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The telecoms market is undergoing a huge transition in the UK and across continental Europe. A number of high-profile acquisitions have been made with analysts expecting further consolidation of telecoms companies still to come. The reason behind this spate of acquisitions? The attempt to bring to the market a quad play offer for consumers writes Tim Faulkner, Vice President EMEA ClickSoftware 

Quad play is a term that has been around for a while now. The idea is that a telecoms company can offer a fixed telephone line, broadband, TV and mobile service. For consumers, they get a one-stop shop for all their services. It means dealing with less providers, consolidated bills and makes the overall service much easier to manage. 

 

The last element of the quad play offer is perhaps the most important one. In research conducted by ClickSoftware last year, we found that over a third (34%) of consumers have either cancelled a service or stopped using a brand altogether as a result of poor customer service[1].

A staggeringly high figure to think a third of the customers that businesses come across on a daily basis can be so quickly and so emphatically put off spending any more money with them.

For quad play to be a compelling offer to consumers, it needs to improve the customer service aspect and ensure that there is consistency in service delivery across the company. Regardless of the role, every employee and contractor needs to be provided with the training, tools and information they need to perform a good job.

Whether it’s discussing a service over the phone or an engineer installing a solution at a customer’s house, everyone working for the company is a brand ambassador and the end user shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the levels of service. In order to succeed, customers need to feel like they are dealing with one company rather than four different suppliers.

When it comes to cost, industry commentators are undecided about whether it will lead to cheaper bills for consumers, however they are in agreement that bringing all of these services together should lead to better customer experiences. That said, in any acquisition, merging the companies together can be a difficult task.

This is further complicated when considering the multiple suppliers each company deals with and how these are integrated. For quad play to take off, companies buying others will need to work out their supplier roster quickly to minimise disruption during the transition.

For the telecoms companies, each should now be in a more powerful position to deal with suppliers. Because there will now be less telecoms companies to work with, the suppliers will need to compete more fiercely than ever.

The purchasing power will be in the hands of the telecoms companies but it will be up to suppliers to provide the best possible offer.

What we will see as a consequence of a quad play market is the development of a marketplace bidding system. Suppliers will need to tender their services via a marketplace platform and the telecoms company will then have to take its pick of the supplier it feels provides the best service.

This new way of working will also benefit the telecoms companies as they will be able to have full visibility across all field resources, including contractors. By extending the same technology utilised by the company to its contractors, they can better ensure consistent processes and level of service are carried out across the organisation.

 Regardless of which service provider is performing the task, the visibility should ensure consistency and a better customer experience. Not only will this achieve greater customer satisfaction but also does so without the need for additional staff overhead, by increasing capacity only when it is needed to maintain service performance levels through demand spikes.

The rest of the year will see the issue of quad play develop. We will see telecoms companies aggressively promoting the offer in order to acquire customers. It will be crucial that for quad play to really take off, the customer experience element improves right off the bat.

Utilising service providers in this new marketplace model is one way of ensuring this takes place

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[1]UK Service Industry Consumer Frustration Index

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Yes we have reached that time of the year when various competitions are rolled our left right and centre.The best business card in field service, thre best uniform in field service, the cleanest field service fleet and so on and so forth...

However, there are three competitions that have caught our eye of late so we thought we'd share with the class...

ServiceMax's are collecting worst ever field service engineer visits....

As the folks at ServiceMax quite rightly point out field service technicians keep the world running, but they perhaps don't get appreciated all the the time. So the team at ServiceMax are collecting your best( or should that be worst?) field service anecdotes (in strictest confidentiality of course) and have commissioned award winning artist Jerry King to create a series of customised cartoons based on the anecdotes selected

Find out more and enter here

ClickSoftware look for the most extreme field service engineers out there...

ClickSoftware mean while are launching a competition to find the field service professionals that work in the most extreme locations around the world. This is olne that is sure to turn up some interesting answers from the Arctic to the Sahara there are field engineers just about everywhere! There is also some serious money being given to charity of the back of this with each winner allowed to donate £1,000.00 (or local equivalent) to the charity of their choice - good job ClickSoftware.

Find out more and enter here 

Field Service News launch the #FSN20 - make your nominations now!

OK so this didn't so much catch our eye as it's our own competition. And it's not a competition as such... more a celebration of the great and the good of our industry but this year is the launch of the inaugural Field Service News 20. A list of the 20 most influential people working in field service. It could be analysts, commentators, the head of a specific provider that has changed the way your company operates, your boss, a former boss who ever you nominate we'll look into them and see if they can make a place on the list.

