Field Service in the early decades of the twenty-first century has become an increasingly tricky beast to tame. Customer expectations are hurtling forward at breakneck speed to what some companies view as almost impossible standards to reach. The...
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Aug 20, 2019 • Features • Management • Ageing Workforce Crisis • workforce management • field service • Uberization • Uberization of field service • Uberization of Service • Industry 4.0 • localz • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
Field Service in the early decades of the twenty-first century has become an increasingly tricky beast to tame. Customer expectations are hurtling forward at breakneck speed to what some companies view as almost impossible standards to reach. The customer of today is not only better informed than ever before, but via the widespread amplification of social media, more powerful also.
In this series, run in partnership with Localz, we look at precisely what these new challenges of modern field service are and how your organisation can adapt and thrive in this brave new world. Part one in the series explored the concept of Customer Expectations 4.0 and now we discuss a new approach to FSM systems...
Aug 19, 2019 • Features • Software & Apps • Operational Efficiency • Video • first time fix • Service Execution Management • Outsystems • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
The balance between achieving high levels of customer experience and delivering operational excellence that will drive service revenues forwards is a finely nuanced one. In this first excerpt from a video presentation run in partnership with...
The balance between achieving high levels of customer experience and delivering operational excellence that will drive service revenues forwards is a finely nuanced one. In this first excerpt from a video presentation run in partnership with Outsystems we hear from Rachel Brennan, who goes into greater detail about the importance of getting this balance correct...
Aug 16, 2019 • Features • The Field Service Podcast • b2b • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
In the latest Field Service Podcast, Chris Raddats, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Operations at the University of Liverpool discusses the managerial implications of Customer Experience Management in a B2B environment.
In the latest Field Service Podcast, Chris Raddats, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Operations at the University of Liverpool discusses the managerial implications of Customer Experience Management in a B2B environment.
For firms operating in the B2B sphere Customer Experience Management (CEM) can be a key differentiator in a complex and competitive marketplace. Chris Raddats from Liverpool University outlines some of the key dimensions in CEM that Managers need to understand to stand out from the crowd.
In this podcast, Chris also refers to another project he and a colleague currently are working on around branding in a B2B context. He is keen to speak to product and manufacturing companies who are servitizing to contribute to the study. If you are interested in getting involved then drop Chris an email at C.Raddats@liverpool.ac.uk or connect with him at LinkedIn here.
Aug 14, 2019 • Features • Management • service strategies • Columbus UK • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
Chris Mean, COO at Columbus UK, says a fully integrated field service programme drives customer satisfaction. Here, he outlines what you need to know and what you need to do to to stay on top of your service delivery.
Chris Mean, COO at Columbus UK, says a fully integrated field service programme drives customer satisfaction. Here, he outlines what you need to know and what you need to do to to stay on top of your service delivery.
Gartner research suggests that by 2020 70% of organisations will cite customer satisfaction derived from integrating field service as a primary business benefit. But how, and even more importantly, where can field service be integrated into a company’s operations in order to reap these customer rewards? This article outlines the key elements that enable companies to increase their service revenue while keeping associated costs at a minimum, and explains how field service can be seamlessly put in place to add value to business operations.
The path to field service success starts with understanding the key aspects that contribute to both boosting service revenue and controlling service costs. These elements need to be implemented well and are an essential first step for any organisation considering how to integrate field service into existing business operations and systems.
Provide relevant warranty information
If a business has a largely manual warranty claim process, this is likely to result in ‘warranty leakage’ – where a warranty service is unintentionally provided beyond the remit of a business’ warranty program. This is typically due to limited visibility of accurate warranty data – from the perspective of management in terms of where warranty costs are likely to occur, and from a field service engineer’s point of view regarding what is covered by warranty. The implementation of technology and business insights in the form of auto-entitlement warranty checks are important, as employees benefit immediately from relevant warranty information whenever required.
Offer service flexibility
Considering how a business typically segments existing customer markets, the service offered to each segment and how customers consume products is key to identifying new target markets. It is essential to remember that a customer’s business expectations are built on their personal experiences as a consumer, particularly in today’s connected, always-on world. Flexible service offerings will ultimately enable businesses to enter new market segments.
