ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘features’ CATEGORY

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined on the Field Service News Digital Symposium by Hilbrand Rustema, Managing Director and Founder of Noventum to discuss the findings of Noventum's Remote Service Delivery Benchmarking study.

During the discussion, Rustema outlines the key data trends that emerged within their study as well as offering his deep-level insight into the meta-trends of field service and how these have shifted dramatically in recent times.

In this excerpt from that detailed discussion, the two discuss if remote service delivery capabilities are set to become table stakes in the service portfolio as we move into the new normal of the field service sector.

Find out more about this study and the work Noventum undertake @ www.noventum.eu

 

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Want to know more?

FSN Premium subscribers and FSN Elite members can access the full-length interview plus many, many more in the Field Service New Digital Symposium.  If you have an FSN Premium account you can access the video on the button below. If you are currently on our FSN Standard subscription tier you can upgrade your subscription by clicking the link below. 

If you are yet to subscribe you can join 30,0000 of your field service management peers by subscribing to FSN Standard for free to gain access to a monthly selection of premium content or select either FSN Premium or FSN Elite for even more resources. Click the button above to visit our subscription page to find out more. 

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We would also point you to the excellent Service Centricity Playbook that is available over at Noventum Service Management's site which you can access on @ https://www.noventum.eu/the-service-centricity-playbook

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Further Reading:

• Read more exclusive Field Service News content from Hilbrand and the team at Noventum @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=Noventum
• Read more about Digital Transformation @https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Follow Noventum Service Management on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/ByNoventum
• Read more research-based content dedicated to the field service sector @ https://research.fieldservicenews.com/
• Connect with Hilbrand Rustem on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilbrandrustema/

In this fourth feature from our series of excerpts from an exclusive Field Service News white paper published in partnership with Help Lightning, that is exploring the practical questions surrounding Augmented Reality we look at how its introduction improves multiple facets of field service operations...

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Revolution Retail Systems have been using the Help Lightning Augmented Reality tool for almost two years, having had the opportunity to observe it being used and instantly seeing an array of opportunities.

As Clay Barker, Director of Service and Support, recalled on the Field Service News Digital Symposium, “we could see how we could use the tool in a number of ways, to improve customer and technician interactions as well as the ability of our internal staff and level two support to troubleshoot and diagnose, to make sure we send the right part, one time – the opportunity we saw was endless.”

When we look at the metrics that are often sat at the top of the list in terms of critical KPIs for field service organisations, we can instantly see how AR can be aligned in improving such metrics.

As is the case for many field service organisations, for Barker and Revolution Retail Systems, one of the most important of these metrics is the first-time-fix.

“The idea that we can’t get resolution on our first attempt is a challenge and if we can eliminate a dispatch, it’s an even larger benefit to the customer, because we’ve reduced the amount of downtime required to for resolution by using the AR effectively,” Barker explains. 

“I saw the opportunity that it was going to give my employees in communication with the customer. That is because what we’re asking the customer to do more often than not is look at the asset. We’re guiding them through this very technical, mechanical device, asking them to open access points, we’re asking them to turn knobs, we’re asking them to do lots of different things.

 

"As soon as I saw the tool, I listed off ten or fifteen ways in which that we could use the solution. It was so clear to me that that we could add value with this software..."

 

“We were trying to do that all via audio without a visual of what they could see and without being able to share visuals at our end that coudl guide them. 

“When I saw that we could take a pin and point to an access point and say slide this over to the left and show them exactly what we wanted them to do. The idea of how easy that made what we were trying to do from a communication standpoint, it was a no brainer for me.”

The team at Revolution Retail Systems did attempt some trials with video using apps like FaceTime, but while an improvement on audio-only calls, the functionality remained lacking the levels of interaction that sets AR apart as the obvious vehicle for remote service.

“At the end of the day, you can’t reach into it, you can’t point, you can’t take a screenshot, you can’t capture a picture off of it,” Barker explains.

“There are just so many other layers to how we use Help Lightning that has improved our business, outside of just customer experience. For example, the ability to capture pictures which allows more accurate invoicing. If the customer’s damaged the unit somehow, we can capture an image of it when we’re using Help Lightning; we can use that for support on our invoicing - there are hundreds of thousands of dollars that are spent on out of scope charges. Using the AR tools in this way provides us with the ability to invoice with more confidence with clear documentation and evidence.

“As soon as I saw the tool, I listed off ten or fifteen ways in which that we could use the solution. It was so clear to me that that we could add value with this software. There were savings, layered in savings over and over again on it – the ROI on it just was too easy!”