We don't promise it'll be the most scientific process, and there are no prizes available, just the awesome sense of well being for saying well done to someone who has helped you, no matter how inadvertently in you working life.

So take two minutes and make a nomination now

 

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ClickSoftware have created this great infographic looking at the uses of Gamification within businesses and how it has evolved throughout the years.

Some key points highlighted include:

• By 2015, 40% of top 1000 companies by market value will use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations
• IBM, AutoDesk and SAP are some of the companies who have successfully adopted Gamification
• Gamification is a key element In consumerisation of enterprise strategy in companies such as Cisco, Pearson and Salesforce

 

Poor service has become a commonplace scourge within the UK with service issues costing consumers nearly £15 billion a year research shows…

In fact over two thirds of UK customers (69%) have been frustrated by poor customer service, almost a half (46%) have demanded to speak to a supervisor and just over a third (34%) have stopped using the brand altogether.

These results are part of the findings from a global report by ClickSoftware, which was designed to assess what were the key frustrations faced by consumers.

Against a backdrop of recent ongoing billing problems with energy companies, over half (52%) of UK residents found utilities companies to be the most frustrating to deal with. It was found that spending over an hour trying to resolve an issue such as billing problem or a loss of power was a regular occurrence. In fact the average time people waited for a resolution was an incredible 4.3 hours.

Communication service providers were second on the list of poor service providers with over a quarter (29%) of consumers irritated at the amount of time they wasted with them. These were followed by Central Government (18%) and banking (15%), in third and fourth place respectively.

The economic impact of this sloppy service is not just restricted to the guilty parties however. UK workers are having to take time off to attend to matters during their working hours to resolve issues. The study revealed a total loss of nearly £15 billion a year, and an individual loss of almost £500 per person.

Then there is the emotional cost. Even the famously reserved British demeanour has it’s limits and over one in 10 (13%) of Brits have been driven so mad by bad service they have admitted to losing their cool and yelling at a service representative.

Meanwhile others have gone to extreme lengths to get better or quicker service, including lying (9%), crying to the service representative (real or fake tears) (4%) or even begging (3%).

Robert Williams, Vice President of UK & Ireland of ClickSoftware reflected on the findings commenting:

“This is a timely reminder for businesses that customer service is still one of the biggest factors in attracting and retaining customers,”

 

“Bad customer service is costing business up to a third of their revenue, and the knock on effect is that people are having to take precious holiday time just to deal with things that could and should be sorted much more easily.”

Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst at the Aberdeen Group and Field Service News columnist also commented:

“Ultimately, satisfied customers help drive retention and profitability for service organisations. Our research found those that reached a 90%+ customer satisfaction rate achieved an annual 6.1% growth in service revenue, 3.7% growth in overall revenue, and an 89% level of customer retention”

Meanwhile a separate research project, conducted by the CCA on behalf of Customer Engagement Optimisation specialists KANA indicated that the majority of UK organisations are dramatically underestimating the link between customer service and revenue.

 The survey of UK Contact Centre Association (CCA) members included respondents from a wide and diverse blend of varying industry verticals including financial services, retail and local government. Perhaps the most striking finding of this research was that less than half (40%) of those in senior management believed that customer service was key to driving revenue. In fact a fifth of respondents felt there was little or even no focus on customer service at a senior level.

 

Other findings of the survey also showed a distinct lack of appreciation of the link between customer service and the bottom line. Again well under half (41%) paid significant attention to the level the revenue they lost as a result of poor customer service. Incredibly, one in ten companies do not measure the financial implications of poor customer service at all.

The research also highlights what call centre agents perceive as key barriers to providing a better service: outdated systems, lack of investment, agent skills gaps and a lack of understanding or support at a senior level.

Unfortunately, the contact centre is often seen as an operational expense and nothing more,” says Steven Thurlow, head of worldwide product strategy for KANA. “Often, senior management will review functional aspects, such as speed of handling times and resolution times. This approach is unlikely to drive further investment and instead maintains a focus on efficiency above all else. Fast service and good customer experiences are not always the same thing.”

However, whilst it seems that Customer Service in the UK is suffering from poor standards whilst being woefully overlooked as a key factor in ensuring and growing revenue streams, yet further study has revealed clear evidence that there is an intrinsic link between customer satisfaction and business success.