Capitalise on sale opportunities
Perhaps the most obvious way to increase service revenue is to take advantage of positive interactions with customers. Each time a customer service agent or field service engineer has a strong conversation with a customer represents a potential opportunity to up-sell – but agents and engineers must have the necessary tools to identify these opportunities. Whether it’s selling additional products during a service visit or selling an extension or improved warranty package, it is essential that employees know what products are available and recommended, have stock readily available if it is a physical item and can process transactions at point of sale.
Fully integrate mobile devices
The quicker each field service engineer can close and approve a customer work-order, the more a business can speed up cash flow. Engineers must therefore be equipped with mobile devices that enable immediate customer approval and closure or work-orders, but more significantly these devices must be fully integrated into the existing accounts receivable system to automatically generate customer invoices. With better integration of commerce platforms this allows for payments to be taken instantly.
Better manage inventory
Having business insights into overall part consumption, by job or product, can reduce inventory levels. The key for businesses to effectively manage their inventory is to ensure that they have the right parts on hand or have visibility of nearby stock on another van to improve ‘first time fix’ rates. This also helps determine which parts are fast moving or failing and allows a business to centrally stock the right levels.
Optimise service schedules
Optimising scheduling and on-the-fly routing are another necessity for a business that employs a high number of field service engineers and as a result handles shorter service calls. When routes are optimised this has great benefits in terms of headcount and fuel costs. Implementing on-the-fly scheduling engines allows businesses to react to real-world situations such as cancellations, urgent appointments, delays and traffic to ensure a high level of efficiency and customer satisfaction is maintained.
Where exactly in a value stream can field service help?
For businesses to achieve the true customer benefits that come with connected field service they need to know exactly where it can be integrated to add value to business operations. There are four main areas where its influence is most effective:
1. Repair
If a machine is broken, a service technician makes a field visit to resolve the issue. The repair may be covered by warranty or incur charges because of the time and parts consumed, but this is where field service is advantageous and cost-effective – problems are fixed at the first time of asking, in real-time. A business that can provide a service that is timely, when the customer requires it, is key to gain a competitive advantage.
2. Maintenance
Moving beyond customer expectations of timely maintenance and repairs, businesses can now shift towards offering maintenance on a predictive basis. Using smart IoT devices, machines can automatically inform both the business and customer that a malfunction is likely to occur and that maintenance is required. This is an especially valuable aspect of field service because breakdowns and operational downtime are reduced.
3. Installation and commissioning
This applies to products that need to be installed by a service technician. Once a product has been installed, the technician will run several tests to ensure the machine or device is fully operational –the commissioning process. For businesses operating in the B2C world, flexibility at this stage is especially important because customer expectations have changed – they expect to be able to purchase a product and schedule its installation at a convenient time for them in one, unified transaction.
4. Business consultation
A field service visit can also include a critical analysis of a business and its customer demands – it isn’t always a hands-on appointment with a machine or device. It is important that a business is connected in a feedback loop with its customers to better understand their requirements and further enhance future business operations – particularly because customer satisfaction is now considered the most important aspect of field service ahead of price and quality.
Flawless field service: A strategic enabler for customer satisfaction
To achieve an end-to-end, unified customer experience, an effective field service solution spanning repair, maintenance and installation and commissioning should be implemented.
During all stages of the field service customer journey, businesses need to make sure their field service engineers are empowered and able to identify and execute sales opportunities, as well as having the ability to capture customer feedback.
This is how businesses can consistently benefit from the revenue potential that comes with integrated field service, while ensuring customers are satisfied because they are getting the experience they have come to expect.
Gartner research suggests that by 2020 70% of organisations will cite customer satisfaction derived from integrating field service as a primary business benefit. But how, and even more importantly, where can field service be integrated into a company’s operations in order to reap these customer rewards? This article outlines the key elements that enable companies to increase their service revenue while keeping associated costs at a minimum, and explains how field service can be seamlessly put in place to add value to business operations.
The path to field service success starts with understanding the key aspects that contribute to both boosting service revenue and controlling service costs. These elements need to be implemented well and are an essential first step for any organisation considering how to integrate field service into existing business operations and systems.
Provide relevant warranty information
If a business has a largely manual warranty claim process, this is likely to result in ‘warranty leakage’ – where a warranty service is unintentionally provided beyond the remit of a business’ warranty program. This is typically due to limited visibility of accurate warranty data – from the perspective of management in terms of where warranty costs are likely to occur, and from a field service engineer’s point of view regarding what is covered by warranty. The implementation of technology and business insights in the form of auto-entitlement warranty checks are important, as employees benefit immediately from relevant warranty information whenever required.
