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Barrett Coakley, Product Marketing Manager, ClickSoftware offers some crucial advice in the complex and crucial area of change management...

Organisational change is hard but, given constantly shifting market conditions and the rate new technologies are released, dealing with transformation is now a requirement at most firms.

However, McKinsey reports that 70% of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. With that type of failure rate, you might be wondering why even bother. Nonetheless, when done correctly, change management can have an enormous impact on employee engagement, operational efficiency and financial success.

There are three areas that are causing change within field service teams that leaders must address Field service organizations are being asked to address multiple reforms but there are three areas that should be high on your change management list; talent management issues, technology advances and new customer attitudes.

Here are some recommendations to help your field service group succeed on this change management journey.

Talent Management

According to The Service Council, 70% of service organizations report they’ll be facing a pinch as they lose workers to retirement in the coming years. The retirement of baby boomers has the potential to leave a vast knowledge and experience gap on many field service teams.

There is hope, however, as the 75 million large millennial generation has entered the workforce and they have the skills to fill these open positions.

However, field service managers must understand the drivers that motivate millennials and how they differ from the retiring baby boomers, including:

• Tech savvy: The millennial generation grew up with all things digital. They embrace technology and expect the organizations that they work for to provide the most current technology for them to perform their job.
• Mission: Millennials are looking from a deeper meaning from work. They want to feel that they are having an impact both on the company as well as greater society.
• Retention: You might have some members on your field service team that have worked in the group for 10-20+ years. Millennials, however, tend to change jobs frequently. In fact, Gallup revealed that 21% of millennials report changing jobs within the last year, which is more than three times the number of non-millennials.

Here are some areas your field service team should focus on to facilitate the changes this generation will bring to your team.

Offer Incentives:

While you might think a raise would be sufficient for millennial retention, you should instead focus on benefits you could offer.

According to Gallup, millennials are more likely than any other generation to say they would change jobs for a particular benefit or perk. They especially appreciate perks that directly impact their lives and the lives of their family. It makes sense considering many millennials are starting families, have large student loans, and desire a work-life balance.

Popular benefits for Millennials include:

• Paid paternal and maternity leave
• Student loan reimbursement
• Childcare reimbursement
• Tuition reimbursement

So instead of just offering a pay raise next year, poll your workforce to determine what they truly value.

The responses might surprise you.

Development opportunities: The best way to attract millennials is by leveraging two of their biggest desires—development and purpose.

67% of millennials are engaged at work when they strongly agree that the mission or purpose of their company makes them feel their job is importantFor instance, Gallup reports that “rallying millennials around a mission and purpose dramatically increases their employee engagement: 67% of millennials are engaged at work when they strongly agree that the mission or purpose of their company makes them feel their job is important.”

Focus your attraction and retention strategies on delivering learning opportunities and career development. This way millennials are assured that their jobs provide plenty of opportunities for skill development and career advancement.

Keep in mind millennials may want to pursue independent project work, attend conferences, take classes, and join professional organizations.

Give them the flexibility and resources to do so, whether this means tuition reimbursement, or time off work to ensure they are fulfilled.

The Impact of New Technology

New technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data analytics are having a huge impact on field service operations.

These new technologies are providing real-time insights into field assets that can be used to predict when a piece of equipment might fail, allowing for proactive maintenance. However, with all of this technology, there comes the need for change across your field team in order make sense of all this new information. Here are a few steps you can take to make sure your team is prepared for the impact of technology on your field service group.

Make a Plan:

First off, you will need a plan to prepare for the impact these technologies will have across your field service organization. For example, you will need to train field engineers on how to potentially service IoT-based equipment, build a roadmap for incorporating new devices, and identify which technician or dispatch behaviours will change based on this new technology.

Will customer issues be identified at a server level when equipment fails? What does this do to the dispatch workflow? Are you incorporating wearables at an employee level to improve communication or field-based efficiency? What software will you need to ensure these devices operate smoothly within your current frameworks and infrastructure?

Create a roadmap that accounts for the short, and long-term implications of devices, services, and technician needs.

