companies to still be operating with a white board and an exel spreadsheet.
3. Never lose parts ever – parts logistics can sound somewhat overwhelming, but it needn’t be. Essentially it’s just a case of keeping track of your own assets. For field service organisations who service high value equipment with expensive parts this is especially critical. Knowing your inventory in real time is essential to keeping a healthy bottom line.
4. Market better, sell better – like all businesses, you need to shout about your successes. If you have customers that value your service you absolutely need to make it easy for them to continue buying it. Defining the value proposition of your service offerings is critical and they must be clearly articulated by everything and everyone that talks to your customers. This of course includes your field service engineers so be sure to train and incentivise them to sell services in the field.
5. Go mobile – Field service is of course an inherently mobile job – so modern mobile tools are of course a natural fit for the industry. Whether it is smartphones, tablets or laptops it is important to match the right hardware and software to your own specific field service needs. The benefits of going mobile will be seen across the board and will not only improve productivity but make your field service engineers lives easier – for which they will certainly thank you.[/ordered_list]

To find out more about these five steps as well as how James Automation were able to improve there field service revenue by 30% and decreased their revenue leakage by 20% click the link below.

BJB Lift Trucks, the intelligent materials handling solutions provider, is using Masternaut’s powerful fleet management solution to monitor the location of its fleet and distribute workloads accordingly, to create the most cost-efficient and productive workforce.

BJB Lift Trucks has seen widespread benefits across the business, since installation, with Masternaut’s solution giving it the ability to distribute work loads according to exact vehicle positioning. This has produced a 15% drop in fuel cost through cutting down on the unnecessary time vehicles spend out on the road.

The knock-on effect from this has been a reduction in vehicle usage, meaning that vehicle depreciation has been lowered, extending the vehicle life-cycle and reducing the requirement for maintenance or repair work. Operational efficiency has been improved, with a cut down in driving as well as quicker depot turnaround times, meaning that each member of staff is fully utilised throughout the working day.

The HR division has seen a number of benefits, with Masternaut’s in-depth retrospective reporting providing evidence for disciplinary matters such as speeding, while forming a comprehensive audit trail. The finance department benefits from improved operational efficiency as these reports can be cross-checked with timesheets instantly, making expense claims easily verifiable.

“We selected Masternaut above other telematics providers due to the high level of professional service they offer at a very reasonable cost, in comparison to competitors. Since using Masternaut’s solution, we’ve seen benefits across the whole business – not just fleet operations.” Commented BJB Lift Trucks.

“With 80% of our team out on the road, it’s vital we keep track of their locations and without Masternaut we couldn’t have done it. The team are always on hand to advise and support us whenever needed, and we look forward to working with Masternaut in the future to introduce further innovation to our business.”

Martin Hiscox, CEO and chairman of Masternaut, adds: “It’s great to see that as a result of our work together, we’ve helped oversee a 15% cut in fuel costs businesswise at BJB Lift Trucks.”

“With the bulk of BJB Lift Truck’s workforce mobile, we knew it was essential for fleet managers to have full visibility of their fleet at all times. Our solution has ensured this has been the outcome and we’re looking forward to seeing how we can further cut costs and improve efficiency with BJB Lift Trucks.”

Research commissioned by customer service specialists KANA Software suggests many organisations are overlooking the potential for customer service improvements that could drive revenue.

The survey of UK Contact Centre Association (CCA) members included a diverse mix of industry sectors, from financial services, to local government and retail. It reveals that only 40 percent (39.6 percent) believe senior management places a clear focus on customer service as a way to drive revenue; noting one-fifth of respondents (20.8 percent) think there is little or no focus on customer service at a senior level.

The survey also found that the majority of respondents are unconvinced of the link between customer service and the bottom line. Well below half (41.5 percent) take a keen interest in revenue loss resulting from poor customer service. According to the data, one-in-10 management teams pay no attention to the financial implications of a poor customer service experience.

Improving quality and reducing the “cost to serve” are currently seen as primary challenges in today’s organisations. The research also highlights what call centre agents perceive as key barriers to providing a better service: outdated systems, lack of investment, agent skills gaps and a lack of understanding or support at a senior level.