In fact research conducted by Trimble Field Service Management highlighted that 71% of field service organisations use customer satisfaction as the main metric to measure the performance of their business. A recent industry report based around research commissioned by Trimble highlighted that there was a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability.

 

So are we facing a true disconnect between the impact customer service can have on field service businesses and the attention it gets within senior management? Are these frustrations related solely to the call centre or are they reflected in the levels of service delivered on the doorstep also?

We’re currently running a short survey ourselves which aims to assess the survey standards of companies in the field. If you want to find out how your standards compare to your competitors then take two minutes to complete the survey to receive a free copy of the benchmark report based on the results when published.

Also thanks to our sponsor on this project TomTom Telematics there is also a prize draw with three £50 Amazon vouchers available.

Click here to complete the survey and enter the prize draw now.

Zero-hour contracts have long been a contentious issue, with arguments back and forth about why they are or aren’t good for both business and employees. And it looks like an issue that isn’t going away anytime soon. Robert Williams, VP Sales, UK&I, ClickSoftware explains more...

Just recently the Business Secretary Vince Cable announced a ban on exclusivity contracts in a bid to give employees the opportunity to seek additional work elsewhere. It had meant if people were working on zero-hour contracts, they couldn’t seek additional work, inevitably leaving some people short if they didn’t get enough hours from that employer.

So why are zero-hour contracts such a contentious issue and is it simply a case of employers looking to have the most efficient workforce possible?

Well first and foremost it isn’t just an argument around employers being right or wrong to use them. The real point of conversation is how beneficial they are in the long-run. Of course you get the instant saving on resource by reducing your commitment to long-term staffing costs. But what if you sign a big piece of business or a product flies off the shelves faster than you can replenish the stock. The major business around zero contract hours is that they are rarely based on long-term forecasting, leaving companies vulnerable for changes in their market which, with some decent planning, can be accounted for in a good forecasting model.

Now it is also true that you cannot have a bloated workforce that is operating inefficiently just in case resource is needed. I suspect many businesses have been operating this way for years and adopted zero-hour contracts to counterbalance a huge excess in the level of resource and productivity. Yet going from one extreme to the other isn’t the best way to solve this problem. Instead, there should be a middle ground whereby careful analysis is conducted and factored into a detailed resource plan.

This plan could then identify where zero-hour contracts have a continual benefit for both employer and employee. For example, if you are a business which traditionally sees seasonal peaks and troughs in the level of resource coupled with personnel that tend to be short term and high churn, then zero-hour contracts are absolutely a viable option to ensure you have the most optimised staff possible.

For those high churn positions where you know you will see people coming and going in roles, there is little need to go the extra mile to keep them motivated as more often than not, those people will only have a fleeting relationship with the company. Where zero-hour contracts become more problematic is when they are applied to job roles which see less churn and are more skilled. With this sub-set of the workforce, there is an intangible benefit of keeping them engaged and motivated. At the heart of this is fostering an environment where they feel valued and wanted. Identifying this real engine room of the business is where good planning comes into play again.

 

This does entail a central planning function which can identify these incidents and then be capable of implementing the new staffing solutions, but this is something successful companies are doing. Having all of this in place will give you an optimised and diversified workforce that is equipped to change with the market. So if one section needs to be upscaled, then that can be taken from another part of the business where it is less critical.

With this best practice in place the benefits of having an engaged and motivated workforce will become apparent. The days of a job for life may be coming to an end, but you can still certainly engender a sense of loyalty from staff whilst they are there. Planning the way they are deployed and in which roles, is a primary way of doing this.

For employers, the good news is that technology has never been able to offer them more insights than it does today. From timesheets to smart devices, there is a whole range of data that can be crunched and fed into a system that comes up with the best answer. It’s new of course, and not absolutely perfect, but is surely a wiser path to take than simply employing too many people or using zero-contract hours to provide a rudimentary solution on a week-by-week basis.

ClickSoftware have recently announced that Wärtsilä, a global player in complete lifecycle power solutions operating in both the energy and marine industries have opted to implement ClickSoftware’s flexible scheduling solution ClickWorkforce, which is available through the Salesforce AppExchange.

The implementation which is across a number of international territories promises to give Wärtsilä full transparency across their whole field services business, providing easier management and planning of its resources by consideribly increasing visibility.