KISS Principal:

Albert Einstein once stated, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” This is where the KISS principle comes into play during change management exercises. Stepping up to the challenges associated with all of these different technologies is difficult and complicated.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simplerWith any digital transformation, the best possible course of action is to simplify by starting with small, simple changes. Select a small behaviour, or wearable device that your customers are using, and optimize around that. Then, scale what you have learned across more devices, customer behaviours, and internal processes. With a change this impactful it is best to keep it simple, sir.

Uberization of Service

As Amazon, Uber, Airbnb and other upstart organizations continue to heighten customer expectations, field service organizations have struggled to keep pace with these new demands.

Customers now expect transparency around service delivery such as the real-time location of the field technician responsible for the appointment as well as personalized communication preferences like text or email.

However, the delivery of exceptional service requires changes to the technician’s traditional role and skill set.

Here are few areas that should be looked at to change.

Product and Service Training:

Field service professionals understand the inner workings of the products they maintain but they might not be knowledgeable enough to upsell a new product or service to a customer.

To enable this ability, sales and marketing training should be provided to field service professionals so they understand the features and benefits of different services. Sales and marketing is a new type of training and skillset for most field service professionals but one that can really benefit the top line.

Increasing revenue is an important focus for many organizations but it is proving to be a difficult one as 76% of field service providers report they are struggling to achieve revenue growth, according to the TSIA. Sales and marketing training could be the support ticket that helps change this trend.

Soft Skill Training:

Field service professionals are now required to interact with clients in a way that elevates the customer experience, resulting in upsell opportunities and less customer churn.

64% of consumers have switched providers in at least one industry due to poor customer service.Preventing customer churn is especially important as Accenture reported that 64% of consumers have switched providers in at least one industry due to poor customer service.

To provide a higher level of personalized service requires better soft skills, something not every person has, but this ability is a key to this new service delivery model. In fact, study conducted by Development Dimensions International found that for every $1,100 invested in soft skills training, employers earned an average return of $4,000.

Training soft skills can help a technician provide more empathy towards the customer, improve communication and the ability to provide a more personalized experience.

Soft skill training is especially important for millennials as they often lack these abilities. An investment in soft skills training is worthwhile for any organization but can be particularly important in delivering a great customer experience.

Conclusion

The key to handling all of these changes is a commitment from all involved. In fact, McKinsey found that when people are truly invested in change it is 30 percent more likely to stick.

However, making the challenge even more daunting is that organizations no longer have the luxury of implementing changes over a 3-5 year period of time as in the past.

Change is no longer a periodic event, but one that is constant as the market and technology continue to evolve at faster and faster rates. Field service teams need to prepare now.

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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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In September this year Field Service News and ClickSoftware teamed up to launch the FSN Think Tank Sessions. The idea was simple to bring together a selection of senior field service professionals from different industries and and different company sizes and give them the opportunity to discuss the pain points, the challenges and their vision of the future of service and see where the similarities lay.

Across the following few months there will be a series of articles that will help share the insights discussed at this inaugural Think Tank Session and in the first part of our opening series we explored the discussion points that focused on the importance of the Field Service Engineer's role asking whether it is growing or diminishing in importance in a world of automation and digitisation. In the concluding part of this feature we continue the discussion and explore the importance of ownership when following up on customer issues...

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There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service which is available for 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.Click here to apply for your subscription now!  (by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain english version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

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In the part one of this feature we concluded with an excellent point being made by Keith Wilkinson, VP of Sales for ClickSoftware who commented that in today's field service environment the 'field service engineer, from a digitisation perspective, needs to have all the tools, all the knowledge and information possible at his disposal so he can be empowered - so he can become that brand ambassador.'

Wilkinson’s point is a hugely important one and indeed is one that is becoming a serious consideration for many service organisations.

Whether you are offering outcome based solutions and service is crucial to your primary revenue stream or whether you are still running your service operation as a cost centre within a product-centric business, the fact remains that good service can go along way to retaining business, whilst poor service will drive your customers into your competitors arms.

However, as Darren Thomas, Service Manager Northern Europe, Waters Corporation points out, whilst the field service engineer is perhaps the most important part of this equation he isn’t the only factor.

