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Marina Stedman, ClickSoftware begins a two part feature in which she looks at the multi-faceted challenges field service managers and supervisors face and a key philosophy in how to best serve customers...

Field service managers and supervisors do not have easy jobs.

They’re trainers, mentors, time keepers, and job shufflers. They must have stellar communication, interpersonal and operational skills – all on top of being the first point of call for many escalations.

Basically – field service companies demand a lot from their field managers.

Of all the demands made on them, the trickiest obstacle they face in performing their jobs well is balancing the ever present tensions between their in-office tasks and field work.

How do they get both aspects of their complicated job done without consuming huge amounts of time and energy, while still giving their roles due attention?

Mobile technology seems to be answer. Yet we don’t see the introduction of mobile technology reducing the obstacles that field supervisors face in meeting traditional expectations of operational efficiency.

 

Instead, use of mobile devices has increased everyone’s expectations and standards of quality customer service and how much value a well-run field technician team adds to the bottom line.

The client SLAs are becoming more demanding and internal stakeholders require more aggressive cost management of field technician labour.

The fact is – arming field supervisors and their technicians with mobile devices that connect them to each other whilst in the field, as well as back to the home office, does offer the potential for field supervisors to manage their teams more efficiently and cost-effectively.

The key words here are “offer the potential.”

Without the right approach in implementing the mobile tools and work processes, providing mobile communication will only add another layer of complexity and frustration to field operations. Field supervisors work too hard to deserve that.

Using mobile to make field supervisors’ lives better – not more complicated Our philosophy centres on helping service organisations answer five questions – the Five Ws of Field Service, in order to best serve their customers.

This approach can help field supervisors to use mobile to excel at their jobs and give their field technicians the full support they need to serve your company’s customers.

Think of it as trickle-down customer service.

W#1: Who does What?

In the traditional customer service framework, this first question serves to clarify exactly which field technicians are qualified to do which tasks.

Scheduling a service appointment for a customer that can and sending a field technician who doesn’t have the technical qualifications to complete the work needed makes everyone unhappy.

The field technician can’t do the job and the customer doesn’t have their problem resolved.

Everything’s come to a standstill.

For field supervisors, the volume of office and field tasks they need to master and execute can create a similar bottleneck to getting things done.

 

In addition to the tension between back-office and field tasks, the field supervisor also has to allocate attention between big picture tasks and minutiae.

Correctly prioritising tasks determines the “What” they should be doing in any given moment. Their scheduling system needs to easily and accurately serve up the information they need – no matter where they are – to make the right decisions in prioritising attention.

This is where the real-time, mobile updates are so critical.

For example: Mobile helps the field supervisor conduct back-end tasks while in the field. They get a holiday request from a field technician while sitting in the car, just as they have finished updating another field technician’s performance record (while parked, of course!).

They can look through that technician’s holiday usage and upcoming volume of demand to decide if they should approve the request.

But before they begin that review, the mobile alert system pushes out a notification that a customer service appointment scheduled for later that day is in jeopardy because the field technician currently assigned to has spent more time than scheduled at his current appointment.

With mobile technology, none of these new actions need to be postponed until the field supervisor is back in the office.

Supervisors can easily prioritise resolving the risk to today’s service appointment from a ‘phone by finding another field technician who’s qualified and available to take care of the upcoming appointment on schedule.

They can then follow up with the delayed field technician to find out what’s going on. Once all is resolved, they can turn their attention back to the holiday request all while out in the field.

 

In short, an effective mobile system gives field supervisors the freedom and flexibility to complete all of their responsibilities.

In the concluding part of this feature I’ll explain what the remaining 4 W’s are and their importance in field service.

 

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What do you think is the biggest challenge facing today's  field service organisations?  Submit your view to ClickSoftware's Service is Hard contest and receive a free Amazon voucher. 

Delivering service is hard, acknowledges ClickSoftware.  It is compiling a new book on the challenges facing the industry and would like input from Field Service News readers to help it identify and address the industry's biggest challenges and help make delivering service easier in future.

The company wants to combine its 20-years experience in field service with input from customers to create a book which will outline the most critical challenges in the sector market and present recommendations from experts, thought leaders and analysts on how to address these challenges.

All you have to do is to submit your challenges using the short form here by Tuesday 15^th March 2016. (The form is in English but you can enter the details of your challenge in your own language.)

No challenge is too small, too simple or too complex.

Everyone who submits a challenge will receive: 

• A free copy of the completed book (available in April 2016)
•  An Amazon Gift Card worth £15.