Commenting on the implementation Dr. Moshe BenBassat, founder and CEO of ClickSoftware. “As the pace of business accelerates, more businesses are moving to the cloud to gain agility and meet fluctuating demand. ClickSoftware is proud to work with Wärtsilä to help them to manage an increasingly global and disparate business,”

Increasing productivity

“The depth and breadth of ClickWorkforce functionality means ClickSoftware provides a solution that grows with demand and scope of business to address the need of global enterprises.”

Wärtsilä  field service director Guido Barbazza added “For the Planning Board, cloud-based capabilities allow us to know where our staff and assets are at any one time, and then orchestrate them effectively,”

“This will help us guarantee the best assignment of skilled resources to jobs, enabling us to reduce administration work, improve processes and bolster time management benefits. We foresee that this will have a positive impact on our customer’s experience, bottom line, and boost job satisfaction among our employees.”

Wärtsilä, who support their customers throughout the lifecycle of their marine installations, power generation solutions and oil & gas systems, will deploy ClickWorkforce across all 70 countries that they operates in to manage and synchronise field services skills and resources availability.

A key element of Wärtsilä’s global field services integrated solutions, which include systems for professional skills management and workshops activities, is the resource scheduling.

By implementing intelligent field services management software, the company will now have access to real-time global field services skill availability, allowing for more optimised scheduling, improved asset resourcing and better capacity management.

The new system will increase the capability to draw in wider resources onto different projects from around the world. 

The power of connectivity

One of the major benefits Wärtsilä will see from the new implementation is that each of their field services unit will gain a clearer view of all ongoing activities and projects, enabling better sharing of resources including field engineers and specialised equipment.

ClickWorkforce enables companies to chat live and in context with their mobile workforce, and respond immediately to real-time activities in the field, all within the Salesforce1 Platform.

In just one click, companies have the ability to access a single view of the entire field services operation, give customers (internal and external) field services in real-time, chat with engineers and sales reps and managers to find the best solutions
, schedule engineers instantly based on location, skill and cost
and offer narrow, reliable appointment windows

 

 

Based on its recent analysis of the mobile workforce management market, Frost & Sullivan have recognised Xora, a ClickSoftware Company with the 2014 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership.

The award highlights Xora's superior focus on enhancing the value customers receive, beyond good service, leading to improved customer retention and, ultimately, market share expansion.

Four key factors contributed to Xora’s leadership in providing customer value:

• a best-in-class customer support program during and after solution deployment
• an affordable, cloud-based delivery model
• the forging of strong partnerships with wireless carriers
• an expanded definition of the solution’s use and value in today’s marketplace

Xora StreetSmart, a suite of configurable mobile apps that turn any mobile phone or tablet into a powerful productivity tool, is designed to appeal to a wide range of businesses and public-sector agencies.

The application is highly configurable through an intuitive, easy-to-use interface and is continually evolving with new feature releases. Cloud-based SaaS deployment minimizes IT requirements. The solution also allows customers to easily scale their implementation, leveraging new features as their needs evolve. This ultimately creates high-value delivery for each Xora customer and rapid ROI.

As a part of its promise to provide best-in-class service, Xora delivers live training to educate users on solution capabilities, ranging from help creating wireless forms to configuring mobile jobs and defining mobile business workflows to better realise the customer’s end goals. Xora also invests time and energy to understand business needs of its customers, which results in clear ROI expectations for the customer and greater use of Xora’s capabilities, ultimately leading to better service for end consumers.

With the merging of ClickSoftware and Xora, customers will receive increased benefits from the ability to expand their functionality as their business and mobile workforce needs grow. The merging of the two organisations will enable Xora to leverage ClickSoftware’s global sales operations, while providing ClickSoftware additional distribution channels through leading wireless carriers.

Xora is both a visionary and evangelist when it comes to the business potential of mobile workforce management solutions. The company has spent the past two years working to expand the industry’s view of the value and capabilities that MWM solutions can deliver—well beyond just understanding employee locations to transforming mobile business processes in the field.

“By merging Xora and ClickSoftware, we expanded our product offerings to service companies of all sizes, from 5 to 50,000 mobile workers. We are proud to deliver services that enable them to provide an exceptional customer experience, while also providing the tools to achieve outstanding operational performance and grow their businesses,” said Dr. Moshe Ben Bassat, founder and CEO of ClickSoftware.