 

“What about the follow up as well though?” Thomas asked the group.

“Constantly informing them [the customer] about the progress that is being made? For me it is very much about how you bring that customer with you through the resolution journey - how you outline to the customer how you will solve their problem – and that can come down to communicating across the management chain as well just the field engineer.”

“It’s an information train isn’t it – and that is dependent upon transparency and honesty,” concurs Kris Oldland, Editor-in Chief, Field Service News.

“Personally, I think more companies need to perhaps embrace that notion. More companies need to say to their clients ‘this is the process we are going down to resolve your issue, we can’t get this fixed right away but we are moving heaven and earth to get it fixed and here is what is being done.’ Because there is nothing more powerful when it comes to engendering brand loyalty than facing a real customer service challenge and bringing the client with you through that issue and into resolution.”

“Turning around a bad experience and transforming it into a good experience is something that can make that customer become a customer for life – mainly because it is making them feel valued and understood,” he adds.

“I think we need to remember the old maxim about quality over quantity,” comments Vasu Guruswarmy, the recent former VP of Global Service for Schlumberger.

“Whether it’s people or automation each one brings its own power.” He adds.

“Definitely the bar on automation is rising; and there is no getting away from the fact that knowledge systems are critical. But we had the problem before we went worldwide [with their own knowledge bank] that everybody believed in reinventing the wheel because that was the value that they sought for themselves - and so the idea of putting knowledge in a system was an anathema for most people and it took us a long time to turn this culture around.”

“In fact, I had to take a slightly provocative approach.”

“We had people that were facing challenges asking ‘what do I have to do in this condition?’ And some guru in the world would answer their problem - which was great because the first time around as it adds enormous value, but then there was a slightly negative impact on the business because there was little checking to see if what was being added was repetition, had it already been covered before?”

Indeed, this is often the problem with implementing knowledge bases, as Thomas had previously alluded to - it can become a challenge to stop the tail wagging the dog if left unchecked with multiple articles covering the same ground. However, for Guruswamy and Schlumberger the issue went deeper than just one of inefficiency.

“Once everyone in the organisation began to realise that they just had to go to the system to get answers, then our ‘experts’ who were used to answering bulletin board questions had to be challenged with ‘you are an expert because you can solve new problems not just because you keep parroting the same solution’ to change their mind-set.” Guruswamy explained.

 

“For us the quality of people that we engage who are facing the customer is absolutely vital. And so as the bar keeps rising with automation it is even more important that the quality of people remains high – because when the automated solutions fail that is when the engineer must bring resolution. They need to know the customer and they need to know what the problem is – and then find the resolution.”

“There is no point in having 200 field service engineers running around with 180 of them being inefficient – and that is the biggest challenge that many companies face,” he concluded.

Again it was an excellent point for consideration.

“It is a fair assumption to say that for most companies when an engineer is ultimately sent out, when the truck rolls, that this is the end result in a chain of events that have led to diagnostics and remote or self-repair having failed?” Oldland asked the group.

“Is the engineer is now expected to have an additional level of knowledge and experience to provide the expert resolution that couldn’t be delivered via any other means?” He added.

“For us we are looking at automation to get better efficiency for the engineers that we’ve got,” replied Robin Bryant, Service Director of JCB Scot.

“But in our industry we are dealing with companies that may have one machine or they may have ten machines and when they have an issue they may be doubting if they buy any more. So when the engineer comes out and makes a good impression, turns it around, fixes it and is positive about the product it can have a huge impact on whether that next purchase is our equipment or a competitors.”

“We’ve always had some guys around the depot that are really good at that stuff and they are great guys, but then there are those that aren’t so good in that part of the role and so we are looking at how we get training out to the team to bring everyone up to that upper level. Ultimately, the engineer can have a hugely positive impact with the customer but they can also potentially have an equally negative impact as well, so for us automation is as much as about brining service standards to a consistently high level as it is about the efficiency gains we see from it.” He added.

“For us also, we have a very prominent parent brand in JCB and they set high standards in our service delivery expectations that are a reflection of the importance of their brand. They set us targets in terms of where they want us to be in terms of service level, the quality of our engineers and the amount of training that we have to do, but they are also incredibly supportive at the same time.”