 

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News welcomes Gary York, CEO and Evans Manolis, Senior Consultant Help Lightning as the group discuss the practical considerations of implementing Augmented Reality in Field Service.

The discussion looks at whether Augmented Reality (AR) is set to become a key part of the field service toolkit, how the shift to remote services will change the role of the field service engineer, the importance of effortless when it comes to new technology, how AR can improve multiple facets of field service operations and how it can be implemented effectively within just a matter of months.

Here the Manolis outlines just how significantly the field service section has evolved in the last twelve months since the pandemic hit.

 

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Want to know more?

FSN Premium subscribers and FSN Elite members can access the full length interview plus many, many more in the Field Service New Digital Symposium.  If you have an FSN Premium account you can access the video on the button below. If you are currently on our FSN Standard subscription tier you can upgrade your subscription by clicking the link below. 

If you are yet to subscribe you can join 30,0000 of your field service management peers by subscribing to FSN Standard for free to gain access to a monthly selection of premium content or select either FSN Premium or FSN Elite for even more resources. Click the button above to visit our subscription page to find out more. 

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Sam Klaidman, Founder and Principal Adviser at Middlesex Consulting, analyzes the role of the Field Service Engineer as the customer's trusted adviser in his new article for Field Service News...

In a recent whitepaper Beyond Remote Service: Is now the time to redefine service delivery? Author Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News presents a number of compelling arguments that support the notion that Augmented Reality will not only change Field Service delivery, but the long-term outcome will be good for customers and service organizations.

However, neither Kris nor other current authors discuss what will happen to the Field Service Engineer’s role as the customer’s trusted adviser.

What Is a trusted adviser?

There is a significant difference between customer experience and a trusted adviser. Customer experience deals with all the aspects of how the customer interacts with the company, their products, advertising, people, and processes. A trusted adviser is someone in the company who customers reach out to when they want honest, unbiased opinions about aspects of the company’s products, processes, or people.

In most B2B companies, people generally accept as fact that field service engineers are customer’s trusted advisers. I believe that every FSE with more than a few years’ experience in their company has been asked at least once:

• “Is the new XXX worth buying to replace my old one?”
• “Should I install the latest version of the XXX software?"

And the customer expects, and usually receives, an honest answer with supporting reasons. Also, the first thing that a person who becomes a service customer learns is “don’t give your FSE a tough time or complain to their boss unless it is a significant issue!” They want to make sure the FSE trusts the customer and they expect to be able to trust the FSE’s recommendations.

How will remote support change the FSE's role?

Remote support is the enabler of self-service. The customer who has the proper skills and tools can work with the remote technical support person and perform many of the FSE’s tasks as long as spare parts are available. This new process cuts down on the need for the FSE to actually visit the customer’s site to fix problems. The FSE role changes to concentrating on big projects like installation, major upgrades, infrequent troubleshooting of difficult problems, or uninstalling equipment.

Therefore, the key questions are:

• “If self-service becomes the accepted business model, will using merged reality (MR), augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) systems remove the FSE as a trusted adviser?”
• “Will our B2B technical support professionals fill the trusted adviser role?”

Why is the FSE a trusted adviser and not the technical support engineer?

The pre-COVID interaction between FSE and customer is quite different from the interaction between technical support and the customer. To help understand these differences, it is useful to look at the following table that compares how customers view our FSE’s and technical support engineers with and without using MR/AR/VR.

 

 

 

However, if the FSE role changes to a few face-to-face infrequent interactions spread over a number of years, then the earned trust will not continue.

 

Who will replace the FSE as the customer's trusted adviser?

From the perspective of the service organization, the preferred choice is the technical support professional. But will technical support replace the FSE? Probably not. There are two reasons for this conclusion:

1. There is no continuity between technical support and customer. Tech support customers require a rapid response and as a result, calls are usually handled on a first-come-first-served basis by the first available operator.
2. There is no chance to create a lasting relationship because of (1.) above and because trust is usually earned from multiple face-to-face interactions.

And if not technical support, then who will take on this role? Possibly either sales or customer success.

Sales has a big obstacle to overcome. Historically salespeople were seen as being “coin operated.” The perception was that their recommendations were designed to increase their income. While today many salespeople place the customer’s best interest above their own, it will take a long time for the earlier image to be removed from people’s minds. And with customer success teams replacing sale for aftermarket upselling and cross selling, the salespeople may never get the opportunity to reset expectations.

