Field service leaders are not always aware of the potential for improvement, or the scale of the opportunities offered. This third excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ offers an in-depth analysis of the three pillars of...
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Nov 10, 2020 • Features • Cognito iQ • White Paper • Digital Transformation
Field service leaders are not always aware of the potential for improvement, or the scale of the opportunities offered. This third excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ offers an in-depth analysis of the three pillars of exceptional field service...
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
whAT EXCEPTIONAL FIELD SERVICE LOOKS LIKE
When operations are working well, there may be no incentive to look for additional improvements. It is easy to improve where there are many obvious flaws, but finding the small ‘marginal gains’ that might improve service by a fraction here and a fraction there is much more difficult. However, in our experience, even limited action can deliver significant value. For example, our customer Ged Cranny, at Konica Minolta has calculated that saving just one minute in travel time per visit, over a year, equates to one engineer in headcount.
There are three areas in which service leaders can influence the outcome and strive for exceptional service.
Operational Productivity
In our experience, even field service operations that are working well can find 5% improvements when they set out to become exceptional, and improvements of more than 20% are not uncommon.
If you want to make tomorrow’s field service more productive, you will need to study how efficiently and effectively you have been working to date, identify opportunities to improve and act to make changes. One way to start is to compare your plan for each shift with the reality.
Customer Experience
If you want to make tomorrow’s field service more productive, you will need to study how efficiently and effectively you have been working to date, identify opportunities to improve and act to make changes. One way to start is to compare your plan for each shift with the reality.
For example, were task durations as you expected?
- If tasks took longer than planned, you may have unhappy customers and a big overtime bill.
- If they took less time, are you paying workers who have gone home early?
- Does this vary by type of task or by type of customer?
- Does it vary by region or is the difference down to specific technicians?
- And what are the trends over time?
Once you have answers, you can act. If you find that you have been allowing too much time for tasks, reducing task durations in the plan will enable you to get more done in the day. But by what percentage can you reduce durations before they become too short? Also, taking action isn’t limited to altering the plan. For example, if there are some technicians who are slower than others, is there an issue you could resolve with training, knowledge sharing or technical development? Conversely if one region is performing better, does one regional manager have a best practice that you can roll out to the company as a whole?
It is the combination of many small changes of this type, and the continual feedback loop of measurement, analysis and execution that will gradually and incrementally improve operational productivity. The theory is simple - continuous improvement is a principle of lean manufacturing now widely used in other disciplines - but the reality is more complex. It is vital to know how to measure success:
- Which metrics are useful and which aren’t?
- Which can be accurately determined and which can’t?
- How metrics interact.
- How setting goals and targets will affect how employees go about their jobs.
For example, you wouldn’t want to drive up the number of visits per day your field workers attend, if that meant fewer first-time fixes, or reduced customer satisfaction scores. You also wouldn’t want to implement changes that increase the cost of service by more than you are gaining in productivity terms. The goal is to find a combination of improvements that act to raise standards in all areas.
Some service companies are starting to implement 'shift left', a practice adapted from software development, which moves as many tasks as possible to the left, that is, earlier in the process. The approach is becoming more widespread in IT service in particular, but can also be used by field service companies to empower call centre staff and customers to access repair and maintenance information and proactively solve simple problems without needing a technician to visit. Shift left not only improves field service productivity, but by empowering customers it can also improve customer experience and, by empowering first tier support to do more, it leaves skilled technicians with the more interesting, complicated tasks to resolve, which can improve employee engagement too.
Customer Experience
Field service organisations know that customer experience is important. In a recent survey, 76% said that improving customer experience was their top strategic initiative. However, it can be a long way from setting a strategic initiative to actually delivering a great experience to customers. How can you turn your strategy into tactical actions, and then ensure that your employees are acting according to your plan?
Delivering a great customer experience means paying attention to every interaction the customer has with your company, whether that is through using your products and services or via your website, call centre, billing or social media. For many customers, a visit from a field service technician is the only time they will see a representative of your company face to face, so it’s clear that a visit is loaded with opportunities to delight - or disappoint - your customer.
