AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Paul White

As humans, we communicate as readily as we breathe and eat. Whichever generation we are born into the desire to relate to the peer group we grow up with remains a constant. The difference lies in the communication technology at our disposal. in this the first part of a new series of excerpts from the latest white paper from IFS we take a look at how communication is changing and technology is evolving.

 

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While a choice of voice and text has been available to all current generations, their accessibility and immediacy has been transformed over the last forty years: from landline to smartphone, from letter to instant messaging. Our preferences tend to be based on the dominant channel(s) within our peer group

 

Generation Z parents famously wonder why voice has become such an alien channel to their children. Millennials can still manage a weekend catch up call to parents but typically revert to texting amongst friends, even though workdays become all about email. Meanwhile, silver surfers boast an expanded repertoire of being natively comfortable with live voice and increasingly up to speed with family group messaging.

Naturally, this personal use cascades into our lives as consumers and employees. Retaining our choices is expected. We still want to communicate in ways that suit us. Adoption of these expectations is as common in B2B as in B2C markets. The technology has become ubiquitous.

The problem, of course, is that brands and employers keep finding themselves behind the curve as new channels pop up.

Take messaging for example. The absolute dominance of Tencent’s

WeChat within Chinese daily life is such that cash and credit cards are already in rapid decline. We now see the same payment system being offered to Western brands that recognise revenue growth from Chinese tourists requires a trusted and familiar payment interface.

In terms of ‘messaging as a platform’, enabling users to get most things done in their lives, from booking doctor’s appointments to paying bills, the West lags the critical mass of functionality that WeChat has already gained. As of 2018, we are still at the very beginning of monetising messaging as a trusted channel between customers and organisations.

 

Although business case logic makes us hope that the latest channels will replace existing ones, the evidence says otherwise...

 

From a customer service leadership perspective, this must seem like a never-ending road. Although old as an industry topic, web chat remains the next new channel for many organisations. Even those already up and running are still sourcing the best practices required to engage effectively. Besides chat, many have also had to deal with social media and now find themselves being told that messaging is the next iteration.

However, the story gets worse.

Although business case logic makes us hope that the latest channels will replace existing ones, the evidence says otherwise. It is an expanding, rather than declining set that most organisations deal with. As such, it is hard to imagine that a single channel will ever emerge as the ‘silver bullet’.

Email is often written off as a legacy channel yet OFCOM’s 2017 communications report shows it remained the single most popular channel for 16+ adults in the UK. What does that imply if you want to be a customer-centric organisation?

Voice might be declining as is often reported, and yes, there are those millennial orientated brands that don’t do voice because their customers don’t, but it remains the dominant live channel of choice by some margin. For many customers, it has unique qualities. It’s faster than text as a form of communication. It’s richer in terms of emotion. Text channels have to augment with emojis.

As the dominant channel, it also attracts negative press for the lack of sophisticated routing many organisations still subject their customers too. First contact resolution without bumps is not as common as it should be. Customers expect low effort outcomes. Even so, once the right person is found, live voice still fulfils many of the expectations customers have for what a service experience should be.

In truth, we live in a world of five generations of consumers and employees. The choice of communication channel is ours. We pick whichever works for us. And by the way, if you think letter writing is dead just ask any complaints team!

So what does this mean? Does it condemn organisations that want to do the right thing by their customers to every increasing cost? The answer depends on what generation of infrastructure you are using.

 

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Want to know more? The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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 Sponsored by:

 

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

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Paul White, Director, Customer Engagement Solutions, IFS explains that even with all the data in the world - the most important step to improving the customer experience is understanding what the customer wants...

Look around you.

Today’s marketplace is entirely driven by the customer. Uber, Amazon, Deliveroo and others have all found enormous success developing businesses based on delivering beyond customer expectation.

This paramount shift in business practice, once a simple supply and demand problem, has made the concept of customer service increasingly complex. The customer landscape has steadily evolved over the past sixty years since the rise of modern call centers but it has only been recently, since the rapid surge of consumer technology, that customer expectation has been so hard to measure, and meet.

A 2016 research report done by Forrester states that 72% of businesses say that improving the customer experience is their top priority. It is an obvious imperative for businesses that want to stay relevant, competitive and not end up a laggard.

But the first step to improving the customer experience is understanding what the customer wants. Even with all the data in the world out there today (cookies, surveys, inbound marketing), it isn’t that easy. Providing the customer with an unrivaled experience should infiltrate every part of your business. So what does your customer in 2017 what?

