AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Paul Whitelam

Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware takes a deep dive into the healthcare sector, putting forward the case that it is high time healthcare providers embrace schedule optimisation to help cost-effectively improve operations and ensure patient care does not suffer. 

2018 saw continued merger and acquisition activity in the home healthcare and related markets as firms moved to build out their services footprint, offerings and build economies of scale.

And 2019 appears to be trending in the same direction. However, it is quite possible that many providers that have a mobile team delivering care in the field fail to understand the complexity that comes with size and multiple service offerings, especially as it relates to scheduling ever growing teams in the field.

Many organizations do not understand that as the number of appointments increase, the scheduling complexity does not increase linearly. In fact, it is not even close! The reason complexity does not increase in a linear manner is due to the fact that each scheduling decision has a factorial growth. For example, here are the number of scheduling possibilities for various jobs:

• There are 6 possible schedules for 3 jobs and 3 nurses; 
• There are 720 possible schedules for 6 jobs and 6 nurses;
• There are 3,682,800 possible schedules for 10 jobs and 10 nurses. 

This is why it is important that healthcare providers utilize scheduling software that can handle such complexities. Scheduling optimization technology, found in Field Service Management (FSM) software, enables organizations to create detailed schedules that can handle the complex scenarios detailed above.

Optimizing the schedule for an organization with hundreds to thousands of nurses and care providers is far beyond the capability of simplistic scheduling products (not to mention manual approaches). The complexity is due to the number of events that must be taken into account when developing a schedule such as travel distance, travel time, overtime costs, labor costs, employee availability and skills, patient or member availability and preferences, contractor availability, regulations and a myriad of other inputs. With FSM schedule optimization, an organization can create an optimal schedule that meets unique business rules that can:

• Minimize associated costs related to care delivery such as travel time, overtime and missed appointments;
• Meet patient and regulatory requirements by assigning only the person with the correct skill set for the visit.

An emerging trend in the home healthcare space is providers offering new services that deliver specialized, hospital-level care. For example, one program provides a 7 day a week offering that promises a 2-hour response to a patient call. While the benefits to the patient are great, the potential strain on the organization that has to schedule these appointments could prove to be difficult.

"As healthcare organizations scale, they need to invest in technologies like FSM software..."

The organization will need to estimate capacity, understand who can make the appointment (taking into account travel time and other business objectives) and who has the correct skill set to deliver care. These variables highlight the need for schedule optimization (and capacity planning) to calculate all of these variables to help deliver cost effective and safe care while delivering on their promise.

Schedule optimization provides real, tangible business results for organizations. The approach organizations take to optimize scheduling and appointment booking often depends on unique business policy and goals. Some healthcare organizations might prioritize on time arrivals or decreasing overtime, while others might prioritize a reduction in travel time. With schedule optimization software, organizations can define business goals and quality metrics, then tune the scheduling policy to comply with these variables. For example, let’s look at an organization that prioritizes on-time arrivals as a key business KPI. You have two customers who live on opposite ends of town and there’s only one nurse available in the area that is certified to deliver care. How can this organization meet the patient and regulatory requirements while maintaining business policy?

If that nurse runs into unexpected traffic, or the previous appointment runs over, he might arrive late to the next visit. With schedule optimization, the scheduler can recognize the possible conflict and assign the appointments with enough buffer to ensure an on-time arrival, meeting that business objective and satisfying a patient need.

FSM software provides advanced schedule optimization that enable a healthcare provider to schedule and manage hundreds to thousands of patient appointments. Not only does this help control costs with better routing and a reduction in overtime, it also helps to deliver a better experience for both the patient and the employee. For example, extended travel times can increase turnover among caregivers. In fact, a study that found that for every 15-mile increment that an employee must travel to a client, that provider becomes two times more likely to leave the organization. In an industry that is struggling to find and keep talent, improving travel time can be a great employee retention tool.