If your challenge is selected to appear in the book, we will also:

• Acknowledge your contribution by mentioning you by name as a contributor.
•  Send you a signed copy of the book (signed by Alec Berry, VP Consulting and Technical Services, ClickSoftware) thanking you for your support.
•  Send you an additional £35 Amazon Gift Card.

Some examples of the challenges already identified include:

• Business Challenge:  Service is hard….because we can’t meet our customers’ expectations while keeping operational costs down.
•  Functional Challenge: Service is hard….because we lack accurate planning and reliable appointment booking.
• Technical Challenge: Service is hard…because it is difficult and complex to integrate the most advanced field service solutions with our legacy systems.

 

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To submit your challenge, use this form. All challenges will be reviewed but may not all be included in the book.

 

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Field Service Podcast.

This month Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland and Tim Faulkner of ClickSoftware discuss the findings of the latest Field Service News research which assessed the use of the Cloud in field service management systems.

 

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Click here to download the full version of this podcast

 

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Click here to download the research report discussed in this podcast

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Fashion, smart clothes & the future of wearables:  Uri Pintov, Product Line Director, ClickSoftware takes a look at the role Wearable Technology could play in field service.

Picture this: A customer service representative is helping an irate customer on the phone and becoming flustered and frustrated. Rather than hearing about the incident after the interaction has escalated, customer service managers are able to step in and offer assistance because they have access to the rep’s vital signs and health signals.

Or, imagine one of your fleet drivers becoming tired and falling asleep at the wheel and a fleet manager having the ability to talk him through getting to a rest area safely, thanks to having access to his health signals. All of this, and more, is possible, thanks to wearable technology.

The Rise of Wearable Technology
Wearable technology is nothing new, but its applications to the enterprise and customer service are just now being realised in a major way. A 2013 study on wearable tech from the Centre for Creative and Social Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London, showed that about 33% of U.S. and U.K. adults found that wearable tech had helped their career development. Other research from Human Cloud at Work showed that wearable tech increases job satisfaction by 3.5% and boosts employee productivity by 8.5%.

As reported for RealBusiness by Shane Schutte,  lead researcher Dr. Chris Bauer sees the results of the study showing “the potential power and application of wearable devices in the workplace from employee biometric CVs to organisational real-time executive dashboards for resource allocation…. Using data generated from the devices, organisations can learn how human behaviours impact productivity, performance, wellbeing, and job satisfaction.”

 

Wearable technology adoption will increase as people and companies see the benefits of it, including how it improves an individual’s life or a company’s performance. Nigel Beighton,  UK CTO of Rackspace, sees the need for individuals and businesses to analyse the data from wearable technology “and understand the wider context surrounding the data, such as the weather location, posture, even temperature and mood of the individual. By focusing on the data as well as the devices, wearable technologies can provide meaningful insights that can be used to improve performance and satisfaction. Essentially wearable tech and big data go hand-in-hand.”

Smart Clothes as a Tool for Business
Using smart clothing to track employees’ vital signs and health signals is a reality now. According to Wearable Technologies, 2015 is a “banner year” for the emerging smartwatch and smart clothes market. One of the most important features of smart clothes and smartwatches is their health related sensors and monitors that rack vital signs. Smart clothes provide real-time feedback of the wearers’ vitals and health and connect to apps to deliver the information to smartphones and computers. Most smart clothes can monitor heart rate, breathing rate, sleeping patterns, calories burned, intensity of activity, temperature, and heart beat.

While most of the smart clothes are in the health and fitness market today, they are starting to be available for the healthcare industry for hospitals and personal care facilities and for businesses that want to monitor their employees.

Smart Clothes and the Mobile Workforce
More companies and organisations are going mobile, and there are more field workers and independent contractors than ever before relying on mobile devices and mobile apps. According to a CIO article, a recent Apperian survey of organisations found that more than 70% of respondents plan to equip more than 1,000 users with mobile apps and 1/3 are deploying mobile apps to more than 5,000 users in the next two years.

Additionally, Gartner predicts that 50% of employers will require employees to supply their own device for work and reports that 38% of companies will stop providing devices to workers by 2016. As more companies adopt bring your
own device (BYOD) policies, it becomes crucial for the mobile workforce to be able to charge their devices quickly and easily while on the go.

 

Wearable technology and smart clothes are solving this problem, as designers are becoming inspired by flexible solar panels and are creating clothing and accessories that power and accommodate handheld devices. We have found a few designers who are creating everything from shirts, to jeans, to ski jackets, to winter gloves that could make being part of a mobile workforce easier than ever before.

