Why People Buy A Service Contract

Dec 03, 2020 • Features • Covid-19 • Service Innovation and Design

Sam Klaidman, Principal Advisor with Middlesex Consulting, reflects on the drivers behind why your customers buy the service service contracts you offer, and outlines if and how that has changed since the pandemic...

For over 20 years, I was the Vice President of Service for two companies. In one company I had global responsibility and in the other I was responsible for the Americas. To keep up to date with industry trends, I attended local, and some Global, AFSMI meetings and I read as many service-related articles as I could find.

I was always jealous of people who published articles and got their name “out there.” Then I retired and started my own consulting business. I felt like the time was right for me to share my ideas and collected information with my peers.

Thanks to an introduction from a friend, I was able to get an article published in the September 2008 issue of American Laboratory. The topic I chose was “Why Companies Sell Service Contracts and Why People Buy Them.” Since then, I have written 16 articles and whitepapers and posted approximately 220 blog posts. Most of these were about some aspect of the business of Field Service. Yet when I searched through the 220 post titles, I realized that I had never updated my original article even though our industry has gone through major changes since the original piece was published.

Buying a service contract pre-COVID

Before COVID, the people who purchased service contracts were Manager level. They had day to day responsibility for whatever their equipment was being used for. In that first article, I listed the four reasons why people purchased contracts:

Maximize Uptime
Predictable costs
Peace of Mind
No hassle

When I have an assignment to grow service revenue, I survey customers and ask them to rate these same four characteristics where one is most important. Here are the results of three of my pre-COVID engagements:

The first and last columns are part of the same survey for the same client. The last column is for a small number of customers with many instruments that provide the company with excess testing capacity. Yet the managers were interested in a service contract for all their instruments! Not because they were worried about maximizing equipment uptime, but because they were interested in minimizing their daily hassles. They were willing to spend company money to reduce their job-related stress.

Picture 1-1

Changes in customer’s wants and needs now

Today, the reasons people want service contracts are more varied than ever before. When it comes to buying hardware service contracts, we are seeing two significant changes:

The purchasing decision is being made by a more senior individual than the department manager.
The reasons to buy a contract are frequently based on more and different strategic factors than in the past. They are as varied as the reasons they purchased your product as well as the high-level strategic goals of the company.

Here are some of the challenges that most business executives (including your customers) are dealing with today and which will continue for the foreseeable future:

Grow revenue and reduce costs
Minimize CapEx
Digitize their business
Introduce a servitization business model
Mitigate known and unknown business risks
Provide a safe and secure environment for their employees
Figure out how to retrain key employees
Deal with an aging workforce

Your customer’s challenges will result in changes to how you create, price, and deliver your services in 2021 and beyond. Here are a few well know changes:

Enable customer self service
Move to a blended workforce of direct and contract field engineers
Migrate from a transactional to an outcome driven service organization
Innovate to embrace the notion of touchless service
Personalized and multichannel services

Changes in the Sales environment

These three snippets from a recent report, 2021 Predictions for Sales Leaders: THE YEAR OF VALUE, highlight some of the changes that sellers must be prepared to manage. These conclusions are generic and impact both product and service selling:

In 2020, CFOs got more involved with every purchase being made and every dollar of spend was scrutinized. Those who were able to quantify the outcomes associated with their spend were able to get their projects completed. Those that were not able to articulate value saw their projects overlooked by those who had a higher level of perceived value to the business.
To succeed in virtual B2B sales cycles in the coming year and beyond, it’s critical that CROs (Chief Revenue Officers) work with their sales leadership to ensure that their teams are intentional in discussing and quantifying value early in buying conversations and that every opportunity is substantiated with the strongest business case possible based on true economic impact and outcomes. To thread the value conversion through the full customer journey and ensure retention and expansion remain positive, sales leaders will also need to work with the customer success leaders to ensure that the company is proactive in communicating the outcomes of their solutions in order to maintain renewals NRR (Net Recurring Revenue) remains high.
Unlike in the beginning of 2020, sellers can no longer take clients to hockey games or dinner to build rapport. Instead, all information sharing happens digitally, via email or a web conference. You have minutes, not hours, to make an impact. According to McKinsey, “digital self-service and remote rep interactions are likely to be the dominant elements of the B2B go-to-market going forward, when selling to both SMBs and large enterprises.” And 89% of companies expect these changes to stick, anticipating they will need to sustain these virtual go-to-market models for 12+ months, per McKinsey.