As healthcare organizations scale, they need to invest in technologies like FSM software that will help enable this growth in order to cost effectively improve operations and, most importantly, ensure that patient care does not suffer.

Paul Whitelam is VP Product Marketing at ClickSoftware.

With 2020 on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to think about new ways to improve your field service business. Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware outlines nine key areas that you need to be targeting to ensure your service delivery remains competitive as we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century...

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about new trends and visions for the future, and it’s probably a little overwhelming. An easy way to get started is by throwing away some of the outdated practices you’ve been following. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of field service practices you might want to leave behind in 2019.

Manual scheduling

Field service scheduling requires making several quick and calculated decisions. You need to consider everything from travel time and routing, technicians’ schedules and skill sets, equipment tracking, and SLA compliance. It’s much easier to rely on an automated scheduling solution to make optimized decisions for you, so you can focus on the bigger stuff—like your customers’ satisfaction.

Using separate solutions

The only way to gain true visibility into field service schedules is to manage everything in a single solution. This includes schedules, capacity planning, long- and short-cycle work, crew allocations, and more. Limiting field service management to a single solution also gives you the flexibility to manage your workforce more efficiently and ensure that you’re equipped to handle urgent work.

Not prepping technicians for customer service

Your field resources are often the only face-to-face contact your customers have with your company. This means it’s crucial they are equipped to give the best customer service possible. Start thinking of your technicians as your brand ambassadors, and ensure they have the soft skills to make a great impression on your customers.

Lack of visibility into technician location

With Uber you can hail a ride and know exactly where your driver is and when they will arrive. And Amazon provides updates when your package is shipped and as soon as it’s delivered. Your customers know this level of visibility is possible, and they expect it in their service too. Allow customers to track their technician’s location and send them reminders and updates about the status of their service. On top of giving your customers’ peace of mind, this also helps you avoid no shows and last minute cancellations.

Long Appointment Windows & Exact Time Slots

According to our Field Service Report, more than 60% of consumers across all countries said a long wait time between their service appointment being booked and carried out led to a bad customer service experience. It’s no surprise because today’s customers expect service fast, and definitely, don’t want to be waiting around all day to get it. Use optimized scheduling and appointment booking to ensure shorter, two-hour service windows for your customers.

Leaving the customer site before booking a follow-up appointment

Sometimes a repair is more complex than originally thought or a technician doesn’t have the right part to complete a job. When a follow-up appointment is needed, don’t leave the customer site until it is booked. Instead of simply ordering a part and asking the customer to call and schedule when they receive it, do it for them. The customer will feel more at ease knowing that even though the problem wasn’t fixed today, it will be fixed as soon as possible.

Not measuring customer effort score

When it comes to measuring customer experience, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores are usually the go to. But in today’s on-demand world, convenience and ease are becoming more and more important to customers. Many organizations have started measuring customer experience by the amount of effort customers are putting into getting an issue resolved. Add this to your list of KPIs so you can ensure future customer engagements are simple and seamless.

Not using live traffic updates

As customer expectations continue to rise, the importance of route optimization and getting resources from place to place is ever increasing. Many organizations are taking advantage of predictive travel and applications like Google Maps to accurately estimate travel times and plan routes ahead of the service day. However, it’s also important to consider real-time, live traffic updates on the day of service to account for unforeseen traffic and roadblocks.

Leaving out change management

When your service team has been doing things a certain way for several years, bringing in a new solution can be overwhelming. Even if the previous solution was inefficient or completely manual and paper-based, change can be scary. When implementing a new field service management solution, it’s important to get everyone on board and comfortable with the new solution—so don’t skip out on change management. Emphasize the benefits of FSM—such as efficiency, cost savings, and customer satisfaction—and make sure everyone is properly trained on using the solution.

While no one can know exactly what the field service management landscape will look like in 2020, it’s safe to expect increasing customer expectations and new technologies. Start preparing your organization for what’s next today.