 

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Want to know more? IFS have published an excellent white paper based on their Digital Change Survey which is available to Field Service News subscribers...

If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription and we will send you a copy of this white paper along instantly.

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Real-time interaction

A Salesforce report on the connected customer states that 65% of consumers expect companies to interact with them in real-time. Instant gratification is widely available and with companies competing primarily on customer service alone, response time is an increasingly important differentiator.

An unrivalled experience

According to a Walker study, by the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. Additionally, 86% of customers state they will spend more to get a better customer experience. This means a shifted focus from meeting customer demand to focusing on customer SUCCESS.

Fundamentally the ideals of servitization come into play here where you no longer sell a product or service, but rather the outcome of that product or service.

Mind reading

Ok, maybe not to that extreme. But consumers today want the businesses they interact with to know what they need. This can mean anything from proactive service (which removes the hassle of the customer having to escalate a problem) to intelligent upselling.

So you need a business that caters to the customer and provides them with an unparalleled experience. The connected customer drives the escalator of customer satisfaction and now demands input and acknowledgement throughout your sales and service lifecycle. This means you need processes and systems that support the customer as the bottom line.

What does that mean for the field service management systems that drive your service business and automate your operations?

For IFS it meant recognising the customer imperative service businesses cannot ignore. It meant understanding that empowering the service business to deliver a unique customer experience means delighting the connected customer. It meant recognising that the customer is the focal point of any service transaction.

So IFS made an acquisition that would enable them to provide the only complete connected field service management solution focused directly on customer interaction, from beginning to end.

mplsystems provides the omni-channel contact center and customer engagement support service businesses need to provide the optimum customer experience In fact, Aberdeen Group claims that companies with the strongest omni-channel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers.

What does the future of field service management look like?

As digital transformation and customer expectation collide, we can expect a world that manifests immediate personalised touch points. AI will help service businesses understand the customer journey today, while preparing for tomorrow. IoT is already driving the shift from reactive service models to predictive ones.

Servitization is delivering on customers’ new expectation that their success be taken into consideration, by providing outcome based service offerings.

The most forward thinking businesses will be able to leverage new technologies and existing systems to create a customer experience and offering that is rich, insightful, and innovative.

It starts with the customer and its ends with them, and field service management processes and service businesses alike must embrace this.

 

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The Internet of Things is predicted to have a huge impact on customer service. In this article,  Paul White, CEO mplsystems, identifies the top three changes he expects to occur.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects embedded with electronics, software and connectivity that are able to be controlled remotely with the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

Gartner have predicted that three years from now, 5% of customer service cases will be autonomously initiated by connected devices as more objects connect to the internet. This is supported by Nicola Millard, Head of Futures and Insight at BT, who recently commented at mplsystems’ customer conference, “I think a lot of the technologies we are starting to see like the Internet of Things could be used more proactively with the contact centre so it becomes more in charge of demand rather than just responding passively to it.”

The IoT introduces opportunities, but how will it really change to the day to day running of the contact centre and the role of the agent?

1. The contact centre will start delivering proactive rather than reactive customer service

Our number one prediction for the Internet of Things is that it will transform the contact centre from a reactive inbound customer service centre to a proactive outbound service. This will be achieved by devices being able to self-diagnose problems and immediately alert the contact centre of the issue, often before the customer realises. The integrated system will automatically trigger an outbound call to be delivered to the agent desktop who will then offer proactive customer service, rather than waiting for the product to fail and the customer make an inbound enquiry.

For example, washing machines will be able to self-diagnose problems and notify the manufacturer when a part needs replacing, the contact centre is then able to make a call to the customer to notify them and fix the device before a more serious problem can occur, significantly improving the customer experience.

 

Alternatively, products that needs refills, such as drinks dispensers, will be able to send a notification straight to a field based workers mobile device, who can then add this to their list of jobs and deliver with their boot stock. This means that they will never need to alert the contact centre, alleviating the number of calls and requests they are having to deal with.

2. The role of the contact centre agent will become more specialised and they will be better prepared

As a result of devices detecting and alerting the contact centre of problems, the contact centres agents will transition from receiving high levels of inbound, reactive customer requests to delivering an outbound proactive service. This will result in the agent’s role transitioning from a generic customer service role to a specialist in a specific product or problem type. Agents are going to need to know about the faults that are being alerted in the contact centre as they will often be more informed about the issue than the customer and will need to convey this information. At the point of engagement, they will not just be aware of the issue but will have remedies in place and may even have started applying them to resolve the problem. From a business perspective, the level of customer service is greatly increased, agents are more knowledgeable and productive and the business should experience cost savings through a more streamlined, proactive way of working.