Offer service flexibility
Considering how a business typically segments existing customer markets, the service offered to each segment and how customers consume products is key to identifying new target markets. It is essential to remember that a customer’s business expectations are built on their personal experiences as a consumer, particularly in today’s connected, always-on world. Flexible service offerings will ultimately enable businesses to enter new market segments.
Capitalise on sale opportunities
Perhaps the most obvious way to increase service revenue is to take advantage of positive interactions with customers. Each time a customer service agent or field service engineer has a strong conversation with a customer represents a potential opportunity to up-sell – but agents and engineers must have the necessary tools to identify these opportunities. Whether it’s selling additional products during a service visit or selling an extension or improved warranty package, it is essential that employees know what products are available and recommended, have stock readily available if it is a physical item and can process transactions at point of sale.
Fully integrate mobile devices
The quicker each field service engineer can close and approve a customer work-order, the more a business can speed up cash flow. Engineers must therefore be equipped with mobile devices that enable immediate customer approval and closure or work-orders, but more significantly these devices must be fully integrated into the existing accounts receivable system to automatically generate customer invoices. With better integration of commerce platforms this allows for payments to be taken instantly.
Better manage inventory
Having business insights into overall part consumption, by job or product, can reduce inventory levels. The key for businesses to effectively manage their inventory is to ensure that they have the right parts on hand or have visibility of nearby stock on another van to improve ‘first time fix’ rates. This also helps determine which parts are fast moving or failing and allows a business to centrally stock the right levels.
Optimise service schedules
Optimising scheduling and on-the-fly routing are another necessity for a business that employs a high number of field service engineers and as a result handles shorter service calls. When routes are optimised this has great benefits in terms of headcount and fuel costs. Implementing on-the-fly scheduling engines allows businesses to react to real-world situations such as cancellations, urgent appointments, delays and traffic to ensure a high level of efficiency and customer satisfaction is maintained.
Where exactly in a value stream can field service help?
For businesses to achieve the true customer benefits that come with connected field service they need to know exactly where it can be integrated to add value to business operations. There are four main areas where its influence is most effective:
1. Repair
If a machine is broken, a service technician makes a field visit to resolve the issue. The repair may be covered by warranty or incur charges because of the time and parts consumed, but this is where field service is advantageous and cost-effective – problems are fixed at the first time of asking, in real-time. A business that can provide a service that is timely, when the customer requires it, is key to gain a competitive advantage.
2. Maintenance
Moving beyond customer expectations of timely maintenance and repairs, businesses can now shift towards offering maintenance on a predictive basis. Using smart IoT devices, machines can automatically inform both the business and customer that a malfunction is likely to occur and that maintenance is required. This is an especially valuable aspect of field service because breakdowns and operational downtime are reduced.
3. Installation and commissioning
This applies to products that need to be installed by a service technician. Once a product has been installed, the technician will run several tests to ensure the machine or device is fully operational –the commissioning process. For businesses operating in the B2C world, flexibility at this stage is especially important because customer expectations have changed – they expect to be able to purchase a product and schedule its installation at a convenient time for them in one, unified transaction.
4. Business consultation
A field service visit can also include a critical analysis of a business and its customer demands – it isn’t always a hands-on appointment with a machine or device. It is important that a business is connected in a feedback loop with its customers to better understand their requirements and further enhance future business operations – particularly because customer satisfaction is now considered the most important aspect of field service ahead of price and quality.
Flawless field service: A strategic enabler for customer satisfaction
To achieve an end-to-end, unified customer experience, an effective field service solution spanning repair, maintenance and installation and commissioning should be implemented.
During all stages of the field service customer journey, businesses need to make sure their field service engineers are empowered and able to identify and execute sales opportunities, as well as having the ability to capture customer feedback.
This is how businesses can consistently benefit from the revenue potential that comes with integrated field service, while ensuring customers are satisfied because they are getting the experience they have come to expect.
Chris Mean is COO at Columbus UK.
Aug 13, 2019 • Features • Management • Ageing Workforce Crisis • workforce management • field service • Industry 4.0 • localz • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
Field Service in the early decades of the twenty-first century has become an increasingly tricky beast to tame. Customer expectations are hurtling forward at breakneck speed to what some companies view as almost impossible standards to reach. The...