 

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In the early part of this century we have seen huge technological developments impact field service management and increasingly technology and service delivery have become entwined - but investing in the wrong technology can be an expensive mistake, Paul Whitelam, VP Product Marketing, ClickSoftware outlines how we can ensure we avoid such pitfalls...

As we count down to 2020, companies are considering how to prepare for the next decade and get a jump start on the future.

There are many exciting technologies about, which offer much promise. In field service management,

where there is serious complexity that raises the stakes for any technology investment, it’s important these promising avenues realize their potential sooner rather than later.

But investing in new tech doesn’t guarantee its potential will be fully realized. It remains within the purview of the tech buyer to ensure the business extracts maximum value from new technology.

 

Identify Opportunities for Improvement 

Understanding your business strengths, weaknesses, and technological maturity is prerequisite to any exploration of new technology.

Have you outgrown an existing solution and need greater sophistication, or are you limited by processes rather than technology?

 

"Knowing your biggest obstacles and inefficiencies is the starting point for any tech conversation..."

 

Knowing your biggest obstacles and inefficiencies is the starting point for any tech conversation.

Are you able to measure everything and set benchmarks for desired performance? You will need to in order to have a productive conversation with a vendor.

For example, if you know you want to reduce windshield time rather than mileage this creates different requirements for a routing solution and what methodology it uses to map routes for service workers.

In organizations new to field service management solutions, there might be a lack of sophisticated measurement and benchmarks.

If you are moving from spreadsheets and manual paperwork for the first time, the leap can seem daunting. But this is the perfect opportunity to put prospective vendors to the test and use their expertise to source measurement frameworks, benchmarks, and best practices—then hold them accountable for delivering.

 

Invest in Outcomes, Not Products

Anyone trying to sell you a hammer will characterize your problems as nails, regardless of their nature. Once you’ve understood your challenges, you can articulate desired outcomes that can define the required capabilities for a solution.

The underlying technology is not irrelevant, but how it’s utilized is most important, and to what end.

Imagine you want to speed up response times without adding staff.

This will require the ability to schedule and dispatch workers automatically—with zero touch.

This could lead you to AI-driven automation and keeps the horse before the cart. The desired outcome first, tech and methodology second.

Whether your ultimate aim is to reduce costs, increase revenue, or improve customer experience, it should be clearly stated and technology agnostic.

Don’t let shiny new technology give you the old razzle-dazzle—you’re in the business of getting real work done—drive every conversation back to outcomes and proof.

 

Incorporate Change Management

New and innovative solutions can fall short of their promises if not wholly adopted by your workforce.

Even the best solutions can fall flat if your team is not on board.

Many field service organizations save money by using augmented reality wearables to remotely assist junior technicians on advanced jobs.

A senior technician can provide the expertise and guidance without having to travel. This sounds like a great idea to implement until you realize senior technicians are uncomfortable with the technology and prefer to use phones or to be dispatched to the job themselves—at a higher hourly cost.

 

"When talking to your technicians, extol the benefits of the change from their point of view, rather than the potential..."

 

Ensuring your new process and field adoption line up with your vision requires an early focus on change management and communicating with all levels of your service organization.

When talking to your technicians, extol the benefits of the change from their point of view, rather than the potential. They’re more likely to buy into an idea that impacts their work positively.

Have a plan for communicating with, training, and reassuring your workforce about what’s in it for them.

Looking ahead, make sure you recruit employees who are technology friendly and are eager to learn and use the latest and most advanced solutions available.

Automation, machine learning, real-time traffic based routing, and augmented reality all have practical applications in the field today.

Just as the technologies of yesteryear that they’re succeeding, these are simply tools to enable the job field service workers have always done.

To capitalize on their potential, whether you’re considering an upgrade, a process change, or purchasing a new solution, remember to lead with your biggest challenges, define your desired outcomes, and ensure your team is excited about the coming changes.