3. Masses of new data will help to improve the customer experience

The Internet of Things will bring with it a whole new explosion of data that, if managed correctly, can be of enormous value to the contact centre and customer experience delivery. Contact centres will be able to gain more control of customer service by the Internet of Things providing them with new streams of information that is integrated in to their existing infrastructure. Customers will not have to wait in long queues, go through time-consuming security questions or try to explain complex faults, as agents are presented with all the information they need from multiple sources of data.

 

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As self-service technology experiences rapid growth in industries such as retail and financial services, research reveals that the field service industry have been somewhat slower to adopt writes Paul White of mplsystems. 

Given that the role of the consumer has largely changed over recent years due to the consumerisation of technology, customers are now expecting to be able to have more visibility and control when it comes to interacting with a business.

Within the field service industry there is a growing focus on improving communication between the service desk and field engineer teams.

However, businesses are slowly realising that technology can also be used to improve communications with clients, offering a low effort experience that not only increases visibility and loyalty but generates cost savings.

Research carried out by mplsystems and Field Service News reveals that the number of organisations implementing self-service technology for their customers is slowly growing, with 40% of organisations offering some element of self-service technology to their customers.

However, it is clear that although there is a trend for self-service arising in the industry, many online portals and self-service technologies are still very limited in functionality with only 6.7% of respondents providing their clients with total self-service functionality.

It is clear that customer self-service technology is starting to make an impact in the field service industry, however the functionality of these solutions are still quite restricted and often do not provide the customer with the control they require.

Businesses need to make sure, when implementing self-service technology that they are integrated with other key business systems. This will provide the customer with all the tools they need to be able to action, amend and view their service requests, profile and billing.”

Therefore the key to successfully implementing customer self-service portals it to ensure they integrate with existing systems such as ERP, scheduling and engineers mobile technology. Without this integration, customers are unable to access the information they need and often continue to use the service desk to perform updates, changes and requests.

The portal needs to be able to provide the customer with the same level of service as the over the telephone, otherwise, as recent research by Software Advice concludes, introducing an online portal can do more damage than benefit if implemented incorrectly.

It is suggested that, despite the current popularity of online self-service portals, mobile app technology will rapidly become one of the most popular self-service solutions in the industry.

Research suggests that over 50% of smartphone users chose apps over phoning a contact centre and this will continue to rise as the influence of generation Y and the proliferation and innovation of mobile devices continues. However, only 5% of organisations currently offer their customers mobile apps as a communication channel into the service desk.

Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insight and Futures at BT Technology, comments “It is predicted that by 2020 web chat and messaging via mobile devices will account for 40% of customer interaction with the service centre, whilst channels such as phone and email drop to 38% and 4%. Businesses need to prepare themselves for this channel transition by equipping themselves with the right technology.”

It is clear that the value of mobile app technology can be significantly increased when messaging capability is included. As traditional browser based web chat extends to messaging on mobile devices, it becomes possible to bring field engineers, the service desk and customers together in a virtual world, despite location or device.

When clients are speaking to a service desk agent and need further assistance, the agent can quickly open up a 3-way chat session with the appropriate expert or field service engineer from any location. Often client issues can be resolved in this way without the field service professional actually needing to visit the client site, proving cost effective and efficient for both the business and the customer.

After an award winning construction & property maintenance company implemented an integrated customer online portal, they experienced 100% business growth by being able to take on more business without having to increase resource and by providing differentiation when tendering for new business contracts.

The online portal now manages 75% of the businesses reactive job requests, significantly reducing the workload on the service desk whilst providing instant access for customers to report problems.

It is clear that the field service industry can gain many benefits from introducing self-service technology and with research suggesting that customers will continue to demand more control and visibility, implementing this solution is becoming essential to remain competitive.

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To find out more about customer self-service in the industry download mplsystems white paper: “Meeting customer demand: Evaluation of the top 3 customer self-service technologies for field service.”

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Delivering high quality service is clearly essential for any successful Field Service Management provider. That’s why it’s so important for service-based organisations across the facilities management, property management, maintenance and cleaning sectors to avoid the common pitfalls that can lead field service operations to fail in delivering service excellence.

Typical issues here can include a lack of integration between service desks, planning/dispatch operations and field staff; poor visibility of customer data, updates, stock and asset information; the breakdown of customer feedback and audit trails in the field; as well as the introduction of vulnerable manual processes and unnecessary administration costs. It’s this inability to join the dots that can make it increasingly difficult for service providers to achieve efficiency savings and remain competitive.