Wearable Solar – Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Dongen is designing lightweight wired garments that include solar panels so the wearer can charge a smartphone. Her designs charge smartphones up to 50% when worn in the sun for an hour. She collaborated with Christiaan Holland from the HAN University of Applied Sciences and
solar energy expert Gert Jan Jongerden on the Wearable Solar project, to integrate photovoltaic technology into the clothing.

WTFJeans – One company that accommodates smartphone users is WTFJeans. With smartpockets that give wearers easy access to their smartphones and clean the phone screens, WTFJeans also include EMF shields to reflect cell phone radiation.

Zegna Solar Ski Jacket  - Clothier Ermenegildo Zegna teamed with Interactive Wear to create “the world’s first ski jacket powered by solar energy.” The jacket has solar cells embedded in its collar to convert sunlight into renewable power that wearers can use to fully charge their smart phone, iPod, or other mobile device. The collar is
removable so that it can be used as a power source even when you’re not out in the elements.

Agloves – It is nearly impossible to use smartphones and tablets when wearing gloves, since typical gloves are not compatible with the touch screens on mobile devices. Agloves offer a variety of gloves, including the Grip Touch,
Sport, and Natural, that are constructed with real silver for warmth and high conductivity, so that all ten fingers are conductive for use with any touchscreen device.

 

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The latest headline findings from our exclusive research sponsored by ClickSoftware looking at the appetite for the Cloud as a platform for field service management solutions put together in one handy infographic....

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Want to know more? Click here to download the full research report  

 

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Welcome to this fourth and final instalment in our series that has explored a research project run in partnership with ClickSoftware that was focussed on the usage and appetite for Cloud based computing as a platform for field service management systems. 

In this final section we take a look at opinions towards Cloud and Mobility and draw some conclusion to the research on the whole...

 

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Missed the other features in this series?  Find Part One here and Part Two here and Part Three

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Want to see the full picture? Download the full research report here!

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MOBILITY AND THE CLOUD

Of course when it comes to field service whilst the Cloud is in many ways an enabler, another modern technology development has had an even bigger impact – namely the emergence of modern mobile computing systems be it laptop, tablet or smartphone.

So how important is it for mobile apps for field service to be on the Cloud?

We asked our respondents “Do you think it is important that the mobility applications used by your field engineers are Cloud based?”

Again the move towards the Cloud was apparent with 56% stating that it is preferred for their mobile apps to be Cloud based, with 40% stating that it doesn’t really matter and just 4% stating that they don’t want their mobile apps on the Cloud.

 

When we consider that 43% of companies were now on at least their second iteration of a field service app and that 47% of companies state that they will update their mobile apps at least once every three years (14% state they will update every 18 months) this would seem to add further incentive for field service companies to eventually move at least part of their field service solution to the Cloud.

With this in mind it could certainly be argued that there is further incentive for the continuing shift from on premise to the Cloud, as in this age of Big Data where integration is key, it is important to have a smooth flow of data from office to the field and back - which would be easier to achieve if both sides of the solution are feeding into one database simultaneously.

CONCLUSIONS?

It seems that the Cloud is definitely gaining momentum.

Nearly two thirds (63%) of field service organisations are more open to the idea of the cloud today than in 2014. Add this to the almost one quarter (24%) who always thought the Cloud was a good thing, and we can see that nearly 90% of organisations feel open or positive about Cloud-based Field Service Management solutions. In addition, over half (56%) cite Cloud as their preferred option.

As suggested earlier it is perhaps expected for the largest companies to be, as a group, slower in moving from one system to another due to the larger size of such a project.

 

However it is amongst the smaller companies that there is perhaps the biggest surprise of this research.

It is here we see greater reluctance for the Cloud which appears to sit in direct contrast to the fact that for many smaller companies the Cloud could offer a much more manageable cost via a SaaS model alongside other benefits such as less reliance on IT, and built in disaster recovery – again something that would presumably be appealing to smaller companies.

Yet despite the fact that smaller companies are not taking to the Cloud as much as would have perhaps have been expected, the research also reveals that whilst the biggest concern around moving to the Cloud remains security (closely followed by connectivity issues) other concerns such as integration with legacy systems and a lack of Cloud offerings do seem to be lessening.

And with the admission by 63% of respondents that they have become more open to the idea of the Cloud being used in business, plus the increase in both mid-size and enterprise sized companies that are now using a Cloud based field service management solution, there remain strong indications that the Cloud will continue to grow in stature as a platform for field service management solutions in the next few years as more companies move from their existing legacy systems to newer solutions.

Whilst the headline statistics of Cloud vs. On-Premise may be taking time to reflect the trend, the Cloud is definitely gaining momentum and this is sure to continue as more and more as more and more companies upgrade their field service management systems.