“Unfortunately, the contact centre is often seen as an operational expense and nothing more,” says Steven Thurlow, head of worldwide product strategy for KANA. “Often, senior management will review functional aspects, such as speed of handling times and resolution times. This approach is unlikely to drive further investment and instead maintains a focus on efficiency above all else. Fast service and good customer experiences are not always the same thing. Strategic investments in people, processes and the technology platforms that can aid them should be considered by the C-suite and across organisations.”

Thurlow adds, “The commercial value of an effective call centre, balanced against mitigating and eliminating the potential damages of poor customer service, should not be overlooked. A contact centre is not an unavoidable cost – it can be an invaluable tool.”

 

Trimble Field Service Management's new Managing Director John Cameron joins Field Service Service News as a guest columnist and outlines the importance of managing mobile resources effectively...

Many companies managing a large field service workforce operate in industries which require highly skilled individuals, whose work is variable and complex in terms of location and task. Add in a high degree of compliance-focused work and that means that field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. However, with market competition and customer expectations at an all-time high it is more important than ever that organisation’s ensure that their field service is not derailed by unpredictable dynamics of the working day. Understandably, the biggest area of concern for those in field service is workforce management[1] and 69 per cent of organisations are investing in technology to help manage jobs more effectively[2].

Expert Insight: Defining the challenges

Establishing what it takes to manage a large field service operation today, from managing the people and scheduling the work, to the technology that helps to drive efficiency, is essential and requires organisations to overcome a number of obstacles, including:

• Jobs overrunning if they are more complicated than first thought
•  Traffic congestion and vehicle breakdowns causing delays or even failure to meet an appointment
•  Workers potentially calling in sick, starting late or getting delayed can impact adversely on the productivity of the workforce.

The biggest and most repetitive challenge facing organisations managing a mobile workforce is cost and this is closely related to a secondary challenge - the role of the technician in the business.

The technician is often the only contact a customer has with the company and therefore exposure to the company’s service delivery and brand. With a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability, how the technician interacts with the customer can be significant in the customer experience. The challenge facing organisations is therefore around the role and responsibility of the technician.

An additional challenge is measuring service performance, suggesting that the old adage of you cannot manage what you cannot measure certainly rings true. Measuring what is happening in a hugely diverse workforce and identifying what the key metrics are to do that is essential. Ultimately you need to understand what has happened and you want to know that ‘now’ to use that data to enable real-time decision-making.

Finally, managing change and embedding best practice is core to a successful field service operation. Organisations often wrestle with this change on a regular basis from all sorts of areas, whether it is new technology, new people, new policy or new vans and equipment. In a remote workforce, managing change and making sure that it sticks is particularly difficult, due to their activities, but finding a way to embed change and making sure that best practice is shared across the workforce is a key success factor.

Putting workforce management technology into action

Reassuringly, developments in workforce management technologies have begun to offer a solution to these challenges, through intelligent scheduling tools and performance management analytics. This capability provides the stepping stones needed to help organisations measure, manage and improve their operations through optimising resources, offering real-time visibility and monitoring and giving warning of tasks at risk or showing the impact of work allocation decisions.

Traditionally, many organisations scheduled tasks based on a technician’s allocated territory but with today’s most common customer complaint being that a technician did not resolve the issue on a first visit, scheduling the most knowledgeable technician to a task or one who has the right tools or parts in their vehicle, is crucial. As a result, more and more organisations are beginning to realise the value of intelligent scheduling - incorporating technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into their scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is actually the person who can resolve the customer’s issue the first time. Aberdeen Group[3] found that intelligence is at the heart of scheduling with over half of organisations using service performance data to evaluate the effectiveness of scheduling criteria.

Self-learner tools can also help considerably with intelligent scheduling. They incorporate an algorithm that quickly learns preferences for each mobile worker and will allocate tasks accordingly. This includes geography, such as which mobile workers normally service particular areas, and what skills mobile workers have and to what degree they are qualified to do certain types of work. Such capabilities help to improve customer service as tasks can be scheduled to best meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs), produce efficient routes to reduce travel time and ensures work is only given to those with the right skills, carrying the right assets and tools.