Selling services now and post-COVID

The best time to sell a service contract is at the time of equipment sale. This is because your product sales teams are dealing with customers with the same issues your service sellers are experiencing. But the product people have successfully addressed their prospects challenges when presenting and closing your product sales. Therefore, the sales team can integrate your services into the overall justification (use case) and close the product and service sale at the same time if they are professionally trained and properly compensated. Also, adding services into the use case will likely differentiate your company and help close the deal.

Obviously, we all have a sizeable number of service contracts which are already in place and renew every year or so. If you are experiencing difficulties in securing renewals on a timely basis, then I suggest you spend some quality time with your sales management peer and get some help on how to dig out customer’s most pressing challenges. You can then present your solutions in a way that shows the customer how you can help them achieve their objectives while feeling that they are minimizing their personal risk.

If you find that there is a large gap between what you are offering and what you believe the customers want, then you have to put on your service marketing hat and find out their needs and the price they are willing to pay. Then you must update your offerings and create new value propositions for each customer segment and the services and contracts you want them to buy. Sometimes you can do it all by yourself and sometimes you will need a more experienced consultant to interview a representative number of customers and find out what your customers are willing to pay for. The consulting investment is generally minor compared to the contract sales you achieve.

Whatever you do, you must make sure that your contracts and other services create enough value for your customers so they will find it exceedingly difficult to move to a time and materials model or worse, move to a third party vendor.

Sustainability Can be the Outcome of COVID (podcast highlight)

Nov 20, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

In this final excerpt from a series featuring conversation between Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland the conversation takes a more philosphical turn as Brandeleer outlines why we should be taking the opportunity to...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

A SERVITIZED WORLD IS A SUNSTAINABLE WORLD

In a recent white paper authored by Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, published in partnership with Salesforce we looked at one of the big questions as we build the new normal and we plot our route to recovery – ‘should we be redefining the very definition of what the value proposition is of field service in a world of remote service delivery, zero touch service delivery?’

Of course, in this post pandemic, new world, it's an embryonic conversation. It's early days as we find our way towards these new modes of working, but it is imperative that we, as service leaders, are having these kinds of conversations today as we all build towards recovery together.

The white paper, which is available on the button beneath this article, goes into a number of aspects of this conversation and it's designed to promote the leaders of our sector to start thinking about these kinds of conversations. To further build on this discussion Oldland invited Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer onto the Field Service Podcast to push that discussion further and to hear Brandeleer’’s insight reflecting on the many conversations he has had working with companies from all different parts of the world across many all different industries, in terms of embracing digital transformation.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the discussion was how Brandeleer outlined that what we're doing now isn't just reaction to the pandemic but can also really be building a much more sustainable future as well.

"Can we actually sell much more services and our experience, and really think about the impact on the climate when we do this?"

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

“I think if you look at optimization right now there is a really deep advantage at moving towards these more advanced services-based relations on a recurring basis,” begins Brandeleer.

“What I mean by this is that if we want to achieve sustainability on this planet, consuming more products is not the way forward. We know that literally every single time you consume anything it's pollution one way or another. When you consume a service, well, there is not always pollution behind it. Going back to outcome-based services, sometimes actually, the outcome can be where the device is going to be more efficient, which is going to consume less energy, which at the end of the day, we make it a more sustainable device.

“The criteria we're going to have to think of is ‘can we use everything that is going right now in the world, especially in the field service world where many of the companies we have as customers, make the world a better place by servicing the device making the product better and keeping the world running.

“Can we use now all the skills we have around us to actually say, ‘Well, you know what COVID-19 that's one thing, but there is also climate change going on?’ I mean, literally three weeks ago in San Francisco, we had a day where it was night during the day, which was pretty disturbing, for sure. I was thinking like, well, these are sharp, guys. I mean, that's where we are going, we need to make sure that we are creating differentiation for services and that we literally stop selling too many products.