Again Bryant’s comments were echoed across the group, reflecting the general acceptance of the importance of the role the field service engineer plays within an organisations ability to retain business from their clients.

Dr Wilhelm Nehring, CEO thyssenkrupp Elevator, UK and Eire summarised the group’s discussions so far neatly saying “Of course, one of the nice thing about this group is that we are all from different industries and from companies of different sizes, but one thing for us in our industry is that we cannot allow our clients to maintain or repair a lift – it is a matter of health and safety.”

“For us we have constant contact with our clients through our engineers, and I very much like the phrase Darren [Thomas] used earlier of ‘brand ambassadors’. This is exactly what our engineers are for us. To a certain degree I think the role of the service engineer has become more important, I would also agree with Steve’s [Smith] point that it has always been an important role, but the competitive market out there has made the role of the service engineer more visible and so things like training and teaching your staff to be that brand ambassador have become vital.”

“It’s a different thing to do, to engage with the client. You need to be able to have the technical skills to actually fix the lift - but you also need to interact with the client. What else does the client want? What else does the client need?”

“For us at thyssenkrupp, our engineers are the most important asset that we have – so when we get feedback from clients about how brilliant or impressive our engineers are, this is our lifeblood. This is what we do – so it is incredibly important to us.”

“Coming back to how we enable that, we invested heavily in what we call ‘International Technical Service Centres’ because we also undertake third party maintenance on other companies assets. We have 1.2 million units under maintenance – and about a third of them are other makes and brands so we need to enable our people to maintain these other units as well.”

“We do this through technical services, with reverse engineering etc and this is why we are the first in our industry to take this approach and we have by the far the best technical services because we invest so heavily in these centres. We have them all across the world as a support for the engineers and technicians – and that is what gives them the platform for them to do their job.”

 

“If you then come into the client experience, so lifts as a commodity, a lot of people don’t care toomuch about the lift as long as it goes up and down, most people don’t think about a lift until it breaks down,” he adds

“So one thing that we have done is to invest heavily in IoT. In part, this is to be ahead of the game, but it’s fiercely competitive because the developments in IoT are so fast. For example, twelve months ago I thought wow; we are so far ahead of the game, then this year I feel already that the world is changing so fast that we really need to be on our toes to stay ahead.”

“For us Automation, IoT - all this digitalisation that we’re talking about is not something to replace engineers, or even to have less engineers - it is for us to enable our engineers to do the job better than they could before. Today our engineers, before they arrive on site know already why the lift is not working so they can make sure they have the knowledge and parts to hand to drive that first time fix.”

“Then as we move to the second phase and we talk about the IoT and Machine learning, and we now have over 110,000 units connected to the system, which allows us to enter this predictive phase which means that with all the data we have from these installations, we can define patterns, build clusters with similar installations, similar components, similar locations, like a hospital for example – so we can then go to our clients and say ‘this part is likely to fail within between seven and seven and a half years.’”

“It’s no longer a conversation based around a gut feeling from our engineers on site, we are now able to have that conversation backed up with solid data and insight that allows us to fix it before if fails. In theory we want to move to completley pre-emptive maintenance.”

What is interesting across the discussion is that whilst the reasons may be varied as are the industries represented in our small but highly knowledgeable group, the central theme remains the same.

Automation is a reality in all corners of maintenance and service delivery.

 

For some like Scot JCB it is a tool to ensure the highest standards delivered by their engineers become a consistent norm across their workforce, for others like thyssenkrupp it is at the heart of revolutionary change both within their organisation and indeed in their wider industry.

For Waters, automation offers an opportunity to reduce costly truck rolls whilst improving mean-time- to-repair through knowledge bases and remote diagnostics, something Schlumberger have also embraced in the past.

However, as Nehring expressed automation doesn’t necessarily mean fewer field service engineers, it means field service engineers better placed to do their job.

So as we move into a world of outcome based contracts and a world of remote diagnostics - the field service call becomes increasingly important.

As Guruswamy alluded to - what is the point of having a large field service workforce if only 10% of them are truly experts?

Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, automation and digital transformation have raised the stakes even further for the field service engineer.

By the time a truck roll is scheduled, the issue should be either fully diagnosed so a first time fix is now expected by the client or the issue has proven to be more complex in which case the field service engineer is now being seen as your organisations leading expert, the top guy sent to not only save the day, but also to potentially save your organisations reputation and retain your customer’s business.

Today’s engineer it seems not only needs to be a ‘true expert’ as Guruswamy discussed, but also a friendly face, your ‘brand ambassador’ with softer people-skills in his locker as well.

Has the importance of the role of the field service engineer grown in an age of digital transformation and automation?

The consensus from our Think Tank is absolutely, the field service engineer has become one of the most critical roles within an organisation - and recruiting and retaining good field service talent has become more important than ever before.

 

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There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service which is available for 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.Click here to apply for your subscription now! (by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain english version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

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This inaugural session of the FSN Think Tank was sponsored by:

 

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In September this year Field Service News and ClickSoftware teamed up to launch the FSN Think Tank Sessions. The idea was simple to bring together a selection of senior field service professionals from different industries and and different company sizes and give them the opportunity to discuss the pain points, the challenges and their vision of the future of service and see where the similarities lay.

Across the following few months there will be a series of articles that will help share the insights discussed at this inaugural Think Tank Session beginning with this opening series in which we discuss whether the importance of the Field Service Engineer's role is growing or diminishing in importance in a world of automation and digitisation... 

 

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There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service which is available for 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. Click here to apply for your subscription now! (by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain english version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

 

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One of the most interesting things about the field service sector is that whilst as a discipline it sits across a huge variety of wide and highly disparate industries there remains overwhelmingly the same fundamental challenges, pain points and goals for every organisation operating a field service division.

 

Whether you operate in the print/copy market or heavy manufacturing, whether your engineers and technicians fix vending machines or jumbo jet engines, you will invariably find more common ground with other service leaders from different industries to your own than you will find differences.

In many ways the same is true whether you have 10 engineers in your territory or 10,000.

Yes, some of the challenges of running a larger field service operation are more complicated, as are some of the tools you may use to do so - but the fundamental elements of what is great service and its growing role within industry remains in organisations of all sizes.

Given the focus of companies across all industries on Digital Transformation has the importance of field service calls become even more important in terms of Customer Satisfaction and Customer Experience - as increasingly, the field service visit is now the sole (or at least most frequent) face-to-face interaction between an organisation and their customer base?

Has the role of the field service engineer become more important in this age of automation where digital customer interaction touch points are now heavily outweighing personal face to face human interactions?

Opening the conversation on this topic Steve Smith, CTO with Astro Communications, explained that for him and the team at Astro, the importance of great service and the field engineers role in delivering a good customer experience is something that has always just been part and parcel of the job.

“I’m not sure it’s more important, I think it is has always been important, especially if you’re in a customer service business,” he began.

“The only thing we have to compete against anybody else is our standard of customer service.”

“For us I think on that front it’s all about the diversity of people we employ which has been an important factor. We even taken people from a hospitality background and then teach them the technical side of the business, putting them through training or apprenticeship. We have also taken on ex-military people as they have the right mind-set, although again not necessarily a technical background per se, but we find that they have the personal organisational skills, the self-management skills that are important for a technician.”

It is an interesting opening point and one that is increasingly being echoed in a number of different service organisations. There are far more skills to being a good field service engineer than just the technical - and often it is easier to train the technical skills than it is to train softer skills such as communications and organisational skills.

“Ultimately, it really does stand out when you have good customer service,” Smith continues.

“For example, the MD of one of our own clients, TGI Fridays, always says that when you get great customer service, you feel it’ and that sums up our ethos as well. I think that for us, that approach has always been important, but perhaps with increasing competition more of a spotlight is being placed on service as a differentiator today.”

For Darren Thomas, Head of Service in Northern Europe for Waters Corporation, the growing levels of automation and remote maintenance driven by the fundamental economics of field service means that the importance of the field service engineer has indeed increased dramatically.