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Paul Whitelam, VP Product Marketing, ClickSoftware, puts across the case that in the race towards AI adoption we shouldn’t forget to see the value and importance of human input in the service cycle...

Like many industries, field service has seen an increase in the adoption of artificial intelligence-driven automation.

The benefits are many: improved efficiency, schedule accuracy, workforce productivity, responsiveness, cost savings and higher profit margins, and, importantly, happier customers.

Naturally, the onset of automation causes some anxiety in workers whose tasks are being handed over to AI. As with previous industrial revolutions, we’re not likely to find ourselves in a low employment high-leisure utopia. While the nature of work might change, plenty will remain to be done. Getting the full benefits of AI and machine learning still requires some human participation and a good understanding of who (or what) is best for each job.

People provide context

Service management solutions powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning can rapidly process high volumes of data to use as a basis for automated decisions. But when it comes to learning, machines can be a lot like humans— garbage in, garbage out.

When Microsoft launched its Tay chatbot on Twitter in 2016, few would have guessed that in just a day it would become a bigoted bully. The problem, of course, was that Tay was learning to converse by interacting with Twitter users, some of whom seized the opportunity to educate it on humanity’s worst impulses. Even with less shocking or inflammatory outcomes, AI learns from what it is shown and told. It’s likely to replicate bad behaviour if that’s all it’s shown.

AI-based tools can also provide simulations and modelling for multiple scenarios and highlight the interaction of various policy and process changes. For example, if the objective is the fastest response time available for every job, more technicians might have to be available for dispatching, increasing labour costs and decreasing utilization.

People must still define the process and priorities for automation to ensure your system optimizes for the right business goals. While intelligent computing power can grease the wheels of daily service operations, the real value comes from informing businesses to foster improved decision making.

Managing the unique and unusual

While humans can grow bored with the rote and routine, machines have yet to complain. Tasks that are repetitive and predictable are best handled with automation.

AI can manage most routine and ordinary tasks – chatbots, scheduling, appointment confirmation, routing, showing a mobile worker’s location and travel path to a job, it can even reassign and redistribute jobs around disruptions, addressing unplanned work with urgency. One UK gas utility can dispatch engineers to address a leak emergency in 13 seconds from the initial customer call—without human intervention.

AI can use a variety of inputs to increase schedule and travel time accuracy and optimize in real time, but what happens when you just don’t have the data?

One of the challenges faced by self-driving car producers is how to navigate remote areas, especially with routes that lack landmarks or distinguishing features.

Too few inputs can stump the machine. There is also additional context in some situations that will not be gleaned from data analysis, and impact from factors that perhaps are not being measured.

Hands off, humans

Applying new technology to solving problems in old ways yields minimal benefits, if any. Field service organizations see the greatest benefits from automation after reviewing their processes, KPIs, and business goals to leverage exactly the kind of data processing and analysis they didn’t have before.

They guide machine learning by providing good and plentiful data, filtering out the unimportant, and prioritizing the right goals. Specificity is key.

AI will do exactly what you tell it to—including replicating inefficient processes or making dubious decisions to optimize for a single outcome.

For example, prioritizing the shortest possible wait times for a technician to arrive could result in overstaffing and idle time—costing a lot of money.

Use projections and simulations to see how various goals interact to find the optimal balance, and remember that instructing your system includes telling it what not to do.

The vision of zero-touch service scheduling and dispatching enabled by AI and the Internet of Things is increasingly becoming a reality for service providers. Resist the temptation to interfere when unnecessary so you can give the machine a chance to learn, and reap the full benefits of increased productivity and efficiency.

What can your employees do with the extra time in their day? Focus on the people stuff, of course: training and coaching, brand ambassadorship, cross- and upselling, remote support—you name it.

There is still plenty for humans to do in the increasingly automated field service world, and it’s the work that relies on person-to-person connections and trust. While your people are improving service quality and strengthening relationships with colleagues and customers, trust that automation can handle the rest.