Customer Success has a real opportunity for a few reasons:

1. They are relatively new so the do not carry any baggage
2. They are trained to work as consultants
3. They collect and use customer data to help increase the value derived from using the product and also for demonstrating the advantages of using what CS recommends
4. They are assigned to accounts and charged with building lasting relationships
5. Some under-utilized FSEs are likely to transition into customer success roles. They will bring their consultative skills and existing relationships along with them.

Therefore, in my opinion, the new customer trusted adviser will be someone from the Customer Success organization.

Key takeways

1. With self-service, field service will no longer remain as the customer’s trusted advisor
2. For B2B technical support, the people who call them are trained and know the limits of their competency
3. Sales will be unlikely to replace field service as the customer’s trusted adviser
4. Customer Success will probably succeed field service as trusted adviser
5. The career path for many FSE’s will be into Customer Success

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Leadership and Strategy @ www.fieldservicenews.com/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more exclusive FSN articles by Sam Klaidman @ www.fieldservicenews.com/sam-klaidman
• Find out more about Middlesex Consulting @ www.middlesexconsulting.com
• Read more articles by Sam Klaidman on Middlesex Consulting Blog @ middlesexconsulting.com/blog
• Connect with Sam Klaidman @ www.linkedin.com/samklaidman

 

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined on the Field Service News Digital Symposium by Clay Barker, Director of Service and Support, Revolution Retail Systems about their use of Augmented Reality within their field service operations.

During the discussion, Barker outlines how the tool has driven multiple benefits across their field service operation including improving customer satisfaction and increasing first-time fix rates as well as outlining how they achieved an effective roll-out which achieved excellent adoption rates in just three months of implementation.

In this excerpt from that discussion, the two discuss whether the introduction of Augmented Reality could mean we need to completely rethink the way we approach field service operations entirely.

 

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Want to know more?

FSN Premium subscribers and FSN Elite members can access the full length interview plus many, many more in the Field Service New Digital Symposium.  If you have an FSN Premium account you can access the video on the button below. If you are currently on our FSN Standard subscription tier you can upgrade your subscription by clicking the link below. 

If you are yet to subscribe you can join 30,0000 of your field service management peers by subscribing to FSN Standard for free to gain access to a monthly selection of premium content or select either FSN Premium or FSN Elite for even more resources. Click the button above to visit our subscription page to find out more. 

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In many ways the world in which we operate has changed so radically that the work-flows of just two years ago may today seem antiquated and outdated for many of us in the field service sector. Yet at the same time when it comes to the fundamentals of service excellence, the essence remains firm - consistently anticipating, meeting and exceeding our customer's needs. It is a balance that all field service companies are attempting to strike at the moment as Michael Maoz, Senior Vice President, Innovation Strategy, Salesforce, outlines in this in-depth article...

The last year has forced all of us to rethink how we live our lives and run our businesses. In field service, employees and customers are focused on:

• Health and wellness
• Contactless interaction
• Safety
• Self service and remote support to reduce onsite visits
• Job effectiveness to ensure completion the first time

The organizations that excel at field service delivery share two characteristics:

1. C-Level executive commitment to field service as an area important to the business
2. Collaboration of field operations in an atmosphere of trust and transparency

This demonstrates empathy and an emphasis on alignment with the customer. These organizations recognize the central role that field service has in shaping perceptions about the brand overall. They listen to their customers, field technicians, dispatchers, customer service teams, and ecosystem partners. Amidst ongoing change, they use what they learn to stay aligned with different, and evolving, needs.

The enterprise goal is to profitably deliver a coordinated customer experience that spans the entire customer journey. In this way, the brand promise is consistent and reinforced at each step that builds lasting bonds with the customer

 

The realities of customer expectations in modern field service:

Customers expect field service to be as rewarding and easy as the best service experiences they have anywhere. The businesses that demonstrated innovation courage during the global pandemic were rewarded with strong growth. This innovation courage came through particularly strongly in field service, where every technician visit held the potential of a risk to health. The best companies reacted immediately and reexamined their technology priorities. They relegated long running strategic projects in favor of short sprints like remote visual support

With remote support, customers can use their video camera to show a field engineer the issue. The customer doesn’t need anyone to come onsite, and gets faster resolution; the company saves the truck roll. Making this more powerful, an AI component can be used to suggest possible root causes. A second AI component inside of the content management solution can extract the repair documents and instructions most relevant to the particular issue

When needing to go onsite, to provide the best experience, companies have shortened booking windows and provide proactive notifications on arrival time to keep customers updated and give them time to get ready. This reduces missed appointments, increases effectiveness, and provides a better experience for both the customer and the employee.

