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At the recent AfterMarket conference in Amsterdam Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland hosted a panel debate with three speakers key to servitization; Professor Tim Baines, Aston University a leading proponent of the movement, Brendan Viggers, Product and Sales Support for IFS Aerospace & Defence division who has worked closely with a number of companies such as Emirates on moving towards a servitization model and Koen D’Haeyer, Global Manager Service Development & Technical Services Lely who had been through the journey himself with Dutch Farm Technology company.

In the first part of this feature we looked at whether servitization was limited to just large size companies and how to manage the change involved in moving to such a radical new approach. Here in the final part of this feature the debate continues....

Kris Oldland: There is a point there that you touch on briefly about not just getting the buy in from the internal teams but also from the customer. Data can play a significant part in servitization and that presents a challenge in it’s own right, as data is very precious currently. How can we overcome that and encourage our customers to let us access their data?

Koen Dyaeyer: To start I’ll mention one thing, there is an aspect on this benchmarking data with your customers which is of course, that you are obliged to do this anonymously that is clear. You can tell the a customer ‘look this is your data this is the rest of the market and this is the variation’  but you cannot be open to all extents.

But the value is not in knowing exactly who is doing what, the value is in comparing yourself with others and knowing what to learn, and how to then improve.

On the other hand it is also true that you have to select your targets when your developing these value propositions. This approach may not fit every type of customer immediately. I would say twenty to thirty percent may adopt really quickly, really embrace it and are immeditely fond of the concept, another twenty to thirty percent will be lagging – it is not in their mindset and then the part in the middle is where you have to push. And when you have pushed and achieved the 80% mark then you can approach the laggards.  That is more or less how we approached it so we didn’t lose to much time and energy in developing it.

 

Brendan Viggers:  Certainly in the defence market the classic contracting model is performance based logistics where the OEM is providing a platform and then the through life support of the platform as well, so all the servicing that goes with it and they will then offer a SLA or guarantee the fleet availability for 80% of that time.

What we are finding is there is a need for partnership between the OEM and the customer. Because the OEM needs to know how the customer is driving that vehicle. If he is taking that tank and forcing it across a plain over the bounds of normal operational use then it’s going to cost that OEM more to service it. So can be a win-win but if you want that platform you need to be prepared to operate within acceptable bounds.

Koen Dyaeyer: To add to Brendan’s point there I would add that in our case we are looking for the win-win-win because we are in between but if we focusses on the win-win-wins we can really drive forward.

Tim Baines: This debate about ownership of data has been going on for over 10 years. To my mind its the use of the data that is important. I’ve seen it in Xerox’s case where they will turn around and say OK the contract price is this for an advanced services contract on print management but if you let us share that data and use that data it’ll come down to this.

Audience Question: What would you say are your most important KPIs to actually monitor and drive your service business today?

Koen Dyaeyer: The most important group of KPIs are the service profitability KPI’s we have data on overall revenues and data on cost indicators. We cannot always be exact with th eservice cost indicators to the penny but we know what it is likely to be. So the service profitability is a major KPI.

Then there is customer satisfaction. The first question we ask in every technical assessment is what type of customer do you think this is and also is he satisfied? So we link that data to understand the relationship of data to customer satisfaction.

 

Then for the operations we also have the performance KPIs of the product so mean time between failure, mean time between breakdown, some performance indicators specific to our industry so number of failed milkings for example that help us see if the farm management is running smoothly. So performance, customer satisfaction  and service profitability – these are the three main KPI group we use.

Kris Oldland: Have these KPIs evolved as you have moved through this process of servitization? Have they evolved as you gather more data and therefore Insight into your customers?

Koen Dyaeyer: Actually we started with maybe 8 or 10 basic KPIs and what we started to get excited about was the analysis we could do with them. We were able to look at the years of technical experience and see how that aligned to customer experience and service profitability. We learned a lot out of that initial process and then some new KPIs grew out of it .

Tim Baines: I may have seen something slightly different in some of the companies that I have looked at. A quote that comes to mind is by Henry Ford who said profit is a result of service. Therefore when I look at people like Alstom the number one KPI is around customer experience.

That means the customer experience, which in their instance would be the amount of time a customer is waiting because a train has failed to show up, that customer experience is the number one KPI.

For Alstom that’s key because it relates directly to the customers key core business process, which is about moving people. Then there are KPIs around the customer experience when somebody is onboard the train and so on. It’s the manufacturer that then translates those to mean time to failure etc.

What is very interesting to me coming from a world of production, where the main KPIs were cost, quality and  delivery and everything was around that then moving to the service world where KPIs are centred around the business processes of the customer, and because those customers differ so must those KPIs differ.