Field Service in the early decades of the twenty-first century has become an increasingly tricky beast to tame. Customer expectations are hurtling forward at breakneck speed to what some companies view as almost impossible standards to reach. The customer of today is not only better informed than ever before, but via the widespread amplification of social media, more powerful also.
In this series, run in partnership with Localz, we look at precisely what these new challenges of modern field service are and how your organisation can adapt and thrive in this brave new world...
Aug 09, 2019 • News • deloitte • report • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
Consumer confidence remains flat in Q2 amid continued economic uncertainty, according to the Deloitte Consumer Tracker Survey.
Consumer confidence remains flat in Q2 amid continued economic uncertainty, according to the Deloitte Consumer Tracker Survey.
Findings from the Deloitte Consumer Tracking Survey has revealed the UK consumer confidence index is -8 per cent; down four percentage from this time last year. Customer experience expectations, however, show no signs of slowing, with over half of UK consumers feeling more loyal towards brands that show a deeper understanding of their preferences and priorities. This means that now more than ever, businesses will be focusing on providing a seamless digital customer experience, optimising customer engagement.
While technologies like AI and automation will be critical for businesses to remain competitive in these times of such low consumer confidence, it is important not to overlook the importance of in-person human interaction. Retailers with omnichannel strategies retain an average of 89 per cent of their customers, according to Teleperformance DIBS, and any businesses failing to focus directly on customer experience will struggle with customer retention.
Rajnish Sharma, from Teleperformance Digital Integrated Business Services, comments: “With people so worried about their personal finances in the increasing economic uncertainty, it will take a lot more than just a good product or service to persuade the average consumer to hand over their cash. Consumers are looking for frictionless, hassle-free and personalised customer experiences. In fact, in the next year the customer experience will be more important than product and price. To remain competitive in these times of economic uncertainty, businesses need to be available to provide round-the-clock, real-time service – at the consumer’s convenience. While AI bots are widely being introduced to improve engagement and streamline communication, it’s important to note that human interactions are not just cognitive, but social and emotional.”
Sharma continues: “Regardless of whether the consumer is interacting with a brand from behind a screen, over the phone or in-person, they want their issue or query solved as quickly as possible. 96 per cent of customers who have to expend a high level of effort to get their issues resolved become more disloyal, compared to just 9 per cent who have a low-effort experience, according to Gartner.
“AI-powered chat bots act as an enabler for customer service teams and companies need to ensure they do not underestimate the emotional intelligence which only comes from human agents. While confidence in the economy remains low and the rate of spending growth slows down, it’s the businesses that recognise the human nuance that will be the ones that stay afloat in the UK’s extremely competitive marketplace.”
Aug 06, 2019 • News • CSG • Software and Apps • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
CSG has released CSG Field Service Management, an award-winning, cloud-based advancement of its Workforce Express product suite, enhanced to help companies integrate field service management into their overall customer experience.
CSG has released CSG Field Service Management, an award-winning, cloud-based advancement of its Workforce Express product suite, enhanced to help companies integrate field service management into their overall customer experience.
The CSG Field Service Management product suite transforms the way service technicians conduct their work, providing a real-time, 360-degree view of a company’s field operations:
- Global scalability and availability: CSG, an Advanced Technology Partner in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network, has extended its cloud-first approach to its Field Service Management product suite. By hosting the product in the cloud, it provides CSG clients with global availability, scalability, and data security associated with cloud investment to meet and exceed their needs, in real-time.
- Real-time data: Pushes important and urgent information including real-time traffic, scheduling, and communication to field techs, agents, management and customers, while accommodating in-app communications between users, in real-time.
- Personalized, branded experience: CSG Field Service Management enables companies to customize how and when to communicate to its customers, utilizing channels such as email and the web to give customers real-time updates about their appointment including the ability to follow the technician while they are en route to the customer location.
- Optimized operations: Using a modernized user experience to more accurately reflect today’s field service personnel, CSG Field Service Management takes a data-driven approach designed to provide an integrated and proactive customer experience that optimizes operations and accelerates user adoption across a company.
- Automated scheduling: Automated appointments allows back-office service teams to focus on what is important, when it is important. Gives companies the ability to automate service provider arrival times, skills and scheduling constraints.
- Extensive suite of APIs: Integrates into any existing billing system and third-party applications. Integrate jobs from any order management system, track employee time, labor and inventory used from any ERP system. Automate equipment activation, warranty checks or customer signatures.