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Paul Whitelam, Group Vice President of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware takes a look forward to see what the key customer expectations challenges are set to be across the coming year...

Field service organisations are always thinking about evolving customer expectations. Major drivers of this evolution have included mobility, new service standards set by companies like Uber and Amazon, and businesses increasingly measuring their service operations by customer satisfaction scores. Through improved processes, smarter software, and cloud computing, many field service organizations have transformed how they view and deliver service. But their work is never quite done. In 2018, customer expectations will continue to rise. Fortunately, so will the capacity to meet them.

These trends are likely to shape the next stage in customer experience and service delivery. Let’s explore how technology can enable a business to embrace the future and delight their customers.

Everything on Demand

Fast delivery isn’t just for pizza anymore. Video streaming services give consumers instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows and on multiple devices. Too busy to run to the grocery store? Use Instacart or Postmates to have dish detergent and avocados brought to your door. Amazon now offers same-day delivery for select items.

It’s not your direct competitors setting customer expectations, it’s the best experiences these customers have had anywhereAs has been the case for some time, it’s not your direct competitors setting customer expectations, it’s the best experiences these customers have had anywhere. And today, they can what they want, and they can get it fast. A first-time fix will become table stakes for most service businesses. A truly agile field service organization will use mobility and automated schedule optimization to shorten the time to job fulfilment.

Having complete visibility into resource location and availability can enable reshuffling schedules on the fly, providing narrow and accurate appointment windows, and giving customers the ability to self-book appointments from their mobile phones will provide the on-demand experience they expect.

User Experience

There are times when hailing a taxi is both faster and less expensive than choosing Lyft or Uber, and yet customers continue using ride-sharing apps. This shows how much they value transparency and visibility into the service process. The ease of payment can’t be beaten—the price for a ride is shown up front and the customer is charged automatically. This level of transparency can also be provided to the service customer. The ubiquity of mobile devices means giving real-time information to customers about the location, and the likely arrival time, of the service professional—increasing service satisfaction, and acting as a differentiator in competitive markets.

Customers will be able to use a variety of channels to communicate with the service provider about the service visit. This is true on the day of service (providing apartment access details for example) as well as before the day of service (sending photographs about the issue that needs to be addressed to better prepare the service provider) and after (questionnaires about the quality of service when the visit is fresh in the mind).

The customer can stay involved in the service delivery process, and feels more informed and empowered as a result, all accomplished with speed and ease.

Machine Learning

As more field service organizations have moved to cloud-based solutions for managing their operations, they have the ability to leverage massive elastic computing power to rapidly process mind-boggling amounts of data into automated scheduling decisions. No longer constrained by infrastructure limitations, they can take full advantage of machine learning, mobility and data management that combine to enable improved operational efficiency and better customer service.

In 2018 and beyond, your customers will expect speed, transparency, precision, and frictionless interactions.Just as Netflix can provide uncannily specific movie recommendations based on the habits of similar users, using historical data about service delivery and the outcomes of previous engagements enables organizations to build models that are increasingly precise about the time a certain type of job will take a specific technician, and which tools or parts will be required. As organizations improve their understanding of the prerequisites of a successful task, they will get better at forecasting task and travel times, and develop better schedules.

By combining this with machine learning models that incorporate traffic patterns, service providers are becoming increasingly precise in predicting the field service team’s daily schedules and can accordingly make more precise promises to their customers—and keep them. Accurate information about the time and duration of a service visit—and that ability to deliver—will increase not just customer satisfaction, but also trust and loyalty.

Predicting the Future of Field Service

In 2018 and beyond, your customers will expect speed, transparency, precision, and frictionless interactions. No one can guess what disruptive app or service model will reset their expectations next, but honing the ability to deliver on the above is a safe bet. Understanding the factors that make for great customer experience will make it easier to assess which existing and emerging technologies will help you meet, anticipate, and outpace service expectations.