“Can we actually sell more services, leverage our knowledge and experience, and really think about the impact on the climate when we do this? Of course, we are not going to stop selling every product out there and for the install base that is 40 years old, actually keeping it running is more polluting than not having a new product. However, for some products, it may be a case of thinking ‘I can keep it for three years more, it's fine’. ‘I'm going to be fine with that, I'm going to maintain the asset to improve the efficiency of the device for two more years and that's going to save us maybe a little bit of steel, a little bit of co2 emission and we can optimise this.

“I think there is really a spot we can reach which this kind of optimal place with a balance between new products and services which by the way, we need to be offered in a trusted relationship style and get to a world where there are no surprises with the product, it's not breaking anymore - but on top of that, actually, it's helping the world to be more sustainable. I think that's really all Holy Grail I would love to reach at one point of time."

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

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A Future of Field Service Without Break Fix? (podcast highlight)

Nov 18, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss the true value of the service engineer and outline a future of field service where break-fix is no longer part of our day-to-day lexicon...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

IF A DEVICE FAILS, CSAT WILL GO DOWN

Perhaps one of the biggest questions of the current times for the field service sector, as we plot our way towards the new normal, is should we be redefining the value proposition of what field service delivery means, in an age of remote service and a post-pandemic world? It's an embryonic question. Indeed, it's an embryonic conversation, but it's one that the field service sector needs to be having.

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News recently authored a white paper on this topic, published in partnership with Salesforce to kick start the discussion. To get further insight into the area Oldland invited Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer onto the Field Service Podcast to gain further understanding and learn from Gary's experience working with a number of different organisations in the areas of digital transformation so we can start to piece together exactly how we should be rethinking the value proposition of service delivery.
In the above highlight from that conversation, Brandeleer and Oldland start discussing what the real value is of the field service engineer.

"The key aspect and all the research that we've run on where the value is regarding service engineers, suggests that the value lies in the fact that they are subject matter experts, and that's come from across research projects, interviews, Think Tank Sessions that we've run at Field Service News. It is a constant, consistent theme," explains Oldland.

"The real value of the engineer is having a subject matter expert on-site, so I think we might see an annual, biannual, or even quarterly review process where that engineer, the subject matter expert, goes on and spends the day with the customer. A scenario where they aren't just on-site to fix a couple of issues, but looks at how those assets are interacting looks at how the data that they have from other organisations, across the fleet and outlines to the customer how to optimise for those.

"Then the more day to day routine, or the quick break, fix problems that can be solved remotely, that's where that level of remote-first comes in," he adds.

What if you could transform this relationship into one where the customer will never expect and never experience a failure?"

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

"I think, I wish that, in 10 years from now we will not even know what break-fix is," adds Brandeleer.

"What I mean by this is with more and more new products being developed, the product shouldn't break anymore. It will need to be maintained - and it needs to be very clear how to maintain it, so it doesn't break. I think that's really where I wish all our customers were right now because when one of your devices is breaking, essentially, you can't have a good CSAT - it's nearly impossible.
"Yes, the service provider can get in to fix the problem quickly, and they can get the CSAT up again, but the break is going to see the CSAT going down for sure.

"What if you could transform this relationship into one where the customer will never expect and never experience a failure? Where they will never experience breaking points with your device? To say to the customer, we are going to create this relationship where we guarantee you that the assets won't break. We are going to make sure that we execute on this promise, delivering you a device and a service that leads to a position where the asset you need won't ever let you down - and at the same time, the customer understands clearly what they're going to pay for it. It's much easier as a relationship to say 'okay, yes, you're paying $1,000 a month for the service contract, but you have no break-fix, no surprises.'"

"I think that's really where I think these relationships can grow into true partnerships."

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

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The Potential Downsides of a Remote First Approach to Field Service (podcast highlights)

Nov 16, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss potential downsides to adopting a remote first-approach to service delivery and explore the potential for a hybrid model that blends on-site and remote service...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

WE WILL SEE A HYBRID MODEL EMERGE IN THE NEW NORMAL

In a recent exclusive white paper authored by Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland, we explored a number of different aspects of the emerging conversation centred around the importance of remote first service delivery.

The white paper looked at a number of different facets of that discussion including the technology and tools required to make sure we're delivering remote service effectively and also looking at some of the pros and cons of adopting a remote first by default approach both for the service customer and the service provider.