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Want to know more? Download the full research report here!

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Our recent research run in partnership with ClickSoftware was focussed on understanding the appetite and prevalence of use of Cloud computing as a platform for field service management solutions. Here, in part three we turn our attention to those who have to date stayed away from the Cloud to understand their reasons for doing so....

 

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Missed the other features in this series?  Find Part One here and Part Two here

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Want to see the full picture? Download the full research report here!

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REMAINING ON PREMISE…

So let’s look in more detail at why some companies are remaining with an on premise field service management system?

To begin let’s return to our hypothesis that whilst on premise solutions are currently more in favour, the Cloud is growing in popularity and will continue to do so as companies slowly move from their current systems to more modern next-gen equivalents.

Again a strong indicator in support of this would be how long those companies which are still using on premise solutions have been with their existing system.

In fact when we look at the responses to this question we do indeed see a mirror of the same question put to those using a Cloud solution, with just 11% of companies having implemented their current system within the last year whilst 62% are using a system that is at least three years old.

 

Further to this we asked those using an on premise solution whether they were likely to consider a Cloud platform for the next iteration of their field service management solution.

Again the response re-affirmed a growing acceptance towards the Cloud with 69% of respondents indicating that they would in fact consider the the Cloud next time round.

Also if we compare this to our 2014 survey, where we asked the same question to those who weren’t using a Cloud based field service solution, we see that this figure has in fact increased by 15%. This adds further weight to the argument that acceptance of the Cloud for field service management is growing.

But whilst there may be evidence of the Cloud becoming more trusted for those who remain unconvinced it is the same issues that represent their biggest fears.

As per our 2014 survey, our research shows that once again Security is the biggest reason that some field service companies do not feel confident in turning to the Cloud with 38% of companies stating this is their greatest concern.

Connectivity issues are also a significant concern cited by 24% as being their number one fear.

 

However some worries around the Cloud do seem to be abating. Worries around integration with legacy systems have fallen from being cited by 37% of respondents in 2014 to just 15% in this year’s survey.

Another commonly cited reason for not moving to the Cloud last year was a desire to stay with an existing supplier.

However, in this year’s findings just 3% of respondents cited that as a reason they would not consider the Cloud. However, as referenced in the introduction almost all field service management software providers are now offering a Cloud based version of their existing software so perhaps this comes as little surprise.

The research also shows that for those companies that aren’t currently using a Cloud based field service management solution the reluctance to move to the Cloud isn’t restricted to the field service division.

In fact over half (52%) of those companies using an on-premise solution for their field service management system have no Cloud based systems at all.

So whilst it appears that the Cloud is indeed gaining momentum as a platform for field service management software, the biggest barrier to adoption for many remains concerns around security.

Of course well documented, high profile consumer breaches such as that of Apple’s iCloud add fuel to the flames and 58% of respondents admitted that incidents such as these influence their opinion of Cloud being used in the enterprise.

Yet in spite of this our research shows that as the Cloud matures perceptions are definitely changing.

Two thirds (66%) of our respondents admitted that they have become more open to the idea of Cloud being used in business in recent years whilst just 8% state that they have always felt the Cloud is too risky and that opinion hasn’t changed.

 

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Want to know more? Download the full research report here!

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Field service is one of those sectors most likely to be affected by a European Court of Justice ruling on what constitutes “working time” for mobile employees.

The ECJ has ruled that time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time. Previously some organisations, including those engaged in field service, have not regarded this element of travelling time as work.

The court says the ruling, which has caused some controversy among European Union member states, has been enforced to protect the health and safety of mobile workers as set out in the EU's working time directive, which stipulates that they cannot work more than 48 hours in a week unless they opt out. Member states will be required to ensure national legislation on working time complies with the ruling. Workers are required to sign a waiver in order  to opt out.

Mobile workforce management software developer Auto Time is one company advising that service organisations may now find themselves in breach of EU working time regulations unless they review operations. Christian Berenger, Operations Director at Auto Time says: “The new ruling could leave contractors, already under pressure to deliver their services cost-effectively, confronted by increased labour costs and facing a tough battle to operate profitably within tight margins. To minimise compliance risk, employers need to put systems in place that will enable them to gain total transparency of their workforce, track their movements and plan staff workloads to coincide with their daily commute to minimise costs.”

The ruling by the European Court of Justice deeming time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers should be regarded as work means businesses now more than ever should be carefully considering the deployment of their workforce, agrees Marina Stedman, director at ClickSoftware.