“It’s costs a lot to send an engineer to repair a broken system so we are investing a lot in what we are calling an ‘Expert Centre,” he explains.

The idea is one that many organisations have also adopted, a central destination where customers can discuss the issue at hand and go through some diagnostic tests with an expert which in an ideal world could help the customer get back up and running faster, whilst avoiding the need for an expensive truck roll for Waters. One nice element of the Waters’ approach is that many of their experts split their time between the expert centre and out in the field - so the field and repair skills of the expert centre staff are kept as high as possible.

However, whilst in theory it is a good solution that offers a potential win-win for customers dealing with simple issues, the flip side is in a situation where the resolution isn’t so straight forward, it can result in the customer having to perhaps feel like they are having to jump through a few hoops before they can get an engineer sent out to fix their problem.

 

“The negative feedback that we get from our customers when they contact the knowledge centre is that we ask them to carry out a lot of tests before we can dispatch an engineer and that can be frustrating when we are asking an experienced person have you done x,y and z?” Thomas explains.

“However, the point is that for our organisation it is the primary interaction that is important. So if a customer calls the Expert Centre then we can affect a good diagnostic or even a remote fix - so we are investing in tools to do that where possible. We are currently implementing a global initiative which we are calling ‘Knowledge Centre Support’, where we are pooling all of the first-time- fix reports - whether it be via an engineer in China , Europe or the USA.”

“Essentially, if one of our engineers comes across an issue that they haven’t faced before they are then tasked with writing up the resolution to that problem - which is then made available to all of our engineers and the Expert Centre, further helping us identify issues quickly.”

“We really are dedicating ourselves to that first-time-fix via remote support.” He adds.

At first glance, this may appear to be driving less importance to the field service engineer role, yet whilst it may potentially reduce the number of service calls Waters needs to make, the flip side of the same coin is that when an engineer is actually dispatched it means that all other routes have been exhausted. In which case by the time the engineer arrives on site the issue has become even more important in the eyes of the customer.

It is therefore vital the Field Service Engineer is able to deliver in this scenario.

This is something that Thomas firmly agrees with.

“At the end of the day once the engineer is sent out to our clients he or she then becomes the ambassador for our company. They become really  important in terms of ensuring the customer is fully satisfied,” he comments.

“I think their role is absolutely evolving in that sense.” He adds.

It is an interesting point for discussion and Keith Wilkinson, VP of Sales for ClickSoftware picks it up and carries the point further.

“We are all consumers of services whether it be from your bank, utilities providers , telco or media provider – we are all seeing this rise in automation and self-service, so you could look at it and ask – ultimately is that human touch point still important?”

“But what inevitably happens is that automation, that self-service aspect will ultimately go wrong at some point and when it does go wrong we then we have that one brief moment of truth where the engineer is sent out into the home or work place to not only just solve a problem, but also to make an impression on the customer.”

“The customer will likely have tried some levels of self-service or even to self-fix the device because they just want to get it back operational again so they can get on with their own job – so now the engineer has all their trust and faith in your company riding on their shoulders.”

“So that engineer, from a digitisation perspective, needs to have all the tools, all the knowledge and information possible at his disposal so he can be empowered - so he can become that brand ambassador. I think those scenarios it can make a huge impact on whether or not, when the time comes to renew that specific contract you actually do so or whether you think ‘I had an important issue that wasn’t really resolved effectively’ in which case your advocacy of renewing that service may be less assured.”

 

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Want to know more? There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service available for 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. Click here to apply for your subscription now!

 

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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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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  ClickSoftware
Title: How the Internet of Things is Transforming Field Service

 

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Synopsis:

Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 6.4 billion connected “things” will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 20201. This interconnected world will provide a wealth of new opportunities for service organisations. It allows them to connect equipment with technicians’ mobile devices and the office in real time, enabling a rapid response to service requests and efficient remote diagnostics. Service is set to become increasingly proactive and cost-effective.

Field service lies at the heart of the Internet of Things (IoT) evolution. Advanced field service management (FSM) software can automatically receive messages from devices, and schedule and dispatch professionals, without any human interaction. But the opportunities for IoT go beyond inbound device signals over the internet.