However, as this is a fairly embryonic conversation that has only recently gained significant traction as we see a huge host of companies beginning to embrace remote service delivery as a direct result of the pandemic, Oldland invited Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer to join him on the Field Service Podcast to hear his insight and to learn from his direct experience. With Brandeleer and his colleagues at Salesforce having helped so many organisations through digital transformation journeys, it was also an excellent opportunity to disseminate some of the thinking that goes on alongside that.

In the above excerpt from that podcast, the two begin discussing some of the nuances within the conversation, particularly looking at the challenges of remote service delivery and also the potential loss of benefits to having the field service engineer on site for the service organisation.

For example, it has long been said that the field service engineer is the eyes and ears of the organisation and their being on site could be a significant loss from the service providers side of the equation.

"I think that's an interesting discussion to have because I really think that there is going to be this hybrid model..."

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

“So there is an idea of the loss of the trusted advisor to consider that is for sure,” begins Brandeleer.

“Before, your trusted advisor was really just a technician on site, now I have a feeling that we will see this decrease a bit, but it's a balance. Companies must decrease that approach of having 100% of that trusted advisor relationship with the technician. Now, the balance may be 50% of that trusted relationship is done through contact on site, but 50% of that relationship is now built with the back office,” he explains.

“I think that's where this loss of the trusted advisor will be covered by other things,” Brandeller adds.

However, what about the issue from the other side of the equation, what value to the service provider lose in not having someone on-site, with a captive and attentive audience of the customer?

“I think there is nothing better than having someone on site to actually look at if there are other devices that the service provider could also service. Having a subject matter expert on there to interpret and understand how the site is working, what is the criticality of an asset against the whole system and the whole operation of the customer?

Indeed, it does seem that there are arguments in either way to the advantages of remote service delivery and on-site both for the customer and the service provider.

“Companies are getting these kind of quick fixes done via remote assistance, which is really helping on uptime,” Brandeleer muses. “However, some customers may say, Well, that was a quick fix that you did for me remotely and yes the device is fixed, but it seems like you need to send someone anyway. So when really is my problem really going to be completely fixed?”

“I think that's an interesting discussion to have because I really think that there is going to be this hybrid model where the first quick fix is done remotely – for example it could be like your pipe leaking. It might be quite annoying right now. Well, you, you do the quick fix of putting tape literally around the pipe and say, okay, for now shut down the machine, keep it like this, we will be on-site very fast.

“So somehow, yes, the leak was fixed, but it was a quick fix and now you need to really need to have someone on-site. So how can you add this discussion with customers where you say, okay, we really solve your problem completely, and when was the problem really considered as fixed completely?

“I think that's where the only way to have this kind of discussion is always going back to data.”

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

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The New Thinking Required for the New Normal (podcast highlight)

Nov 13, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss why there is foundational new thinking required as we build the new normal of field service...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

THE BENEFITS OF REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News recently authored a white paper in partnership with Salesforce, that focused on one of, if not the biggest questions of the moment in our sector. Should we be redefining the value of field service delivery in an age of remote service, especially if we move to remote first as a default. It was a wide ranging white paper that looked at a number of different areas including the benefits and the negatives for both the customer and the service provider themselves.

To further add to the initial thoughts raised in that paper, Oldland invited Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer onto the Field Service Podcast, to take the conversation a little bit further. Brandeleer was able to bring his own experience and of course, the wider experience of the team at Salesforce who've been instrumental in the digital transformation of so many organisations to the table. In the above highlight from that conversation Oldland and Brandeleer discuss some of the benefits of remote first approach for field service customers.

“The safety factor is number one, and is very real, especially right now,” explains Brandeleer.

“I think it will continue even after COVID. Safety is number one in field service, in general, and having someone on-site, COVID or not, is always risky. There is always a risk for the human there doing his job.

“So in some areas we definitely think remote assistance will help, even without COVID. For example, can you just have only one person on the roof whereas before you may have had maybe two or three technicians working at the same time in a small and dangerous area when maintaining a roof top device? So there are some safety aspects that will remain I think.

“What's also going on as well with the move to remote service delivery is that, we may lose out in some instances in having the trusted advisor on site, but at the same time it does create better customer relations with the back office. Before, often the only face of the company was the technician - now I have the faces of people that are working in the office, and helping me to find issues to my problem here on site. Where that's really a benefit is that suddenly instead of having just one single person as being the face of your company, you might have an easier way to present multiple persons in front of the customer.