 

Audience Question: I am understanding this correctly that the fourth industrial revolution is about re using our IP and industrial assets to serve customers better?

Tim Baines: I think that we are looking at a very special form of organisation. What is particular about the technology innovators you see here is that if they have the internal procedures in place to capture how the product is performing in the field and then feedback to the design process so the product becomes better suited for application, then that innovation loop is what is distinctive about the manufacturing companies and is different to technology innovators.

Ultimately it means language like through life support  are actually a characteristic of the old product mentality, we’re talking about a capability being delivered. Indeed even the notion of After-sales service is a product based concept because we are thinking of the notion of  producing something selling it transactionally and then after sales.

Another point to make is that we talk about servitization from the point of view of a manufacturing company, a company that’s got technology innovation capabilities delivering advanced services. But we also have the phenomena of companies which are service companies, technology integrators, developing their ability to technology innovate.

So there are two ways that servitization can arise. Predominantly we talk about a move from manufacturers to manufacturers that deliver service but we can also talk about service providers developing their abilities to redesign products.

 

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Alan McNamara of Ultan Technologies gives us a run down of some key considerations for implementing mobile workforce technology....

1: Use Existing Phones/Devices

In the not-so-distant past, most on site applications were running on Windows handhelds. These already expensive tablets were usually ruggedised at an even greater expense, along with high maintenance and support costs. As a result, using technology on site was considered to be too expensive for most companies.

Nowadays, a smartphone or tablet will suffice for the vast majority of applications, which can either be provided by the company, or workers can use their own if a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) arrangement is in place.. These relatively cheap devices are easily replaced, and workers are used to using their own devices, meaning it’s an infinitely easier change to manage than it once was, with far less training involved.

2: Integration - Do it Simply

With any workforce management system, a huge project can be put in place to integrate it completely with back end systems. This sometimes misses the point. It’s best to get incremental improvements in productivity with minimal resistance to change and with minimal cost. Large-scale integration costs time and money and can sometimes delay a project to the point where it is shelved. It’s better to accept that some manual steps will still be required as part of the initial operation. Over time, more onerous manual steps can be automated.

3: Phone vs Tablet vs Laptop

This will depend on the type of data you want to collect. If there are huge forms (see next tip) and lots of writing required, then often laptops are easier for the workers. In most cases, though, tablets and phones are better. They are cheaper, lighter and they will force you to make your forms easier to use - thus ensuring a greater chance of success.

4: Small Forms

Many companies will have their workers fill in extensive paper forms when they’re out on site, much of which is unnecessary for a particular scenario or job. When it comes to digitising this form for use on a smartphone or tablet, companies are eager to cram all of the paper version onto the new format, believing that it’s easier to have everything on the one form. As a result, you end up with cumbersome forms that will see low worker buy-in, as it will be easier to use the paper version instead.

The best way around this is to split the form up into several, smaller and more manageable forms, particularly at the beginning. Make them all as simple and easy-to-use as possible. What data do you really need? What data must the worker fill in and what data can be automatically captured?

One of our most successful implementations has been with a company where their first form had one field and space for a photo!

5: Allow for Client Access?

Allowing your clients to access the back-end of your MWM (Mobile Workforce Management) system can result in a number of tangible benefits. Firstly, it helps portray the idea that yours is a company that is completely transparent with their clients, by giving them the opportunity to use a custom login to access reports of work done on their sites.

Secondly, having the functionality to allow your clients to see evidence of the work being carried out for them in real-time can be used as a USP when vying for new business. In our experience, clients don’t actually use this feature very regularly, but are content in the knowledge that it’s there if required.

 6: Report Generation

Deriving quality reports from the system is a top priority for many of our clients. For the most part, this involves being able to customise reports to suit them, rather than tailoring the information they collect to fit a pre-defined template. We find that companies are far more likely to adopt a system that allows them to create a customised form for their workers, which in turn results in a customised report to fit the company’s needs.

7: Photos/Videos/Voice?

Will your MWM system require media such as photos, video recordings, and voice memos? For most mobile workforces, photographs are essential to show evidence of work done, but the other two are perhaps not as prevalent. We’ve found that video and voice capturing work well in tandem for reporting on any unforeseen incidents or accidents that occur on site. They can give a much clearer picture as to what the problem is on site, allowing for Site and Health and Safety Managers to act accordingly, and minimise work stoppages.

8: Asset Management

Some MWM systems have the functionality to track assets from the warehouse right through to installation. If this added functionality is something that could benefit your business, it’s worth enquiring as to whether or not this is provided by any systems you are evaluating.