“CSG has been delivering field service management solutions to clients for more than 20 years,” said Chad Dunavant, head of global product management, CSG. “Leveraging our vast expertise in the FSM space, we are excited to introduce our modernized product suite to help maximize our customers’ worker productivity, while positioning the product to support the growing demands of the service ecosystem.”
Jul 30, 2019 • Paul Whitelam • field service • field service engineers • field service management • service engineers • Service Management • Uncategorized • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
Paul Whitelam, VP Product Marketing, ClickSoftware, outlines why turning to look at how effective our customers’ are at dealing with issues can shine a light on your own performance and productivity...
Paul Whitelam, VP Product Marketing, ClickSoftware, outlines why turning to look at how effective our customers’ are at dealing with issues can shine a light on your own performance and productivity...
Whether trying to get more jobs done in a day, more jobs per technician per year, or more fixes achieved on the first try, there are plenty of time-tested ways to show improved field service performance through metrics.
But if you’re still not sure that your field service is delivering peak performance, it might be time to look in a surprising place for a new set of KPIs: your customers. How hard are they working? At a time when every business is obsessed with delighting their customers, many underestimate the role customer effort plays in determining the quality of the experience.
The Customer Effort Score is a new KPI that measures how much effort your customers put into getting an issue resolved. If retaining loyal customers is a priority for your business, read on.
When your customer goes to work
Today, you can order something online in a matter of seconds and get it the same day. You can even hail a ride in minutes at the click of a button. Companies like Amazon and Uber are making it effortless for customers to receive great service. These on-demand businesses have set a high standard for all service organizations.
Great customer experience can begin as soon as an issue arises. Great customer experience can begin as soon as an issue arisesIt can start with their first phone call, their visit to your appointment booking portal, or how they are notified of the technician’s ETA.
The same is true for bad experiences. To uncover all the ways you could ease your customer’s pain even before you fix their problem, consider every potential interaction with your business. Here are three ways field service organizations can reduce customer effort.
1. Enable true self-service
To some, self-service means troubleshooting and problem solving done by the customer. For others, the definition includes providing ongoing access to important information that helps the customer not only treat issues but continually get the most value from their product or service.
This also should be extended to include how easy it is for the customer to request help or information, book an appointment, or speak directly to a representative. Much of this can be accomplished with a well-designed and easy-to-navigate website, connected to a knowledge management system that shares information consistent with what your employees see.
2. Empower everyone involved
For every step of the service journey, you want customers to feel in control of the process and that you’re treating their time with respect. Dispensing confusing or incomplete information does not help.
Your front-line employees should also be empowered to do the best job they can. Will they have prior access to the customer’s case so they can arrive prepared? Will they be routed to a job site with the correct parts and equipment already in their vehicle? Can your call center and mobile employees make decisions based on flexible or well-defined policies to reach to a satisfying resolution faster?
Imagine a customer who needs to explain a problem to the newly-arrived technician after already doing so over the phone or online, and then is unable to get the problem fixed due to a missing part or lack of skills. Now they have to restart the process to make a new appointment. How would they rate their effort on a 1-5 scale?
3. Integrate, integrate, integrate
To enable the control, transparency, and empowerment customers want, tight cross-channel and cross-team integration is critical. While customers might prefer phone agents over automated chat bots or SMS, ultimately, they want the option that gets them the help they need as quickly as possible.
However many channels you offer for communication, ensure customers are easily transferred and that information is shared seamlesslyHowever many channels you offer for communication, ensure customers are easily transferred and that information is shared seamlessly. You want to minimize the times your customer is sent to another department. But if it’s unavoidable, you can send them along with all the relevant information so they don’t have to start over with the next person on the phone.
Similarly, the way your field service professional interacts with your customer should be standardized and consistent with your brand. Integrate your communication channels, your CRM, as well as your processes and policies, to consistently deliver service that minimizes customer effort.
High effort is inversely related to good experience
User experience designers who work on everything from smartphone apps to retail spaces understand that minimizing friction and effort is good for customer experience, retention, and repeat business. Research by Gartner and Forrester encourages businesses to focus on how they can lower customer effort to win hearts and minds. Making your customers feel that their time is valued and auditing for areas of improvement is a great starting point.
Besides boosting your workforce efficiency and productivity, examine where your organization can minimize customer effort. This creates seamless experiences from the moment the need for service arises. Your customers will thank you with their loyalty.