“Even though it's virtual, having a face to respond to you on a call is still creating this trusted relationship,” Brandeleer adds.

"This is where field service companies can really start creating new business models, where you create a real partnership-based relationship with your customer..."

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

“I think the second thing that is also really important that remote assistance brings is the concept of the quick fix - can you really quickly fix the problem right now? Then maybe the service provider will also send someone in one month, or maybe in two weeks, to fully resolve all the problems, but at least the issue is resolved for now. The concept being to try to keep uptime as high as possible and I think that's where companies need to think about how they can create a business model with that first step of remote assistance.

One challenge that I'm hearing from some customers is that it’s challenging to invoice these remote assistance calls. This is because the customer is saying ‘you didn't send a technician on site so are you going to charge me the same price? Why are you invoicing me that much?

“I think that's where you need to go back to customers and say, ‘okay, maybe we change this kind of variation and we have now a service contract review.' Perhaps one suggestion could be a subscribed contract yearly where the customer can have 20 remote assistant calls within the year and on top of that you have the regular maintenance and most probably at one point of time, even preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance.

“This is where field service companies can really start creating new business models, where you create a real partnership-based relationship with your customer. You tell them very clearly the outcome they are going to get such as the device is going to be operational for 97% of the three percent remaining is where it would be down for maintenance. This is where you are saying to the customer ‘we guarantee you this and on top of that for good service and maximising this outcome, we are going to provide you multiple ways of calling us and asking for a quick fix.

“I think that's where people really start to get into the thinking around this. It is really bringing new base line for innovation for new business models. I think that's really something which is very important too.”

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

Tracking Customer Preferences is Critical in the New Normal (podcast highlights)

Nov 11, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss why it is essential to track customer preferences as we move out of the pandemic and head towards recovery...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

We CANNOT UNDERMINE THE VALUE OF THE TRUSTED ADVISOR STATUS OF OUR ENGINEERS

Having recently authored a white paper in partnership with Salesforce, in which he discussed the question of whether as field service leaders we ‘do we need to be redefining the value proposition of service delivery in a post pandemic world’, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News invited Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer onto the Field Service Podcast to discuss the topic further.

The paper took a particular lens on the fact that now as a sector we are much more focused on remote service delivery, potentially even moving to remote-first as a default. However, Oldland asserts there is a balanced and nuanced conversation that needs to be undertaken here. Whilst there are huge advantages to service delivery, being delivered remotely, not only at these testing times, but also moving forward as we start conversations around uptime and quicker fault resolutions, the flip side is, are we losing the trusted advisor status of the engineer?

In this highlight from the Field Service Podcast, Brandeleer and Oldland began to tackle this question around where those nuanced differences lie.

We should not undermine the fact that the technicians while they are on-site can see things that will be very unique from the fact that they are there in person..."

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

“We must also consider that some customers will just not like remote assistance,” Brandeleer commented.

“Yes, they understand the way that we do it right now for COVID-19. And at this stage it really makes sense, but you should really track the preference of your customers as well, because some customers will tell you ‘I really want someone on site, I actually miss that connection.’

“Some customers will tell you, it's fine. we can continue [with remote service delivery] even after COVID-19. With you coming in or looking at the site remotely and fixing a few things remotely. However, some customers will say, ‘well, you know what the technician is bringing so much expertise when he's on site on other topics. Maybe he can maintain one device, but there are five other devices that might be under contract, might not be in the contract - it doesn't really matter at this stage, because the technicians are always there to serve the customer and essentially help them.

“We should not undermine the fact that the technicians while they are on-site can see things that will be very unique from the fact that they are there in person. Then there is this relation of trusted advisor that will continue. It's not only fixing the problem that they have right now, it's actually quite helpful for the trusted advisor to come in the sense of actually seeing other things on site you could fix, maybe advising ‘you should actually maintain the device a bit more often’ and things like this.

"That's where I think you need to track the preferences of the customer. We need to know, is the customer happy with remote assistance? Is a customer, OK, for IoT? Does the customer prefer it if we send one technician, do they always prefer the same guy?

“I think it's really important to track preference from customers and not impose the technologies on to customers.”