One of our clients in the UK track roadside broadband devices from the moment they leave the warehouse, right through to when they are installed. This allows them to assign responsibility to a specific worker for this expensive equipment, as well as providing them with the ability to monitor battery life and warranties on each piece of equipment after it’s installed.

9: Native App vs Online

One of the final considerations to take into account is opting for a system that is app or web-based. Whilst this may seem like a trivial enough decision, there are many important differences to take into account when choosing a system. For example, native apps can run offline, allowing for your workers to gather data even when they’re out of network coverage. This is obviously imperative for companies whose employees predominantly work on sites with poor network coverage. Additionally, native apps usually have a more intuitive and better-designed UI (user interface), as they are designed specifically for the device that it is downloaded on.

On the flip side, browser-based systems will work on any system that can connect to the internet, which can be handy for companies using a BYOD approach - as workers will invariably have an array of devices they will be using.

 10: Licence Model

Choosing the right licence model for your business is key to successfully implementing a MWM system from the off. For a lot of smaller businesses, a per-user per-month licence will be the most attractive versus a yearly or “once off” licence.

A per-user per-month licence negates the impact of making a large payment up front, only for the system to prove unsuccessful once trialled. It also means the system can be easily scaled as you see fit,  allowing you to start off with a small number of users to trial the system, and then add more licences as you see fit.

 

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Speaking exclusively to Field Service News ServiceMax COO Scott Berg has discussed the similarities between widely differing industries, the rapid rise of ServiceMax and why the IoT hasn't quite got fully up to speed as yet which we featured in the first part of this interview.

In the second part we saw just why Berg believes the field service software specialists are in pole position to deliver the much promised benefits of Big Data to field service and why their relationship with Salesforce has evolved to a more equal footing.

However, whilst not afraid to identify the strong position ServiceMax have established, of which he is clearly proud. He also goes to great pains not to diminish the respect and thanks he has for Salesforce.

“I can’t say enough about what an enabler it was.” He adds quickly “ For a company like us, and I’ve been there six years, we should be nowhere by now. We should have just blown the first three years just trying to get this thing running and begging to get those first twelve customers.” He says only half joking.

“Here we are getting a hundred and something customers a year. And 40 a quarter so I think it has been a really unique experience because of that.”

Of course whilst things have panned out rather nicely for Berg and the ServiceMax team, with such a close alliance there was always the danger that unless if they didn’t evolve their own IP as swiftly as they have that their rapid rise to prominence could have been stunted, with the company being dismissed as simply an add on for Salesforce.

Was this part of their thinking when they took such an aggressive development path, was it always a case of needing to establish their own clear identity within a specific timeframe?

“I don’t know that we thought about it deliberately that way but I think its sort of ended up that way in hindsight.” Explains Berg

“I think honestly what we were responding to was the demand of the market. Our focus, our mission has really been about that field service engineer, that end user, the guy in the van or on the end of that ladder so that drove us to do some things that Salesforce wouldn’t do like offline data synchronisation, and the kind of configurable process that you could run across a variety of devices and schedule optimisation. Mathematical optimisation is not really a feature of the Salesforce website so I think its really user driven demand”

He pauses a moment before continuing “But then you can look back on it and say wow we built all that stuff because we really needed to. It just so happens that is fairly independent intellectual property value specific to our market.”

This focus on the engineer brings us onto another topical and somewhat controversial topic, namely wearable computing.

“We’ve been working for several months now on a Google Glass prototype, and showed it around a couple of our smaller user groups.” Berg begins when I ask him if the advent of Saleforce Wear has spurred ServiceMax into developing  solutions for wearable devices.

“A lot of customers of ours are in safety conscious environments. Where there are lots of checklists, where the engineers are working in real hands-free, high risk environments. We’ve been looking at Google Glass as a compliment to mobile phone apps, where you can get into a hands free series of procedures, or check off certain standards, action the completion of certain tasks that is required for maintenance in regulated environments and things like that.” He adds.

But is there an interest amongst their client base for wearables at all?

 “We’ve had a few projects around this and we’ve run it by a few customers.” Berg starts. “There is definitely a cool factor. Even looking at the various mobile devices its been kind of eye opening for us to identify what are each customer going to use these devices for? Let’s take Google Glass as an example, battery life is not outstanding, and many of the visual cues still involve tapping your temple to get it to do some things. So whilst the promise of a hands free, see what I see, remote eyes and ears kind of thing is out there, you’ve still got to think of the practical reality of how is somebody going to use this on a job site.”

“It’s been an educational process for us more than anything. How do these gadgets interplay with each other, in a course of a day?”

