Customer First: How can Joined up Thinking Transform Attitudes and Processes Across the Business?

Oct 22, 2019 • Features • Management • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations

In field service operations, what does it mean to put customer service at the heart of our business decision making? Customers who receive the highest standards of service spend on average 140% more and in business-to-business, customer retention will typically see profits increase by up to 95%. In the next article in this strategic series, Paul Smedley looks at our part in this transformation and where we can look for examples of best practice...

Three priorities

Firstly, we need to link together decisions and policies, to make visible how we deliver for customers (and at what cost). This means sales, pricing, recruitment, training and operational resource allocation for Field Service need to be visible linked by an integrated capacity model that optimises your resource.

Secondly, we need to join the organisation together around an overarching customer metric. Thirdly, we need to engage people in
using customer feedback to drive improvements and feel they can make a difference. Significantly, this fits well with a growing trend away from big-project transformation towards ‘continuous development’ as a change methodology.

Joined up decision making requires data, understanding and a robust resource plan. For instance, delivery is perhaps the simplest of geographically-based operations. In 2013, the CEO at DPD UK talked at our Putting People First conference about how they had stood out for service. They knew where parcels were and how long til they would arrive, customers could track real-time and when they set expectations (‘delivery windows’) they knew what it would take (and cost) to deliver that promise. Above all everybody knew why it mattered and where they fitted in to achieving success.

If we fail to plan, we plan to fail

Today, these are the minimum standards and Field Service operations need to deliver this, while dealing with further complexity. It’s not enough for the technician to arrive, they also need to have the right skill (preventing future failures, bunching work), you need to synchronise multiple plans (equipment for engineers who can’t carry every part or tool, permissions if you are digging up a road, downtime to inspect equipment in a business or operation).

You still need mobile technology for tracking and capturing information. You also need technology for providing information or advice (eg video googles for level 3 experts to engage directly). Above all, you need understanding and a robust resource plan so that the right resourcing decisions are made.

"A robust high-level capacity plan needs to join up decisions across the planning cycle..."

Good practice can be found in many types of operation – from health visitors to safety inspection or engineering services. At Anglian Water (2018), Smarter schedules cut travel time by 9.300 hours, with 42% fewer visits and 78% cut in backlogs. The secret? Bunching work so that preventative maintenance was done while on site. The key to success? Empowering engineers and capturing accurate, complete data.

At OpenReach (2017) empowering engineers and working across patches led to a 17% cut in travel time – and big impact on absence too. Decision making was joined up because engineers knew what mattered most to customers and were able to apply their specialist knowledge. In outsourcing, at Capita (2019) planning and operational governance transformed performance on their government contract for benefits assessments

By contrast, at British Engineering Services (2019), automated work allocation systems, working across patches and capacity planning helped cut costs 10%-15%, with a 74% rise in service for the largest clients. Significantly, workshops engaged everyone; engineers thought they could allocate best, but when given an exercise everyone did it differently. They realised that there was no consistency or best way of working and the automated system soon demonstrated better results.

Crucially, whatever your approach, a robust high-level capacity plan needs to join up decisions across the planning cycle, from strategy & budgets to operational readiness and changes on the day. If you have a plan and then change everything on the day, this tells you that it wasn’t a very good plan or you don’t have good operational effectiveness. Joined up thinking gives you confidence that everything you do is connected to key customer outcomes.

An overarching customer metric

Equally vital is a single, compelling customer metric. NetPromoter scores (NPS) are now used widely to do this, at both a brand and an operational level. This approach works well for a number of reasons. Firstly, you can only score highly if you have strong advocates (weaker scores count against you). Secondly, the underlying question used for NPS surveys asks about recommendation, which has become the universal language of social media.

"Examples of good practice can be found in all kinds of operations and industry sectors..."

If you strongly recommend, you are demonstrating emotional commitment. Research consistently shows how well this correlates with future buying behaviour. Another type of survey score looks at Customer Effort, this is commonly used operationally as it gives a clear focus on improvement.

Examples of good practice can be found in all kinds of operations and industry sectors. At BT (2013) a new Net Easy metric tracked customer effort. Research showed that this was the top driver of advocacy (NPS) at the time and drove a 40% improvement in customer retention propensity. At TUI (2017) in travel a 40% rise in service levels linked to a 40 point rise in NPS. Breaking down siloes across the business and use of continuous improvement helped them fix what matters most to customers.

Operational surveys (directly after a service experience) are a powerful way to identify what matters to customers, especially when you ask open questions and customers supply details. Think of ratings for products/hotels on a sales or travel website or social media (feefo, trust buddy, etc) as well as NPS surveys. Checklists on devices at the point of delivery can work well too; think of the smiley faces outside the toilets on motorway service stations!

Whatever the source, share feedback across the business and with frontline service teams. This is immensely powerful. Also, if you hear actual customer words, this feedback is hard to argue with. Mixing verbal feedback with hard numbers is usually the key to changing attitudes and getting everyone ‘on the same page’.

Engaging people to drive improvement

The third building block for success is to get everyone using this customer insight to drive improvement. Again, you can learn good practice from many different kinds of organisation.

"Everyone needs to be able to make a difference..."

These principles work as well in Field Service as in other types of customer operation. In insurance, at Legal & General (2017) simplifying service engaged front-line colleagues in driving continuous improvement. In retail, at Shop Direct (2019) this was linked to digital transformation in a changing market, but ‘skunk works’ and other continuous improvement methods were the chance to link data and experience in driving change.

There are many benefits from engaging colleagues at all levels in the use of customer feedback. This is a vital part of how the organisation becomes customer-centric – or Customer First. Everyone needs to be able to make a difference, so if you take away some tasks or responsibilities (eg work lists) then give others (eg calling in support driving improvement).

Involving people in developing change gains buy-in and often brings to light things from direct experience that would otherwise emerge far later in the change process. For this reason, customer feedback and engagement forms an increasingly large role in new approaches to change – such as ‘continuous development’.

The case studies I refer to are all available on our resources portal – along with many others. We find that organisations and individual professionals who take time to look outside-in gain insight that may not yet have surfaced in internal discussion.
Sharing these ideas and experiences helps us all move further, faster together. In our view, that’s what a community of professionals is for!

Paul Smedley leads a best practice network for professionals in service operations across Europe – the Professional Planning Forum, established in Mach 2000. The member case studies referred to can be found in our resources portal at here. Contact Paul on +44 7959 438 712.