The increase in intelligent service resources, such as drones and autonomous vehicles, offers benefits of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication that promise to transform the service industry.

Overview:

The Internet of Things

As the internet turns 25 years old, its impact continues to transform communications, industries, and lives. The original framework of point-to-point communication via a network of distributed hubs has evolved from email and dovetailed with advances in electrical and industrial engineering in a transformative way. The era of personal computers has evolved, through mobility and the smart phone revolution, to a point where connected devices take all manner of forms from biological implants to wearable fitness trackers.

Signals sent to and from connected devices are spiralling in volume. Big data management techniques, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud storage have come together to deliver insight from this abundance of data. This increases the opportunities for automating decisions and initiating actions without the need for human intervention. The benefits to organisations are numerous.

Remote monitoring applications already save billions in transport and human capital management costs. Add the potential positive impact on customer engagement and its associated business value, and the call to action becomes clear. A complete IoT strategy leads to better and faster decisions throughout the service delivery lifecycle.

Market Definitions

The Internet of Things is having major impact across both industrial and consumer sectors, and many bodies of research focus on these separately. We look at the two areas in this way:

• Industrial IoT (IIoT): IIoT refers to the application of the Internet of Things to the broad manufacturing industry. It’s often used interchangeably with the term “Industry 4.0,” which refers to the major transformational stages of the industrial economy. Examples of IIoT range from monitoring building management systems and power grids, to tracking manufactured goods as they are shipped
• Consumer IoT (CIoT): The Consumer Internet of Things (CIoT) consists of technologies that target the home market and consumer electronics. IDC reports3 that over 8 million US households already use some kind of home automation and control. Typified by remote monitoring capabilities for security, climate control, and remote control of household functions, CIoT also offers promise in areas such as networked home appliances with use cases such as refrigerators that automatically order more milk as needed.

IoT and Field Service

As the definitions around IIoT and CIoT show, there are ramifications for field service in both areas. Products that are being serviced are equally likely to be consumer goods or elements of a manufacturing eco-system in the context of business-to-business field service. The consumer and business areas are also intertwined as IoT adds a strong feedback loop that connects product usage and the associated service requirements to the manufacturing process itself. For example, wear and tear levels in real-world conditions can feed into product development through a network of sensors and influence the manufacturing process accordingly.

CIoT and IIoT are worthwhile segmentations to assess the market at a more granular level. But there are opportunities for innovation in IoT across the field service landscape. Furthermore, areas such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and ghost IT also create fuzzy lines between consumers individually and as part of an enterprise. The opportunity for field service is broad and not constrained to any sub-segment of the market.

Reactive vs Predictive

The increasing intelligence of devices and the hardware layer also impact the approach to service associated with the device. While unsophisticated devices can signal a need for service in the event of a system failure, the richer data from intelligent sensors enable a shift from reactive to proactive service. For example, indicators of failure enable long range service maintenance planning so devices can be kept running continuously and efficiently with an optimised cost profile.

From a resource optimisation perspective, this is of course preferable to responding, at high cost, to a sudden failure.

This point brings up a significant differentiator in IoT-based field service. In addition to developing machine learning models to learn more about the service chain, leading field service organisations excel at optimisation in the context of organisational business goals. This optimisation is important regardless of the sophistication of the information the sensors generate in the network. Even in a simple example, with a service requirement to address a non-functioning device, organisations with optimisation solutions can automatically schedule that service to ensure the appropriate balance of metrics, such as SLA compliance and field service professional overtime. And, with additional sophistication in the IoT sensor data to support more proactive use cases, this schedule optimisation is just as important to business success.

 

To unlock the potential of speed and automation, decision criteria must be determined and incorporated into a system flexible enough to handle the variety of data inputs and scenarios. Top field service software providers can offer a scheduling solution that incorporates countless data elements into the scheduling algorithm.

The full intelligence provided by the IoT network determines the appropriate service schedule for a device, including inspection, preventive maintenance, and repair. If required, it’s possible to incorporate a review of these IoT-generated telematics by a field service professional for additional human oversight.

 

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Want to know more? Access to this resource 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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