This of course has been one of the big challenges for the widespread adoption of wearables. Whilst the hyperbole that has surrounded such devices, particularly Glass has focussed on the devices as a replacement mobility tool, this is not how Berg sees it.

“I think it’s definitely a complimentary device, that’s the way that we see it. I don’t know if its going to be right for everybody any more than I could tell you everyone should use an android phone or everyone should use a tablet.”

For ServiceMax it seems that the emergence of wearables just means further ongoing developments for yet more platforms, which is just par for the course.

“I think one of the things we’ve embraced smartly is we’re not going to be able to dictate to every customer how they want to operate, so we’ve got a windows laptop version that works disconnected.” Berg explains

“This is a big deal in medical regulatory environments because they plug in peripherals and download diagnostics and reprogram cancer surgery equipment and things like that.”

“However, Coca-Cola said ‘look I want to take calls and log my work pretty simple work process – iPhone only.” He continues.

“I’ve got other customers that are deploying a number of devices. They’ve got laptops, they’ve got online web-presence and then they’ve deployed our iPad solutions as well. So I think they [wearables] are just another compliment and we need to be ready to make our experience happen across all of those because we won’t be able to dictate to people ‘oh yeah we’re the Google Glass guys and you have to do it this.”

For the time being I don’t think Berg and the team at ServiceMax need to worry about that. Infact I don’t think they need to be worried about being pigeon holed as anything other than ‘Oh yeah ServiceMax, they’re the guys that everyone seems to be talking about’. 

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Whilst technology can play a big part in improving the efficiency of a field service operation, nothing is as important as ensuring your field service managers are fully armed to do their job. With this in mind we have teamed up with specialist field service training organisation SGSA to bring this series that looks at some of the key concepts that make a good field service manager great. 

The topics included in this series, written by SGSA’s Senior Consultant Steve Brand, are based around the content of SGSA’s 4 and half day, university standard training course for field service managers and Field Service News readers are eligible for a discounted attendance. Further details, a discount code and links to registration are all included at the bottom of the page…

In the last article, we highlighted how many field service managers work their way up through the ranks and learn a management style through trial and error or from their managers and their managers’ manager.

In summary, management training is often informal.  And yet, John Maxwell, author of The 5 Levels of Leadership, identified that one of the five key reasons that employees choose to follow a leader is because the leader has helped them to progress their career.

Quite simply, managers should take a more formal approach to discussing career aspirations with field service engineers and to help them gain skills that will move them towards their personal career goals.  In return, employees show appreciation through greater loyalty to the leader and by working harder.

 

Just taking an interest and providing career guidance is a good start because it demonstrates to the engineers that we are interested in their success beyond them meeting our monthly targets.  Empowerment is also a form of career development.

Continuing our series of four articles, here are two more powerful management tips to help Field Service Managers improve working relationships with their engineers and increase productivity.

Concept #5: People Development

A key difference between training and development is who is ultimately responsible for making sure that both of these things happen.  Training is the responsibility of the field service manager.

The manager must provide training to the field service engineer so that the engineer is capable of doing the job that he is being paid for.  If the field service engineer has not been properly trained then he is unlikely to have the skills required to be able to do the job.  Without skill, there can be no performance.  On a side note, having the skills does not guarantee that the field service engineer will perform to his highest level.  For high performance, the field service manager needs to provide training and motivation.

Conversely, development is the responsibility of the field service engineer.  Only the engineer can know how he would like to see his career progress.  Hence, there is little benefit to be gained from a lengthy career discussion with a field service engineer who is content with his job and doesn’t see that it is in his interest to gain new skills.  For the rest of the team, the career development discussion gives the manager the opportunity to understand the aspirations of the field service engineer and to demonstrate his commitment to helping the engineer prepare for his next job.

 

Training and development plans are often updated and agreed by the field service manager and the engineer annually, typically in the final few minutes of the performance review meeting.  The recommendation is that the training and development discussions take place separately and within two weeks of the performance review meeting.

This gives the field service engineer time to consider the job skills that were highlighted in the review as needing improvement and what actions he thinks he could take to help him meet the required standard.

The training and development meeting should be conducted in two stages with the field service engineer clearly understanding the difference in the stages.  The first stage is the training discussion led by the manager.  The second stage is the career development discussion led by the field service engineer.  In some cases a career development discussion is inappropriate, for example, for a new hire who needs a large amount of training or an engineer who is subject to the performance improvement process.  In these cases, the manager will need to say that a discussion on career development should be delayed until the field engineer is competent in his current role or the unsatisfactory performance issues have been resolved.