 

"One of our customers completely re-platformed their aging and disconnected software for phone support, website, mobile app and technician mobile applications onto a single platform from Salesforce. The resulting speed, consistency, and contactless service allowed them to accelerate business during the pandemic."

 

There are great cost savings through the combination of technologies such as remote visual support to significantly reduce the number of field visits, together with content discovery and appointment management, which speeds up the time to repair and shortens the onsite visit.

Beyond the cost savings to the enterprise, the use of new technologies and processes in a reimagined world of field service demonstrates empathy and alignment with the customer and with the employee, particularly during the pandemic, but equally so beyond the pandemic.

Customers expect to engage with their service provider via digital channels with the same easy and intuitive experience that they already have in every aspect of their life. A savvy field service organization needs to connect with their customers on the customer’s preferred channel, which is increasingly SMS and social channels. Customers expect their service providers to know them, know why they're there, and have the tools necessary to complete the task on the first visit.

 

Customer-Centricity is Critical:

The best organizations think of what matters most to the customer. The best service visit is the one that never happens to begin with; proactive support and remote resolution are of top importance. When a visit needs to occur, seamlessly managing the appointment is top of mind. The ability to provide the entire care environment is often overlooked.

It is not enough to book the visit at the customer’s desired time. True field service excellence also requires the organization to select the right technician, with the right skills. Excellence requires the organization to communicate the time of arrival, a summary of the work done at the time of the visit, and a follow up message, through messaging or email, that invites the customer to agree that the work is complete. This final piece: Agreeing that the job is not done until the customer says that it is done, is vital.

There is tremendous upside potential to boost revenue through field service for some industries such as home and business services, HVAC, medical equipment, complex device or infrastructure maintenance.

Many of our customers in these industries are already advanced in providing revenue-generating value-added field services. Some of these are remote diagnostics, remote software updates, remote monitoring, training the customer on best practices, owning centres of excellence that guarantee uptime, and selling uptime rather than selling the product in the first place! Look to these advanced industries. Learn from the best! There is no reason to invent best practices when they already exist in adjacent industries. In all of the cases we have covered, technology has been baked into reimagined processes.

 

What are the performance indicators that are the most meaningful to improve the brand? To lower costs? To boost sales? To improve the effectiveness and well-being of employees? To improve the customer experience?

 

One of our customers completely re-platformed their ageing and disconnected software for phone support, website, mobile app and technician mobile applications onto a single platform from Salesforce. The resulting speed, consistency, and contactless service allowed them to accelerate business during the pandemic. Their knowledge-empowered technicians to easily build trust with the customer.

These technicians are more highly motivated because they feel the empathy that the business has for them. They also have all of the information in their hands, and they know that the customer is situationally aware. These technicians are in the best position to build brand loyalty and deliver on upsell/cross-sell targets that many service businesses have.

The companies that are the trailblazers in improving field service to be more customer and employee-centric are measuring the value of improvements in five areas:

• Brand loyalty
• Costs
• Sales
• Employee experience
• Customer experience

Selecting the first targets for improvement requires measurement. Here are practical and measurable questions to ask: What are the performance indicators that are the most meaningful to improve the brand? To lower costs? To boost sales? To improve the effectiveness and well-being of employees? To improve the customer experience?

Each of these questions has to be converted into real numbers. To lower costs, you might decide that job duration overruns need to be reduced 25%. For customer experience you may decide that the customer needs to select their own time window and within a two hour window, and they must receive a text message upon confirmation and before arrival. These all can be converted into quantifiable numbers.

The savvy field service leader will seize the momentum and move forward boldly with a customer and employee centric approach to innovating field service processes. Define success criteria by selecting the targets you want to measure, determine several relatively small changes to impact those targets, iterate quickly, and measure each process through the eyes of the customer and the technician. There has never been a better time to make the move from follower to leader, and your customers are expecting nothing less.

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Further Reading:

• Read Tiffani Bova's recent blog about how with the right technology and training, your field service team is well-positioned to promote upgrades and new offerings, especially at the time of a successful service experience:
  Meet the Sales Team You Didn’t Know You Had: Upsell and Cross-Sell with Field Service for Growth
• Read Salesforce playbook sharing insights from over 4,000 global field service decision-makers:
  Strengthen Your Field Service Management Strategy
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Salesforce on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/salesforce
• Follow Salesforce on Twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce

In this final article of a series of excerpts from a recent e-book published by IFS, we discuss how to achieve the full benefits of digital transformation with less risk, lower cost and in a fraction of the time.