Research Report: Benchmarking Field Service in the UK & Europe, Part Three

Jan 19, 2016 • Features • Kirona • research • Research • Bill Pollock • field service • field service management

Are UK field service companies keeping pace with the rest of the world? In Part One and Part Two of this exclusive four-part benchmarking report for Field Service News, Bill Pollock, President & Principal Consulting Analyst, Strategies for Growth SM, revealed the comparative performances of US and UK/European field service organisations and the key drivers influencing strategy for UK/Europe companies. Here, in Part Three, he reports on KPI performance and what technologies companies plan to invest in from 2016 onwards. The publication of this research is sponsored by Kirona.

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At 49%, the cited current investments in mobile tools to support field technicians by UK/Europe services organisations is much higher than the overall survey base (44%), yet current plans for integrating new technologies are still reported as significantly lower (i.e., only 20% in the UK/ Europe, compared with 34% for the global survey base).

However, plans for new technology integration over the next 12 months are significantly high at 33%, suggesting that the adoption of new services technologies in the UK/Europe may be roughly only one year behind that reflected by the general survey population (which is comprised of roughly 75% of respondents from the Americas).

Planned strategic actions by UK/Europe services organisations over the next 12-month period reflect a more dynamic, rather than static, approach to the field services marketplace.

51% of respondents plan to develop and/or improve their use of field service KPIs, or metrics, in the next 12 months

For example, 51% of respondents plan to develop and/or improve their use of field service KPIs, or metrics, in the next 12 months; and nearly as many plan to improve planning and forecasting activities with respect to field operations (46%).

Automating existing manual field service processes and activities (40%) is also cited as a top planned strategic action.

Additional top planned strategic actions, cited by at least one-quarter (25%) of UK/ Europe respondents, include integrating new technologies into existing field service operations (33%), investing in mobile tools to support field technicians (30%) and providing enterprise-wide access to important field-collected data (26%).

Other key planned actions will be taken in areas relating to increasing customer involvement in Web-based service processes (23%); providing additional training to field technicians and dispatchers (19%); outsourcing some, or all, field service activities to partners and vendors (14%); and hiring additional field service technicians and/or dispatchers (11%).

What these data primarily show is that the UK/ Europe field services community recognises the need to take specific strategic actions to enhance and improve existing service operations, and that these actions begin first and foremost with the need to develop and/or improve the use of service metrics and KPIs in measuring and monitoring their service delivery performance.

In addition, it shows that UK/Europe FSOs also recognize the need to invest in the right mobile tools and technologies to empower their resources both in the field, and in the back office, to improve existing processes, meet the growing needs of customers, and make greater contributions to the bottom line.

Use of KPIs

The survey findings reveal that there are basically seven service performance metrics, or KPIs, presently being used by a majority of UK/Europe FSOs. They include:

78% Customer Satisfaction
75% Total Service Revenue
68% Total Service Cost
53% Field Technician Utilisation
53% Percent of Total Revenue under SLA/ Contract
51% Service Revenue, as a Percent of Total Company Revenues
51% Service Revenue, per Field Technician

However, there are also an additional seven KPIs that are used by just under one-half of UK/ Europe FSOs to help them measure performance, including On-Site Response Time (49%), First Time Fix Rate (49%), Service Level Agreement (SLA) Compliance (49%), Field Technician Productivity (47%), Mean-Time-to-Repair (MTTR) (47%), Service Contract Attach Rate (47%) and Service Contract Renewal Rate (47%).

50% of all UK/Europe services organisations presently use up to 14 KPIs to measure service performance

The fact that ±50% of all UK/Europe services organisations presently use up to 14 KPIs to measure service performance reflects a significantly high level of importance placed on the use of KPIs in the overall UK/Europe services community.

The survey findings also show that UK/Europe services organisations aspiring to attain Best Practices do not merely look at specific outcomes, such as improving the bottom line, or increasing customer satisfaction; they also look at ways in which to identify the root causes of major problems and leverage process improvement opportunities through the implementation of effective tools and technologies to support their resources both in the field and in the front and back offices that support them.

For example, a majority of UK/Europe FSOs currently support their field technicians with a variety of online capabilities, including the ability to initiate service orders (83%), ability to track and update the current status of work orders (77%), access to product schematics/ documentation (57%) and ability to provide customers with an Estimated Time for Arrival (ETA) (55%).

Other capabilities planned in the next 12 months by at least one-third (33%) of UK/Europe services organisations in support of their field technicians include: [unordered_list style="bullet"]

38% Access to problem resolution scenarios
35% Access to customer/asset service history

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Whether it is access to data and information that represents the past (i.e., customer/ asset history), the present (i.e., current status of work orders), or the future (i.e., providing customers with an ETA), the leading UK/Europe FSOs clearly appear to recognize the importance of real-time data and information access.

However, the key to success for many services organisations is that they are also providing their customers with a comparable set of online tools to make both their – and their field technician’s – lives much easier.