Concept #6: Empowerment

Micro-management is widespread because many managers do not realise that they are micro-managing their employees.  Assigning tasks, giving directions on how things should be done and unnecessary checking of what has been done are common forms of micro-management.

With the exception of new hires and less experienced members of staff, field service managers should take the approach of setting the goals and letting the field service engineers decide for themselves on how best to achieve those goals.  Also, given that the engineers have more knowledge about the customer, machine, situation, etc., they are often in the best position to make the decisions.  The alternative is for the engineers to try and transfer their knowledge to the manager so that he can make the same decision as they would have done anyway!  The latter approach wastes time for the manager, engineer and customer.

 

It is important that managers understand the difference between delegation and empowerment and use language that reinforces a culture of empowerment.  Consider these statements: ‘Please call the customer, tell him the part is out of stock, apologise and re-schedule the appointment’, versus ‘Do what you have to do to make the customer satisfied and let me know if you need me to help’.

The first statement is an example of delegation, i.e., these are the tasks that I want you to do.  The second statement is an example of empowerment, i.e., I am giving you authority to take whatever actions you think are necessary.  Managers are often surprised as to how field service engineers rise to the occasion when they are trusted to get on with the job by themselves.

Some caution is required before empowering field services engineers and it is not necessary to give all engineers the same level of authority at the same time.  Managers need to consider the return on investment of empowerment in terms of time saved, customer satisfaction, employee motivation and so on, versus the cost of a poor decision.

A frequently made decision that if made badly once per year would cost the company £100 is worthy of empowerment.  A decision with a business cost of £10,000 in a worst case scenario is not.

A ‘top four’ factor of employee motivation is the level of responsibility that they are given and empowering field service engineers is equivalent to saying ‘I trust you’.  As mentioned in the previous article, as trust goes up, productivity increases and costs come down.  Hence, empowering employees is a win-win situation for the field service manager and the engineers in many ways.

 

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Could you or your colleagues benefit from attending the next SGSA Field Service Manager Course?

The Field Service Manager program is dynamic and interactive, with students frequently working in small groups, presenting findings and working on the course case study.

The program is four and a half days of course content and university-level instruction and learning that is focused on managing a field service operation.

If you want to see more information or register for the course you can do so by clicking here

PLUS! Field Service News subscribers receive a 10% discount on the course fee when quoting reference FSN0317

 

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While many IT experts are predicting further big things in IoT this year, Nick Frank suggests they are missing one more vital letter...

2014 saw an explosion in our societies understanding of the potential for connected devices.

Driven mainly by the SMARTphones and the ease of connection to the internet,just about everyone from your primary school kid to their grandmother is getting connected.

And is it my imagination, but utter the words Big Data, Analytics and IoT and they all seem to nod ‘sagely’? So with all this ‘wisdom’ in the world, it’s not surprising that in their struggle to differentiate, Service IT Solution providers have been falling over themselves to describe capabilities that manage knowledge, bring transparency and leverage big data.And in fairness this is not just talk.

The capabilities on offer are impressive, as Field Service, Parts Management, CRM technologies are increasingly integrated into seamless end to end solutions.

Indeed this trend is driving the next wave of consolidation in the industry. Led by PTC with their acquisition of Axeda and ThingWorx, solution providers are looking to develop the technology platforms to enable Remote Services.

Another example of the big bets being made is GE’s multi million dollar investment in their Predix platform for Machine to Machine (M2M) communications.The effect of this hype has been to dramatically raise the profile of the potential value connected technologies could have on industry.

But I am troubled by this jargon and thinking. In my mind these technologies and capabilities have no value if you do not do anything with the information they create. Yet we are all being told that if you don’t have an Internet of Things (IoT) strategy, you are dead!

But while working on a couple of projects in the area of Analytics and Remote Services, I had a Eureka moment.

It’s about the way we think!

Ok I admit, its probably blindingly obvious to the readers of FSN, but I believe that 2015 will increasingly become the

year of S.

And that is not because it’s now the ‘Chinese year of the Sheep’!

No, I believe we have it all wrong when we talk about IoT. It should be the iotS…

S for Service Thinking!

In simple terms ‘Service Thinking’ is the culture or even passionate belief that value is only created by applying your technical or business knowledge to improve whatever it is your customer is trying to achieve.

But to do this professionals will start to adopt new ways of thinking and I am afraid new jargon.

We will hear more of ‘Co- Creation’ & ‘Service Experience’. Metric will be biased towards outcomes rather than operational inputs. ‘Continuous improvement via learning’, which is a very much part of the service psyche, will enable companies to find new ways to ‘run, transform and innovate’ their business.