“Thousands of employers may be in breach of employment law, requiring them to implement workforce management strategies that take this ruling into account. Businesses not already doing so should be looking at software that manages all time related services with one single platform, to ensure when staff are dispatched to a task, this is being factored in. Having this in place, businesses will be able to proactively design rosters that consider the capacity of staffing shifts days and weeks in advance.”

Christian Berenger adds: “The role of technology in supporting organisations to comply with the new ECJ ruling surrounding mobile workers should not be underestimated. With HR teams under increased pressure to keep up with changing employment regulations, employers must evaluate their business practices or risk falling foul of the law. By gaining instant visibility of their remote workers and streamlining compliance tasks, workforce management systems. can not only meet their legal obligations but optimise their workforce for future bottom line growth.”

 

Real-time data access allows managers to track the whereabouts and task status of their workforce, calculate the ‘actual hours’ worked and respond to operational issues with better informed decisions as they happen, he points out and recommends empowering staff to manage their hours, via a secure web portal using their smartphone or tablet. ”

There’s likely to be an impact on schedule optimization, too, thinks Bereneger. “Scheduling functions provide managers with the ability to optimise staff shifts by allocating job tasks to dovetail with their daily commute, ensuring assignments at the start and end of the day are located near employees' homes to minimise travel time.

 

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As we continue our in depth exploration of our recent research project assessing the latest trends of field service companies turning to the Cloud which was run in partnership with ClickSoftware we turn our attention to those companies who have moved their field service management systems to the Cloud to find out what benefits they are seeing and why they made the switch away from on premise field service management systems...

 

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Missed part one? Find it here

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Want to see the full picture? Download the full research report here!

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HEADS IN THE CLOUD

So what are the key findings from those companies who have made the move to the Cloud? Well firstly if our previous hypothesis is indeed correct and one of the key factors in why companies are not moving to the Cloud is that they have yet to move into an upgrade cycle from their existing system, then this should be evident in how recently those who are using a Cloud based field service management solution made the switch.

In fact over three quarters of companies that have moved their field service operations to the Cloud have done so within the last three years. Which again would support this hypothesis. What really adds further strength to the assertion that the Cloud is now gaining momentum however, is the fact more companies have moved to the Cloud within the last six months (29%) than have been using a Cloud system for over three years (24%).

This would seem to be strong evidence that the Cloud is becoming more readily and swiftly adopted today than it has been previously.

So what are the key reasons for companies making this move? As mentioned in the first part of this series  the benefits of Cloud computing are numerous however two reasons were particularly popular amongst our respondents.

These were the fact that Cloud is “scalable and flexible” which 76% of companies highlighted as important to them, whilst 71% of companies cited “easy remote access” as a significant reason for their selection of the Cloud for their field service solution.

Whilst these two reasons were comfortably the most popular, other commonly cited reasons were “less reliance on IT” (59%), “more functionality” (53%) and “disaster recovery” (41%). Of course in part one we also discussed one other reason that companies may move their ield service operations into the Cloud, i.e. many are seeking to integrate smoothly with Salesforce (or of course other Cloud based CRM systems ).

With this in mind it is it was interesting to see that of those companies that were using the Cloud for their field service operations overwhelmingly the most common Cloud solution being used in other areas of business was CRM. In fact 53% of companies who operate a Cloud based field service solution also have a Cloud based CRM.

This was twice as much as the second most common business solution Marketing, which was Cloud based for 24% of these companies. What is particularly interesting is that although beyond the peaks of CRM and Marketing no other areas of business (other options included ERP, Accounting, Payroll, Asset Management & HR) were placed in the Cloud by more than 17% of companies using a Cloud based field service management system.

 

Yet despite this reluctance to put other business solutions in the Cloud currently, 53% of respondents felt that their companies would will ultimately move all of their software solutions to the Cloud and in fact 6% of companies already have.

If we look at the benefits of those using the Cloud for their field service management solution, again there were two clear leading benefits identified.

These were “Cost” and “Productivity”, which were both cited by 47% of the respondents as the biggest single benefit they had seen since moving to the Cloud.

And perhaps the single most revealing finding of the set of questions put to those companies using a Cloud based field service management solution, was that when we asked “Would you recommend a Cloud field service solution over an on premise solution” the respondents answered unanimously (100%) that they would.

However of those who don’t think such a wholesale move to the Cloud is a good thing, security remained the clear overriding concern alongside a reluctance to be fully dependent on the Internet... Look out for the next part of this series where we look at the findings from those companies who felt that the Cloud presented too much risk so have opted to keep their field service management systems on premise... 

 

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Want to know more? Download the full research report here!

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