A case in point: Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS)  

Justin Keane, Chief Operating Officer at PTS drove change in the organisation after recognising a need for additional effectiveness in its scheduling processes. Every morning the company would give a batch of tickets to its technicians for their assigned regions and would see what they could get done in a day. Technicians would print a list of their tasks and spend half an hour planning routes based on their own knowledge of the area. They tried using a map to sequence the stops, but that took about an hour a day for each of the eight regional hubs, which is eight hours a day just to build the routes. With these scheduling problems having a detrimental effect on the company’s productivity and growth, it sought a solution which would allow it to become more efficient and reduce or eliminate the time required for scheduling.

PTS deployed a field service management solution which allows dispatchers to view all their tasks and schedules in one place. This has reduced the time that dispatchers spend on routing from three hours a day to 45 minutes a day – an efficiency saving of 75 per cent or about 11 hours a week. Additionally, since the technicians no longer needed half an hour a day to plan their own routes, it has saved more than 200 hours per week of their time and job completion rates have increased by 10 per cent.

PTS has expanded its field service technology to all of its regions and this has made the company more productive, which means improved efficiency, happier customers and a more positive bottom line.

 

Dave Hart, vice president of global customer transformation at ServiceMax provides a tale of two field service companies and how listening to your field service techs is not only easier than ever but more important than ever also...

Here’s a tale of two field service companies — one that figured out how to build better products by tapping into their technicians’ on-the-ground experience, and another that didn’t and then paid the price.

First, the company that stumbled: Years ago, I worked for a manufacturer that released an update to one of its most popular products. There wasn’t anything wrong with the existing version: it was easy to use, rarely broke down and, when it did, it was simple to fix. The “new and improved” version, however, wasn’t well-designed and didn’t work as well. Our field service techs were left scratching their heads. “How could we get everything so right with one product and then so wrong with the next?,” they asked.

The reason was obvious: the research and development (R&D) teams and the service techs never spoke to each other. 

 

Now, for a different story: A large healthcare technology company has installed a knowledge management system on the smartphones, tablets and other assorted devices its tech carry with them on the road. The techs document what they and the customers experience with the products day in and day out. The information is delivered to the company’s product development team for consideration when updating the system — or even creating a new product altogether.

The lesson? Your service techs know your company’s products the best — even better than the customers do. They are on the ground every day and hear what customers like, and don’t like, about the product. They develop an intuitive sense for what can (and probably will) go wrong.

The Power of Data Collection in the Field

Unfortunately, the story of a product rollout that didn’t go according to plan is more the rule than the exception. The strange thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way. Collaboration between field service techs and product teams, such as R&D, has never been easier. Field techs carry smartphones, tablets and laptops in the field Communication apps such as Salesforce Chatter, Skype and Apple Face Time make it simple, fast and efficient for product developers to work with field service techs.

So while companies are embracing knowledge management systems on mobile devices, they’re not capitalising enough on the information that gets collected. The operations side see the real-time updates about product glitches or common customer gripes, but the research and development side doesn’t. That’s a huge missed opportunity.

Consider the healthcare company that I described above as the exception. So far, the company has collected more than a thousand product suggestions from field workers who use its mobile knowledge management technology. Both the technical support and product teams vet the suggestions, and share the most informative ones with the rest of the company.

How Service Tech Feedback Can Boost the Bottom-Line

Here’s a basic example of how technology-enabled collaboration between service techs and product developers can improve business. Say that a product has a fundamental problem or part that needs to be regularly replaced. Field techs can often spot design flaws that, if corrected, would reduce maintenance and repair times. If a product developer can look at a product from the tech’s perspective, everyone benefits — the company, its customers and the techs who service the equipment.

Multiply that across multiple products and service calls and you start to see the time and money savings. There’s an added benefit, too: like all employees, service techs want to be heard. Giving them a strong voice in how the products they work with every day are created goes a long way toward engaging them in all aspects of the business.

The healthcare company is a prime example of how companies can tap into their technicians’ vast product knowledge. Every field service company should follow its lead.

 

 

 

DA Systems outline 6 very good reasons why you should make sure your customer is focussing on delivering service excellence through the doorstep experience you give to your customers in this excellent infographic.