Indeed this type of thinking is not just limited to field service. Already most really profitable manufacturing companies have moved away from a product dominant focus to a Service Centric approach.

These companies focus on value creation in their customer’s business leveraging their technology and inherent know how to earn better than average margins.

Indeed this is a concept I will be promoting in 2015 together with the Servitisation guru Professor Tim Baines of Aston Business School, as part of the Manufacturing Services Thought Leadership network initiative to be launched later this year.

But it also dawned on me, that it is our imagination that is now the limiting factor.

Frankly the technology is out there to do more or less what ever you want. The big gap is our understanding of what these technologies can do for our business.

Indeed it is Service Thinking and Imagination, which companies must master if they are to reap the full rewards offered by these new technologies.

Already larger OEM’s are exploring these concepts in a very pragmatic way. We see them building infrastructure that sits between their Service Management System and their devices as they discover the benefits of remote services.

In the coming year, together with FSN, we will explore the progress they are making. So in 2015 if you want to stay ahead, don’t be a sheep…. Be a Service Thinker!

 

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There were some big claims at the start of 2014 around the impact that wearables would have both in business and in the mainstream and with this weeks announcement of the now imminent AppleWatch launch similar noises are being made as fashion and technology come ever closer.

But Apple has a mountain to climb if they are to be the brand that finally cracks the consumer smartwatch market.

Rewind back a year and we were being told this was the year of the wearable. Just one year  later and there is a distinctly different attitude doing the rounds, one that not only lacks the optimism of last year but also has a defiant hint of those pessimistic ‘I told you it wouldn’t work’ types.

Add to this the lingering hint of failure that followed Google's recent announcement that they were ending their Glass Explorer program, effectively stopping the sale of Glass to the general public until the next iteration of the product (which will be ‘when they’re ready’ apparently) and the general air of smugness of the naysayers has become that much more tangible.

 

Yet Glass isn’t dead, far from it and we’ll come back to that in a moment.

But first, let’s look at the wider question around wearables and why 2014 didn’t live up to the hyperbole as being the ‘Year of the Wearable”.

With high profile wearable launches from Samsung, Apple and of course Google being widely anticipated for 2014 it was with much anticipation that Wearables which had been touted as the next big thing from as early as 2008 would finally breakthrough and gain mass appeal in the consumer market.

Yet the fact is that we as consumers just weren’t ready.

In fact research from digital research firm L2 recently confirmed what we pretty much new in that whilst 75% of consumers are aware of wearable technology, just 9% actually had any desire to purchase and a measly 2% confirmed they actually owned a wearable device.

 

However, whilst there is a clear lack of desire to be dubbed a ‘Glasshole’ by adorning a wearable device, this doesn’t equate to why there has also been little adoption in the world of enterprise. Lets be honest hi-vis jackets aren’t exactly high-fashion (well not since the early nineties for those ex-ravers out there) but I highly doubt that has halted their sales in the various industries they are required.

Personally, I think there are two key reasons why we have not seen wearables become popular in a working environment as yet.

Firstly in all the excitement and hyperbole surrounding wearable computing we’ve perhaps overstated the impact and the sheer power of a wearable device. One common misconception I hear around smart watches in particular is what is the point when I can do everything that the watch offers on my smartphone?

This is a fundamental flaw in the thinking around smartwatches and wearables in general. Whilst they offer much of the same functionality they are not devices to replace your phone or tablet, they are companion devices to enhance the productivity of the your phone. And in field service in particular such enhancements can be particularly powerful.

In an environment where working hands free is of a huge benefit, then the ability to have a phone conversation without having to have one hand restrained holding your phone can be very advantageous.

‘Well that could be done using a bluetooth headset’ some might say. Yes it could. However, dialling a number isn’t, whereas it is via a smart watch (often via voice activation). Another good example of smartwatches being put to good use in field service would be to take photos of any issues or fixes etc.

So again we here the cries of ‘well I can do that on my phone – is it so hard to take out my phone out from my pocket to take a photo’.

Of course the answer is no it’s not hard, it’s just quicker to do it on a smart watch – which is just a handier extension of your phone anyway. And when we come down to it isn’t that the point of technology to make things quicker and easier? If not then why the hell did we move away from pen and paper in the first place?

 

However, if we are talking about using wearables as a true companion device then perhaps a better example would be using the two devices in tandem.

For example lets say an engineer believes that the problem lies at the back of a piece of equipment that is inaccessible. The only solution would be to move the equipment to check.

However, an engineer with a smartwatch may be able to position the watch around the device whilst viewing the footage on their smartphones screen. A quick visual check using this combination of technology could confirm whether or not this is where the issue lies, saving the hassle of unnecessarily moving the equipment, speeding up the engineers workflow.