Your field service technicians will need more than just engineering ability and knowledge: soft skills such as communications, interpersonal skills, decision making and problem solving are all important too. Training will be key, as will empowering your field-based workers to make decisions that help the customer, even if they sometimes have to bypass official processes. If the process isn’t working for the customer, it should be viewed as a bottleneck and, therefore, an opportunity to improve. Getting feedback from your technicians will help you understand the customer experience, as they often know where the problems are with the processes.
Another approach is for senior field service managers to spend time out in the field, to experience a day in the life of a field technician, and understand the impact that complex processes, organisational bureaucracy, or a lack of end-to-end service planning can have on the customer experience.
Of course, it is even more important to get feedback directly from customers. Many field service companies add a customer survey to the visit process, whether carried out by the technician on site, or as a follow up. Typically, companies use a simple metric such as the ‘Net Promoter Score’ (NPS), a widely used technique for assessing customer advocacy. However, it’s not sufficient to just track the score - you need to conduct analysis and take action.
Analysis will help you to understand questions such as how do you turn Passive customers into Promoters? How do you leverage Promoters’ willingness to recommend you? And how do you prevent Detractors from leaving and from telling others about their poor experience? You also need to define what counts as a good NPS score. Benchmarking against others in your industry, as well your own best efforts will get you a clearer picture. And the analysis doesn’t end there. You also need to consider what to do about the customers who won’t even engage with the question and give you a score. How do you drive up participation? Additionally, you need to have a method in place for analysing the free-form comments that customers add, as this is where you will gain some of the greatest insight
A high NPS is linked with business growth. A study by Bain and Company, who developed the NPS, shows that the organisations with the highest NPS in an industry sector had more than twice the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of those with average scores. Achieving a high NPS shouldn’t be a goal in itself, but profitable organic growth cannot long be sustained without doing so.
Employee Engagement
Field service is all about people. If your employees are unhappy and disengaged, it’s unlikely they will support your operational productivity initiatives, or be able to deliver the exceptional customer experiences you are hoping for.
Our customers tell us that some of their biggest challenges in improving operational productivity comes not only from needing to measure, analyse and implement change, but also from knowing how to influence and guide workers to behave in the most productive way. There’s plenty of empirical evidence to back this up; study after study has linked employee engagement to improved productivity, customer satisfaction, growth and profitability, as well as a whole raft of other business metrics, including employee retention; innovation; safety incidents; product quality and defects; shrinkage and theft; and sickness and absenteeism.
Strategy expert Erica Olsen talks about how businesses often fail to implement their strategy because they don’t manage their employees to deliver on the plan. She says “High-performance organizations accomplish extraordinary results, and they do it with ordinary people. The key to achieving is to structure an organisation so ordinary people can regularly accomplish outstanding things.” The performance of the service organisation can be seen as the sum of the performance of individual field-service focused workers - from the call centre and field service technicians, through to those involved in logistics.
"Connected devices are reducing some of the tasks that field workers need to do, such as routine maintenance checks, but they are creating new service methods, which means that workers will need to develop new analytical skills..."
Working to improve employee engagement is particularly important in field service for a number of reasons. Firstly, remote workers can feel isolated, and engagement strategies can help them feel connected to the back office and part of a team, whether that is at a local or regional level, or by job specialisation.
Secondly, there is a skills gap in field service, and an aging workforce. Research shows that 50% of large businesses in the UK report difficulties in hiring, with skilled trades, drivers, technicians and engineers being among the most difficult jobs to fill. Additionally, technology is changing the skills needed on the job. Connected devices are reducing some of the tasks that field workers need to do, such as routine maintenance checks, but they are creating new service methods, which means that workers will need to develop new analytical skills. Technologies such as virtual or augmented reality are also changing the ways that workers carry out their tasks. Workers may see these new skill requirements as a threat, however companies that are good at engaging their employees see these developments as opportunities to upskill.