Recent mplsystems research identified mobile field service team visibility as a critical element for helping to address these issues. At a time when increasing field workforce productivity is proving a key challenge, we found that almost 40 percent of service management operations admitted to having no visibility of their mobile workforce at all. For larger field service teams, gaining insight over field service teams is even more difficult, with the dispatch function becoming critical – and a potential bottleneck to performance.

What’s needed is an approach that works to resolve this service disconnect – one where messages are always shared with field-based staff, where updates are accessible across end-to-end processes, where performance monitoring extends across all activities, and where interactions aren’t lost as they pass through multiple departments and systems.

That’s why at mplsystems we have built an end-to-end field service management solution that can provide organisations with a true real-time of all their current maintenance and support activities across their entire operation. Key functionality includes a unified service desk portal; the automatic and dynamic planning and scheduling of service activities within defined SLA adherence guidelines; supporting mobile personnel through dedicated apps for in-field data collection and route optimisation; as well as comprehensive analytics and SLA reporting.

By directly linking service desk and field operations, organisations of any size can effectively automate key processes such as parts and asset management, optimise their scheduling and even deploy customer self-service portals so that clients can carry out their own bookings and changes. And because this service is now available on a Cloud-enabled pay-per-usage basis, it can prove particularly cost effective for all workforce sizes, from just 15 to over 500 mobile staff.

When Balfour Beatty Workplace combined its multiple UK service centres into a single major mplsystems-powered National Operations Centre it deployed just this type of flexible helpdesk solution, helping the TFM operator to manage bookings and plan jobs across its multiple accounts. For Balfour Beatty Workplace the results have been impressive; initial savings of over £500,000 in terms of efficiency savings and penalty reductions have been realised. In addition there has been an 18 percent improvement in response rates, non value-added calls have been cut by 2,000 a month and the company has seen a 28 percent improvement in planned maintenance performance SLAs.

Before deploying its mplsystems field service management solution, Gamestec – the UK’s largest gaming and amusement machine operator – needed separate contact centre technology, CRM and handheld devices to maintain communications with its engineers. By implementing an mplsystems solution, Gamestec has seen an 88% reduction in ongoing IT costs, with increased efficiency across the organisation in terms of how service and field staff are deployed.

Metric Group, the leading provider of car park payment terminals, also uses an mplsystems solution to support its field service engineers. The solution gives Metric Group a single view of all its engineering resources, allowing the company to optimise service schedules, increase field service productivity, improve response times for customer and dramatically simplify reporting.

 

For field service organisations looking to augment their end-to-end service management offering, there’s a range of innovative technologies that can make a real difference. We’ve already seen technologies such as cloud, mobile, social media and self-service start to extend the capabilities of field operation, however one that has had less focus until now is the increasing use of web chat.

Field service operations have traditionally struggled to unite two key elements – the technical expertise of their field-based engineers with the availability of their service desks. Not surprisingly, engineers are always busy – either travelling to a customer location or already engaged onsite.

Now with multi-way web chat, however, it is possible to bring field engineers and the service desk together. Service agents can now bring other experts from any department into their customer conversations, and – through mobiles and customer service apps – bring in field-based engineers from any location.

Web chat is one of the most rapidly growing channels – particularly among younger customers. As well as providing an additional channel for customers to check for updates and advice from the service desk, chat is now set to play an increasingly important role within field service management.

Examples of how chat can be put to work include helping field staff to exchange best practice, and also connecting customers directly to field staff to speed resolution.

Chat can enable direct communications between field staff, allowing them to use mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets to create conversation threads to share knowledge on recent issues and exchange resolution tips.

Chat can also be put to use as part of an integrated customer service approach. When clients are speaking to a service desk agent and need further assistance, the agent can quickly open up a 3-way chat session with the appropriate expert field service engineer. Often client issues can be resolved in this way without the field service professional actually needing to visit the client site.

For organisations looking to add chat to their service management portfolio, it’s important to look for solutions that can extend the value of their existing systems approach. Key functionality should include the ability for service centre agents to conduct multiple chats, chat conferencing, as well as the ability to integrate with knowledge bases and FAQs.

While chat can be deployed on a standalone basis, it delivers optimum value as part of broader multi-channel universal queue approach – ideally accessible from the service desk via a streamlined service agent desktop. Implemented correctly, chat increases choice for customers, and opens up the opportunity to link directly with service experts who can resolve client requests quickly and cost-effectively.