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Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware explains why service chain optimisation needn’t be as daunting as we might expect...

Every customer-centric business is ultimately measured by how it performs on the day of service delivery. But the day of service is just the last link in the chain of decisions made weeks or months in advance. And sometimes your best-laid plans don’t play out as expected. Disruptions in the schedule are bound to happen – customers cancel, traffic conditions vary, and technicians call out sick.

So how can you possibly ensure your techs are at the right places at the right time, while increasing productivity, delivering positive customer experiences, and keeping costs down—even when managing the unexpected?

For one, you must consider the entire service chain, or everything that occurs before, on, and after the day of service. Let’s dive deeper into what this means.

Service Chain Optimisation(SCO)

The modern-day customer has more power than ever before. With companies like Amazon and Uber setting the bar for customer experience, customers today demand and expect reliable, flexible, and almost flawless service. And that’s not impossible to deliver.

In 1996, ClickSoftware coined the term “Service Chain Optimisation”(SCO) to define a decision making process for ensuring an efficient day of service. It considers the full life-cycle of service demand, from the early stages of forecasting and planning, through scheduling and dispatching, to execution and analysis. And it’s meant to help you find the optimal balance between business goals and customer expectations.

It’s important to understand that all the steps in SCO are interrelated, and that missing steps means service delivery could sufferIt’s important to understand that all the steps in SCO are interrelated, and that missing steps means service delivery could suffer. Let’s say a dispatcher jumps right into scheduling without any forecasting or planning. They might schedule too many technicians, which is expensive and creates excessive idle time. Or they could schedule too few techs, which would mean slower response times and frustrated customers. Likewise, without proper planning, a tech might find that he or she is without the right parts to complete a job – again, leaving the customer upset.

It’s not hard to understand why it’s important to consider all links in the service chain. Let’s break it down into the three major stages:

The Day Before: Planning

Ultimately the goal of SCO is to ensure your technicians are at the right place at the right time, fully prepared to meet customer demand. But as the service day is full of unpredictability and variation, success is derived from what happens in the planning stage.

This stage involves predicting to the best of your ability the expected demand on a particular day or week. And it’s where you determine the optimal amount of resources you’ll need to complete every service call, without over or underestimating. Historical data (or anything gathered from the analysis stage) can help you make the right decisions.

The Day of: Execution

The day of service is where everything happens – from scheduling and dispatch, to fixing the customer’s problem and following up with a survey. Though a schedule may have been created days or weeks in advance, not all appointments will be honoured. There will likely be customer cancellations, traffic delays, or emergency jobs, which will require real-time management.

As noted, the success of this day depends on the planning ahead. You may not know exactly what’s going to happen on the day of service, but you better be prepared for anything that comes at you. This stage relies heavily on maximsing your time and responding effectively to changes. So it helps to have a flexible schedule to reshuffle as new jobs appear.

The Day After: Analysis

We all know that service doesn’t end after the execution. In the final stage of the service chain, field service providers must look back on how the day went and whether goals were met. And if they weren’t, what is it that kept them from achieving their goals? How did customers feel about the job done?

We all know that service doesn’t end after the execution. Because you can’t improve what you don’t measure, track your performance and use customer feedback to continually improve quality. Although it’s called the service chain, it might be more accurate to think of it as a continuous cycle, where you feed the results of your analysis back to the forecasting and planning for subsequent visits.

Use artificial intelligence to your advantage

You might be wondering how a mere human can possibly optimise every step in the chain, make accurate predictions, and quickly reshuffle the schedule when something comes up. Fortunately, with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, you can automatically optimise schedules and make accurate predictions in seconds.

Here’s an example: with a mobile workforce it’s important to reduce idle time and keep technicians moving so they can complete more jobs and make as many customers happy as possible. AI-driven technology can take into account both historical and real-time traffic data to quickly choose the best travel routes to customer sites. By avoiding traffic, techs can complete the job faster and move on to the next.