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Jul 30, 2019 • Features • Management • Mark Brewer • Digital Transformation • Experience Economy • field service • field service management • IFS • Service Management • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations • Managing the Mobile Workforce
In his previous article for Field Service News, Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director, Service Management, IFS introduced the concept of the experience economy, now he outlines why digital transformation is the key to driving it forwards...
In his previous article for Field Service News, Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director, Service Management, IFS introduced the concept of the experience economy, now he outlines why digital transformation is the key to driving it forwards...
Here's a scary statistic. The average person clicks, taps or swipes a mobile device 2,617 times a day. It shows just how much time we now spend interacting with the online world. Banking, booking holidays, shopping, socialising and so on, we increasingly live our lives through a screen. And with every interaction, we expect a particular level of service in return.
With digital technologies continuing to advance rapidly, along with consumers' understanding of the possibilities they enable, people demand an immediate and seamless experience whenever and however they make contact. These expectations, which are already prevalent in the home, have now evolved in the workplace. This has major implications for the planning and delivery of service, and specifically how companies look to drive customer loyalty (and ultimately retention) via a superior experience.
Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have a significant role to play here. AI isn't strictly new of course. But what is new is the way it influences today's experience economy by affecting outcomes, driving engagement and in many cases scaling the human.
Superior engagement
A comprehensive customer contact strategy is essential for any service organisation. Traditionally, this has focused on voice or email; now it includes an entire omnichannel capability with multiple media touchpoints. As you'd expect, this evolution is being driven by younger age groups. 26 per cent of millennials use social media and 29 per cent use texts and messaging apps to reach out for service, while three-quarters of all people over 44 years of age prefer using more traditional means such as emails or phone calls.
For example, if you want to book an appointment for someone to come and service your boiler, you can organise it without having to speak to anyone, online. A chatbot replaces the 'real' person. This is more convenient for you, more cost-effective and efficient for the organisation you're talking to - but it also raises your expectations.
This means responses must be faster, and there's no room for error. There's no time for long calls with operators or the patience to be passed from department to department. And gratification must be swift and successful, however you interact - whether via a web portal, email, virtual assistant, or even an instant messaging service like WhatsApp.
74 per cent of companies offer some form of self-service for customers - and the majority have implemented it specifically to improve customer experienceThis has implications for businesses looking to maintain positive customer relationships. An operation which has traditionally focused on contact centres, predominantly powered by phones (i.e. voice), must now deploy a comprehensive, omnichannel communications suite capable of serving a wide range of contact media, anytime and anywhere.
This can be problematic. Many companies can't afford to extend their contact centre facilities to multiple locations, or cater specifically to every market they're working in.
However, help is at hand with virtual contact centres which can make efficient use of distributed and varied workforces, automatically matching agents with requests and customers. This also drives a more responsive, agile, and scalable workforce where agents can engage in multiple simultaneous conversations using multiple chat sessions and providing consistently high service levels.
The B2C world already does this pretty well. 74 per cent of companies offer some form of self-service for customers - and the majority have implemented it specifically to improve customer experience. B2B organisations need to follow suit. The rewards are big for those who do it well. Companies with effective omnichannel communications enjoy 28 positive customer experiences for every one negative experience, while companies without this experience just two positive experiences for every one negative*.
It's a no-brainer. Doing omnichannel well can create up to 14 times more positive customer experiences. Crucially, this also influences customer loyalty. To look at it another way, your business will potentially only lose one in 29 customers, as opposed to one in three!
Powering the experience
The driver here is digital transformation, enabling new levels of service provision. Customer interactions differ based on age, demographics and preferences. Digital supports them all. It's no longer just your customer services department talking to these customers, it's your equipment, IoT sensors, AI, chatbots and more: predicting behaviour, recommending actions, solving issues, intuitively. The more it does this, the smarter it gets.
This technology is transformational and can bring huge benefits to your business. However, you need the right infrastructure in place to manage it.
So, what next?
To see examples of how IFS has helped customers drive digital transformation in their operations, and understand how omnichannel customer engagement can improve your customer’s experience, visit ifsworld.com.
*Forrester: The role of emotion in customer experience
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd, an independent publisher whose sole focus is on the field service sector. As such our entire resources are focused on helping drive the field service sector forwards and aiming to best serve our industry through honest, incisive and innovative media coverage of the global field service sector.
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