There are already a number of apps developed that allow this functionality.

However, none are designed with this specific application in mind and herein lies what I believe to be the second reason we’ve yet to see smartwatches make an impact in industry. Simply a lack of developers designing apps specifically for specific business niches.

There have been some attempts, most notably ClickSoftware’s Shift Expert release on Saleforce Wear, but for wider adoption we need more apps.

And this is where we return to Glass being still very much alive. Whilst in some corners Google’s removal of Glass from public sales is seen as an acknowledgement of failure, the truth I believe is very much different.

Whilst there have been reports that developers for consumer apps are losing interest in creating apps the list of Glass Certified Partners has increased with apps being developed for a wide variety of industries.

One of those Glass Certified Partners is Pristine.io who despite only coming up to their second year have already grown from start up to a $5.5M venture financing backed company with 20 staff in their very short lifetime.

For them the opportunity to make Glass and other similar smartglasses work in a field service environment is not only a very desirable goal but a very achievable one also.

 

Commenting on the future potential of Glass Kyle Samani, Founder of Pristine.io said.

“Google have publicly said they are actively investing in the enterprise version of Glass and we are one of the very few certified Glass Enterprise Partners, we work with Google very closely both with engineering and business process around Glass, Enterprise and the future of the Glass product and we are very excited by where it’s going”

“Google is supporting us with hardware, software with engineering support and business support where we need and that’s been great.” He added

So it seems business is where Google’s core focus is, which makes sense as the benefits of smartglasses for Field Service is potentially massive, particularly with companies such as Pristine.io developing applications designed for purpose.

It may take a little longer than at first expected but Glass is far from dead, and as more apps are developed for wearables devices the more wearables will become integrated into our working lives. I firmly believe it will happen, we just all got a little too excited too early.

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Some really interesting statistics around CRM put together in this infographic created by Salesforce...

In many cases, there may be great differences between a customer's wants and a customer's needs; but sometimes there may actually be only very little difference writes Bill Pollock, President for Strategies for Growth^SM

It all depends on the specific customer. However, the way in which you manage each customer relationship will ultimately make the greatest difference with respect to your prospects for gaining customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Typically, the more knowledgeable customers are about the equipment they are using, the more their wants and needs are likely to be the same; however, less knowledgeable customers may not really have a clear idea of the distinction between the two.

For example, a copying machine customer may want you to clean the equipment while you are on-site if they had been noticing black marks or spots on the copies coming out of the unit; when, in fact, the main reason for the black marks may have entirely been due to a worn-out roller or other part that needs to be replaced.

In a case like this, what the customer really “needed” was clean copies coming out of the machine; however, what they thought they “wanted” was simply for the machine to be cleaned. If you had listened only to the customer, you might have embarked on a faulty corrective action with respect to satisfying their needs. Remember, when it comes to repairing the machine, you are the expert - not the customer!

 

Similarly, a customer may want you to take the machine apart and put it back together again, or replace a part that is not really defective, simply as an exercise to ensure that the copier continues to run “smoothly”. However, what the customer may really need is a more effective preventive maintenance schedule for the equipment that would otherwise negate the need to actually have to take the machine apart or perform a parts swap, etc.

In this case, what the customer “wanted” was for you to take the machine apart and put it back together again; however, what they really “needed” was a machine that would not break down in the near future as they were preparing for a major copy run. Properly scheduled preventive maintenance would have accomplished this, making any further corrective actions entirely unnecessary.

The best way for you to understand the differences between customers' wants and needs is to help them to understand the differences in the first place. It all goes back to the “Listen, Observe, Think, Speak”, or LOTS, approach.

 

By listening to the symptoms that the customer is describing once you arrive on-site, and the problems that they tell you they have been experiencing until you got there, you will probably already be in a good position to surmise what is needed.

However, upon further observation with respect to the machine, you will undoubtedly have an even clearer picture. In fact, by this time, you should probably already have a good idea of exactly what the customer “needs”.

This would also be a good time to explain to the customer what the initial diagnosis is, what you plan to do about it, and the anticipated amount of time it will take for you to repair it. By providing this information early, you can avoid running into situations where the customer is telling you they “want” one thing and being forced to tell them they really “need” another.

In other words, the best way to avoid a "debate" about what is “wanted” vs. what is “needed” is to identify the problem and appropriate course of action as soon as possible, keep the customer informed on an as-needed (or as-requested) basis, and let them know what they “need” upfront, before they feel compelled to tell you what they “want”.