Or consider when there are schedule disruptions. Instead of leaving white space when a customer cancels, the AI-driven technology can account for technician locations and automatically dispatch them to another nearby job. Likewise, to make room for emergency jobs, the system can take SLA requirements into consideration and reshuffle low priority tasks to make room.

Service Chain Optimisation might seem complicated, but with the right technology, proper planning, and analysis, it’s possible to deliver near flawless service to your customers.

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Paul Whitelam at ClickSoftware, explains why the future if field service will be heavily based on the Internet of Things.

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Want to know more? A white paper from ClickSoftware on this topic is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Preparing for the Connected Customer" sent directly to your inbox now

 

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Want to know more? A white paper from ClickSoftware on this topic is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Preparing for the Connected Customer" sent directly to your inbox now

Human error is unavoidable when it comes to pricing, invoicing, and closing out costly jobs. Consider streamlining work order management through automation software. Various tools can provide work estimates to customers, forecast based on previous numbers, and send automated payment or invoicing reminders to all parties involved.

 

Simplify dispatch

Field service personnel managers know how challenging dispatch can be. Keeping track of techs, and job completions are key to a dispatch manager’s daily grind. Dispatch automation and route optimization software can simplify dispatch by delivering real-time route information, tech activity while on-site, and notices when jobs are completed.

3. Predictive Analytics

What is it?

Inventory, service scheduling, and even customer satisfaction can all be predicted. That is of course, if you have access to the right data.

Predictive analytics leverages statistical algorithms, or machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes. In short, it’s all about predicting customer behavior, equipment failures, and field tech performance.

It requires the tracking of historical data, in order to model and project what will happen in the future.

Why does being predictive matter in field service?

Customer’s desires are changing faster than ever. New consumer services like Uber, Airbnb, and Amazon have completely redefined customer expectations. Instant answers, mobile-first frameworks, and complete transparency are now the norm.

Unfortunately, field service has been slow to catch up. Predictive analytics offer field service management professionals an opportunity to get ahead of customer, and service needs through smarter use of data. This promises a path to satisfying more customers, and faster.

Ideas for implementing predictive analytics in field service:

Embrace big data

Every mobile device, customer touchpoint, and piece of equipment can now deliver data. Embrace all of these newfound touch points, and find a means of tracking them in a single software.

Understanding patterns of behaviour across multiple touch points is how you’ll unlock deep customer insights

 

Track select metrics

Having newfound data at your fingertips can be overwhelming. Hone in on the metrics that matter most, and seek to uncover patterns within the data.

Project future performance with machine learning models

Machine learning leverages pattern recognition and artificial intelligence algorithms to predict future trends based on historical data. Preconfigured machine learning models can help you get from data to insights faster.

As an alternative, consider mapping your own data over a set period of time, creating a basic statistical analysis. Then, forecast across customer satisfaction, tech performance, and more

 

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Want to know more? A white paper from ClickSoftware on this topic is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Preparing for the Connected Customer" sent directly to your inbox now

 

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Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware asks if IoT sensors, Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning will help the UK water industry avoid a looming crisis...

One would be forgiven for assuming a nation surrounded by water, with a storied history of naval exploration and an advanced privatised water management sector, would be exempt from facing a water or wastewater crisis.

But many experts agree that the current population boom and climate scenario are forcing the industrial, national, and regional water and wastewater situations towards crisis in the United Kingdom.

What do these mounting challenges mean for the field service management organisations? How can they innovate to meet and overcome each challenge while satisfying end consumers? In the following paragraphs, we discuss how water and wastewater service organisations can get ahead of the looming crisis.