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

We Must Have Our Technological Foundations Right in Field Service (podcast highlights)

Nov 09, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss the importance of having the foundations of field service management tools in place before we can explore the next iteration of service management technologies...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

In a recent exclusive Field Service News white paper written by Kris Oldland and published in partnership with Salesforce, we explored the shifting dynamics of the fundamental value proposition of service delivery in a world of remote first service delivery. However, while there was a lot of room for error in the first few months of the pandemic as we were all just grateful for the monumental efforts it took to deliver even basic service, now we are at a point where customer expectations are beginning to return.

Remote service delivery remains an acceptable delivery mechanism, however, the teething problems of some of our early initial attempts may no longer cut the mustard. Within the white paper Oldland explored some of the key technologies that are essential for efficient remote service that will meet customer expectation. As a follow up to that white paper Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer joined Oldland as a guest on the Field Service Podcast to bring his insight to the table. It was a wide-ranging conversation but in this excerpt from that episode the focus is on the tools we need to make remote service a seamless offering for our customers.

Of course, this was an area of the topic where Brandeleer was really able to bring a huge amount of direct insight, drawing upon the vast experience of himself and colleagues at Salesforce in terms of the companies that they've already directly helped with huge digital transformation projects.

"That's where I think there is still a part for technologies to still evolve. I think the whole install base little by little needs to be refreshed and evolve as well..."

Gary Brandeller, Salesforce

“I think what is critical is to do the basics, right,” explained Brandeleer.

“I think what we saw with COVID-19, was that the companies that didn't control their basics, were unable to actually react and adapt fast enough. These technologies are really, really impactful, but can only be impactful if you have the right data. They can only be impactful if you are already connecting your install base, if you're already doing warranty tracking, if you already know your customer when is calling you.

“From there, you can move little by little to a different solution. So for example, when you think about AI, there is the optimization engine that we are providing, and things like this, I guess, but I think there are other places where AI can really augment the experience of the technician in that context of ‘can we serve the customer?’ We must establish, can we use AI to offer remote diagnostics of the problem and can we find a solution?

“Ideally, you would even say, that AI if can identify one or two solution, can a human further expand on that and say ‘out of two solutions suggested by AI we should apply the first one, which can be pushed remotely via IoT, for example?” Brandeleer suggests.

“I think that's the vision of the future,” he continues before adding “Are we there? I think not yet. COVID-19 is going to accelerate that. But when you think about IoT connected devices, there are still many, many devices out there, especially in manufacturing where the install base that is pretty old, with assets still working and still being maintained. So, that's where I think there is still a part for technologies to still evolve. I think the whole install base little by little needs to be refreshed and evolve as well.”

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

What comes after remote service delivery (podcast highlights)

Nov 06, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss what comes next after the pandemic has brought the technology required for remote service delivery to the mainstream out of necessity

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

An EXPLORATION OF WHAT COMES NEXT

Having recently authored a white paper in partnership with Salesforce that explored whether we need to reevaluate the value proposition of service delivery as we all become more accustomed to remote service delivery, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News invited Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer on to The Field Service Podcast to explore the topic further.

Do we move to remote services first as a default, was a big theme in the white paper and the two discussed the pros and cons of such an approach at length. Here in this highlight from the full podcast, and to get further insight into that topic, we hear Brandeleer’s thoughts around what comes next, having seen remote service become table stakes almost overnight.

“One thing that is interesting to see as well is that remote assistance is a quick reaction for an issue that we all have right now,” Brandeleer commented

“Yet it's become a keystone for different things as well. So I think in the short term, remote assistance became really table stakes but I think there are other things that are going to follow this.

“When you think about remote assistance, you can speak to the customer, but for many, many call centre agents or technicians that are on the call, they might not know about the machine, and they might not have the machine connected to IoT. So I think this kind of rapid change for remote assistance will lead us towards the rapid change, for example, remote diagnostics, IoT, and all these other steps in the movement of ‘can I actually serve my customers remotely as efficiently as I was doing it before when I had somebody on site?’

“I think we are going to see an exploration of other technologies that are going to add on the remote assistance side essentially,” Brandeleer adds.

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The Acceleration of the Digital Transformation (podcast highlight)

Nov 04, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services

Gary Brandeleer of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about how we are seeing unprecedented acceleration of digital transformation in the field service sector...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY IS NOW TABLE STAKES

In a recent exclusive Field Service News white paper authored by Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News we asked an important question “Do we need to redefine the value proposition of service, as we look towards moving towards a post pandemic world?”