“The combination of Xora and ClickSoftware will enable companies to pick the deployment model that suits their needs—whether it’s an out-of-the-box cloud deployment for an SMB or enterprise solution to meet more complex business needs.” he continued.

“Xora knows the SMB sector—its needs, its fears, its pain points,” said Jeanine Sterling, principal analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “As a result, it understands how to create real value for small and mid-sized businesses, focusing not just on affordability, but also on two other make-or-break factors with these customers—ease of implementation and ease of use. We’re very pleased to recognise Xora, a ClickSoftware Company, with this Customer Value Leadership Award.”

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

Click Software continue to build their reputation as a stand-out provider of field service solutions to the telecommunications industry having won the contract to supply one of Italy’s largest mobile telecom operators WIND Telecomunicazioni Spa, with a new field service solution to enable greater mobile workforce management.

The solution will replace the Italian telecoms companies existing workforce management system and is being implemented by WIND to enable the company to build a more efficient mobile workforce by utilizing ClickSoftware’s assisted scheduling engine. The Italian telecoms company is hoping that by further improve the levels of service they are able to provide they will be able to firmly cement their position as leader within their sector.

Nicola Grassi, Chief Technology Officer at WIND commented:

“We have always been committed to fortifying the fundamentals that strengthen our core activities and that are able to increase the flexibility and efficiency of our operational services. Customer satisfaction is crucial to our business and we needed a solution that was reliable, easy to implement and develop, with a measureable amount of results,”

“We believe that we can meet such challenges working with ClickSoftware” he added.

With almost 1,000 field engineers, WIND’s dispatchers will now be able to capitalize on the benefits that a modern field service system such as the one ClickSoftware provide which incorporates powerful optimisation capabilities as well as delivering reliable, precise information directly to the smartphones of the field technicians out in the field. An added benefit of the solution is that the field management team at WIND now have the ability to gain visibility into all aspects of the business, especially in times of emergency.

 Commenting on the implementation Dr. Moshe Ben Bassat, Founder and CEO of ClickSoftware stated:

“WIND understands the strategic importance of customer experience, and ClickSoftware will help meet its service goals”

 “Our objective is to always help customers use their resources in the most efficient way while meeting its targets for customer satisfaction. With so many engineers in the field, ClickSoftware will make a considerable impact on both the reliability of information shared and time saved in completing jobs.” He concluded.

 

Find out more about ClickSoftware including features, news and video in the FIeld Service News directory here

Contact information: 

Key Contact: Jo Wakeling, EMEA Field Marketing Manager
Phone: +44 (0) 1628 607 000
Web: www.clicksoftware.com
Email: info@clicksoftware.com

 

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Services Provided by ClickSoftware:

• Mobile Workforce Management
• Enterprise Mobility
• Optimised Scheduling
• Shift Planning
• Demand Forecasting
• Capacity Planning
• Enterprise App Store
• Cloud offerings
• SMB packaged solution

 

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About ClickSoftware:

ClickSoftware is defining field service engagement, empowering the world's most customer-centric and demanding organisations to optimise the full potential of every service interaction.

With ClickSoftware, field service becomes the new competitive lever to drive differentiation and business value. The Click Field Service Edge Platform arms field service leaders with the smartest technologies, a limitless technology-forward platform, and the knowledge gained from a global community of best practices.

Exclusively focused on field service since creating the market, ClickSoftware has managed billions of service engagements and is relied upon by nearly a million field service professionals every day.

The company is the recognised market and technology leader by analyst firms including Gartner, IDC and Frost & Sullivan. And, Click is the field service solution of choice for Salesforce, SAP and top systems integrators. More than 350 global enterprises across 20+ industries tap into ClickSoftware for the world's smartest thinking in field service. ClickSoftware. The field service leader.

 

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Latest video from ClickSoftware

 

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Latest News & Features from ClickSoftware:

 

ClickSoftware announce launch of Artificial Intelligence based field service tool

ClickSoftware, a leading provider of field service management solutions for the enterprise, today introduced Click Field Service Edge, a new cloud-based, mobile workforce management platform designed to meet the needs of the largest and most demanding field service providers. Read more here...

 

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Time to start banging the drum

ClickSoftware have for a long time been seen as a key leader amongst field service solution providers. But the sector has gone through rapid evolution within the last few years with technology moving forward whilst the market becomes ever more competitive. Read more here...

 

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Want to know more? Click here for a full list of news and features from ClickSoftware 

 

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