Population boom, climate change, water scarcity combine to create the perfect storm

Ofwat, a government water management program overseeing England and Wales, recently published a report outlining many key challenges in these region. They city population growth and climate changes were identified as the key drivers of change, while growing pressure to address water scarcity, environmental quality, and resilience of systems in the face of rising consumer expectations as the  major hurdles. Key among these, you will find:

• The UK population is forecasted to grow 20% over the next 20 years
• Rising environmental standards may drive up costs
• Technology to manage new customer expectations is lacking
• Major climate change has left specific regions at risk
• Water scarcity poses immediate threat to supply
• Customer expectations for service sector and water continue to rise

In reality, many of these challenges intersect.

This report cites that a full 60% of Thames Water’s customers are concerned about the environment. In addition, 85% of Wessex Water’s customers feel protecting rivers, lakes, and estuaries was critical.

The reality is more dire than consumers may realise. Given the uneven population distribution across the country, freshwater resources are often pulled from areas that are already under pressure, while new regions have been identified that previously threatened just years ago.

As the report cites, “Water catchments across Wales, south-west and northern England are predicted to experience significant unmet demand under many of the scenario combinations that the Environment Agency has considered.”

Can water management and field service teams get ahead of this looming crisis, or will consumers simply have to cut back on consumption altogether as the population booms?

3 ways UK service organisations can innovate to overcome crisis

Luckily, the field service industry is experiencing a renaissance in service technology that could solve current and future water problems. The Internet-of-Things, artificial intelligence, and predictive maintenance technology could each provide innovative solutions for both meeting growing demand, and minimising environmental impact.

1. Invest in and inform customers of water reduction faucets, shower heads, high efficiency washing machines and emerging technology

To be fair, this first recommendation is more about customer satisfaction, not just technology, but the fastest way to avert a water and wastewater crisis is the simplest; reduce the amount of water usage in businesses, factories, and homes.

This will require service organisations convincing customers that these new faucets, shower heads, and high efficiency machines will both save them money through reduced water usage, and save the environment. And if that doesn’t work? A healthy bit of policy should do the trick.

With the number of consumers who have expressed care for environmental issues, couldn’t a bit of a nudge from service providers push many over the edge to adopting more efficient technology?

With even a 10% increase in the number of homes, businesses, and facilities equipped with smarter end using devices, we could improve our water usage future in short order.

2. Enable IoT sensors on industrial water facilities and natural resource hubs

The Internet-of-Things promises to bring advanced real-time diagnostic capabilities to equipment, that for decades has required a human to perform a diagnostic task. By embedding internet-enabled sensors on all the equipment that cleans, processes, transports and delivers water, we could improve the efficiency of the entire water lifecycle by significant margins.

Would this require an up-front investment? Most certainly, but privatised water and wastewater organisations and service companies would certainly be keen on efficiency gains, especially if margins could move up incrementally.

Using IoT sensors for advanced real-time diagnostics could allow organisations to get predictive about water usage, resource allocation, and more. With the right application of IoT technology, equipment and processing, diagnostics could stand to become more efficient than ever.

3. Use AI and machine learning for ultimate efficiency gains

While seemingly intimidating at the outset, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology are in fact well within reach for organisations willing to embrace a healthy technical challenge. How about the payoff? Datasets that take a team of data scientists several weeks to interpret can now be crunched by AI algorithms in seconds.

Upon gaining results, future-oriented field service organisations will soon apply machine learning models that are ready-built for various service scenarios.

Think of machine learning algorithms as software with a brain. First, you develop an algorithmic model. Let’s use flooding—a common water crisis scenario—as an example. By first coding your software to understand all the steps a human would take in a flood scenario, and second enabling artificial intelligence algorithms to process information in real-time, you can effectively combine real-time flood data and your algorithm to unlock an immediate decision tree.

The software acts upon data in an instant, making airtight decisions and optimising your entire field service chain the same way your dispatch, or service executives would—given the parameters of your programmed scenario. But the main difference between AI software managing a service chain, and a human being? Software will make fewer mistakes.

As the UK continues to seek a resolution to current and future water scenarios, a healthy balance of policy, innovation, and customer support will be required.

 

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