It is an important discussion, one that many senior leaders in our industry are currently having, yet it is also a topic that is evolving and emerging in real-time as we piece together what the new normal looks like for our sector.

To build upon the white paper, which had a particular lens looking at remote services and do we move to remote first as a default in our industry, Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer joined Kris Oldland on the Field Service Podcast to further drive the discussion forwards.

Brandeleer and the team at Salesforce have, of course had huge experience dealing with digital transformation and in the above excerpt from that conversation, Brandeleer and Oldland touch on whether the acceleration we've seen in the last six months towards digital transformation projects is truly unprecedented.

This is perhaps the biggest factor that will shape the way we view field service delivery both in terms of the value proposition and operational delivery. It is not only the leap forward that has been made, but it is also the rapidity at which almost all of us in the industry moved forward simultaneously that has caused such seismic shifts in our thinking.

As we saw in the last highlight from this podcast, we saw conversations go from “this is on our roadmap in five years’ time,” to “we need this now, how quickly can we implement it?”

"We were sending people onsite, now we are doing remote assistance. Can we do other things as well? Can we now invest in outcome-based services and push towards servitization and other things like this?"

Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

"I would say the field service world has been quite often protected from rapid disruption, like this,” Brandeleer commented.

“We've always had time to implement things [in field service], even the optimization engine that we provide to companies. The companies who are implementing such systems know and understand the benefits the solutions will bring, but they also know that it's important to take that time when you are dealing with technicians, when you're dealing with mission critical business.

“You need to take your time to change such important things and make them more efficient over a long period of time.”

“I don't think I've ever really seen such a disruption where, from one week to another, these technologies literally became table stakes. I think that what we see as well is, of course, COVID accelerated many, many other trends for field service. I think what's happening is that the one trend that we seek from that disruption, also is this agility that you see now in field service.

“We were sending people onsite, now we are doing remote assistance. Can we do other things as well? Can we now invest in outcome-based services and push towards servitization and other things like this?" Brandeleer asks.

"These trends have been there for a while and people have been talking about it, but not really acting very fast. Are we now going to see the mentality of ‘well, we did it for remote assistance, we implemented in two weeks, and we have return on investment here – can’t we just do that for other things that we wanted to do?’ The world is in such a chaotic state right now, we must take this opportunity to drive more acceleration of things that we wanted to do, things that were part of a roadmap, but now we want to accelerate them.

“I think this digital transformation that's out there which traditionally can take quite a while for many field service companies, I think people are going to take as a table stakes now as well. Now companies want these digital transformation projects to happen very, very fast. They went time to value and that's another trend that came out of this COVID-19 disruption."

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

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ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘covid-19’ CATEGORY

Buying a service contract pre-COVID

Changes in customer’s wants and needs now

Changes in the Sales environment

Selling services now and post-COVID

Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

A SERVITIZED WORLD IS A SUNSTAINABLE WORLD

"Can we actually sell much more services and our experience, and really think about the impact on the climate when we do this?"

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

IF A DEVICE FAILS, CSAT WILL GO DOWN

What if you could transform this relationship into one where the customer will never expect and never experience a failure?"

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

WE WILL SEE A HYBRID MODEL EMERGE IN THE NEW NORMAL

"I think that's an interesting discussion to have because I really think that there is going to be this hybrid model..."

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

THE BENEFITS OF REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY

"This is where field service companies can really start creating new business models, where you create a real partnership-based relationship with your customer..."

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

We CANNOT UNDERMINE THE VALUE OF THE TRUSTED ADVISOR STATUS OF OUR ENGINEERS

We should not undermine the fact that the technicians while they are on-site can see things that will be very unique from the fact that they are there in person..."

- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

"That's where I think there is still a part for technologies to still evolve. I think the whole install base little by little needs to be refreshed and evolve as well..."

Gary Brandeller, Salesforce

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

An EXPLORATION OF WHAT COMES NEXT

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Further Reading:

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts

REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY IS NOW TABLE STAKES

"We were sending people onsite, now we are doing remote assistance. Can we do other things as well? Can we now invest in outcome-based services and push towards servitization and other things like this?"

Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

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