 

Of course, it may not always be this easy. There will always be situations where what you feel the customer needs is not what the customer wants.

This is where an ongoing educational process between you and your customers needs to take place.

This does not mean to say that the two of you need to sit down, read the equipment manuals together, compare notes, and enter into “philosophical” discussions about equipment maintenance; but, rather, that a series of ongoing, brief discussions should take place every time you are on-site to repair the equipment to ensure that the customer understands why the machine failed, what they could do to lessen the chances for failures in the future, what the recommended "fix" is, and why your way of addressing the situation is better than their way.

Sometimes, the solution may be as simple as upgrading to a newer unit.

Basically, what the customer really wants is a piece of equipment that is always up and running, ready to use, unlikely to fail, easy to repair, easy to manage, and easy to use. The details with respect to how each of these is accomplished should really be of no consequence to the customer – although they usually are!

Your role, over time, will be to make sure that you always communicate to the customer about what is “needed” to the point where they have full faith in your knowledge and experience, and are willing to defer to your judgment.

The more communications there are between you and your customers, the quicker they will get to the point where they will defer to your recommendations, and the quicker the distinction between their “wants” and their “needs” will disappear.

 

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As self-service technology experiences rapid growth in industries such as retail and financial services, research reveals that the field service industry have been somewhat slower to adopt writes Paul White of mplsystems. 

Given that the role of the consumer has largely changed over recent years due to the consumerisation of technology, customers are now expecting to be able to have more visibility and control when it comes to interacting with a business.

Within the field service industry there is a growing focus on improving communication between the service desk and field engineer teams.

However, businesses are slowly realising that technology can also be used to improve communications with clients, offering a low effort experience that not only increases visibility and loyalty but generates cost savings.

Research carried out by mplsystems and Field Service News reveals that the number of organisations implementing self-service technology for their customers is slowly growing, with 40% of organisations offering some element of self-service technology to their customers.

However, it is clear that although there is a trend for self-service arising in the industry, many online portals and self-service technologies are still very limited in functionality with only 6.7% of respondents providing their clients with total self-service functionality.

It is clear that customer self-service technology is starting to make an impact in the field service industry, however the functionality of these solutions are still quite restricted and often do not provide the customer with the control they require.

Businesses need to make sure, when implementing self-service technology that they are integrated with other key business systems. This will provide the customer with all the tools they need to be able to action, amend and view their service requests, profile and billing.”

Therefore the key to successfully implementing customer self-service portals it to ensure they integrate with existing systems such as ERP, scheduling and engineers mobile technology. Without this integration, customers are unable to access the information they need and often continue to use the service desk to perform updates, changes and requests.

The portal needs to be able to provide the customer with the same level of service as the over the telephone, otherwise, as recent research by Software Advice concludes, introducing an online portal can do more damage than benefit if implemented incorrectly.

It is suggested that, despite the current popularity of online self-service portals, mobile app technology will rapidly become one of the most popular self-service solutions in the industry.

Research suggests that over 50% of smartphone users chose apps over phoning a contact centre and this will continue to rise as the influence of generation Y and the proliferation and innovation of mobile devices continues. However, only 5% of organisations currently offer their customers mobile apps as a communication channel into the service desk.

Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insight and Futures at BT Technology, comments “It is predicted that by 2020 web chat and messaging via mobile devices will account for 40% of customer interaction with the service centre, whilst channels such as phone and email drop to 38% and 4%. Businesses need to prepare themselves for this channel transition by equipping themselves with the right technology.”

It is clear that the value of mobile app technology can be significantly increased when messaging capability is included. As traditional browser based web chat extends to messaging on mobile devices, it becomes possible to bring field engineers, the service desk and customers together in a virtual world, despite location or device.

When clients are speaking to a service desk agent and need further assistance, the agent can quickly open up a 3-way chat session with the appropriate expert or field service engineer from any location. Often client issues can be resolved in this way without the field service professional actually needing to visit the client site, proving cost effective and efficient for both the business and the customer.

After an award winning construction & property maintenance company implemented an integrated customer online portal, they experienced 100% business growth by being able to take on more business without having to increase resource and by providing differentiation when tendering for new business contracts.

The online portal now manages 75% of the businesses reactive job requests, significantly reducing the workload on the service desk whilst providing instant access for customers to report problems.

It is clear that the field service industry can gain many benefits from introducing self-service technology and with research suggesting that customers will continue to demand more control and visibility, implementing this solution is becoming essential to remain competitive.

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To find out more about customer self-service in the industry download mplsystems white paper: “Meeting customer demand: Evaluation of the top 3 customer self-service technologies for field service.”

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