Filling the skills gap requires retaining older engineers by retraining and reskilling, as well as attracting new younger engineers. Field service needs to be positioned as an enticing career option, with opportunities to learn, grow and develop. Many organisations are also filling the gaps with freelance workers, so it’s important to have well defined processes so you can on-board quickly and ensure that contractors are operating to your high standards.
Given that, in the UK, we’re lagging in terms of operational productivity, it’s not surprising that we are also lagging in terms of employee engagement too: a recent survey shows that employees in the UK recorded average engagement scores of just 45% compared to 54% in France, 56% in Australia and 60% in the USA. Another shows that more than a quarter of UK employees admit they aren’t performing to their best ability at work, compared to just one in five employees in Europe. Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability, on average. No field service organisation can afford to ignore this opportunity.
Look out for the final feature in this series coming next week where we outline a seven-step plan to achieve exceptional field service.
However, www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
- Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
- Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ
Nov 09, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services
Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss the importance of having the foundations of field service management tools in place before we can explore the next iteration of service management technologies...
Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss the importance of having the foundations of field service management tools in place before we can explore the next iteration of service management technologies...
Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
In a recent exclusive Field Service News white paper written by Kris Oldland and published in partnership with Salesforce, we explored the shifting dynamics of the fundamental value proposition of service delivery in a world of remote first service delivery. However, while there was a lot of room for error in the first few months of the pandemic as we were all just grateful for the monumental efforts it took to deliver even basic service, now we are at a point where customer expectations are beginning to return.
Remote service delivery remains an acceptable delivery mechanism, however, the teething problems of some of our early initial attempts may no longer cut the mustard. Within the white paper Oldland explored some of the key technologies that are essential for efficient remote service that will meet customer expectation. As a follow up to that white paper Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer joined Oldland as a guest on the Field Service Podcast to bring his insight to the table. It was a wide-ranging conversation but in this excerpt from that episode the focus is on the tools we need to make remote service a seamless offering for our customers.
Of course, this was an area of the topic where Brandeleer was really able to bring a huge amount of direct insight, drawing upon the vast experience of himself and colleagues at Salesforce in terms of the companies that they've already directly helped with huge digital transformation projects.
"That's where I think there is still a part for technologies to still evolve. I think the whole install base little by little needs to be refreshed and evolve as well..."
Gary Brandeller, Salesforce
“I think what is critical is to do the basics, right,” explained Brandeleer.
“I think what we saw with COVID-19, was that the companies that didn't control their basics, were unable to actually react and adapt fast enough. These technologies are really, really impactful, but can only be impactful if you have the right data. They can only be impactful if you are already connecting your install base, if you're already doing warranty tracking, if you already know your customer when is calling you.
“From there, you can move little by little to a different solution. So for example, when you think about AI, there is the optimization engine that we are providing, and things like this, I guess, but I think there are other places where AI can really augment the experience of the technician in that context of ‘can we serve the customer?’ We must establish, can we use AI to offer remote diagnostics of the problem and can we find a solution?
“Ideally, you would even say, that AI if can identify one or two solution, can a human further expand on that and say ‘out of two solutions suggested by AI we should apply the first one, which can be pushed remotely via IoT, for example?” Brandeleer suggests.
“I think that's the vision of the future,” he continues before adding “Are we there? I think not yet. COVID-19 is going to accelerate that. But when you think about IoT connected devices, there are still many, many devices out there, especially in manufacturing where the install base that is pretty old, with assets still working and still being maintained. So, that's where I think there is still a part for technologies to still evolve. I think the whole install base little by little needs to be refreshed and evolve as well.”
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Salesforce who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
- Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
- Connect with Gary Brandeleer on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybrandeleer/
- Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/garybrandeleer?lang=en
- Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
- Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
Nov 06, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services
Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss what comes next after the pandemic has brought the technology required for remote service delivery to the mainstream out of necessity
Salesforce's Gary Brandeleer and Field Service News' Kris Oldland discuss what comes next after the pandemic has brought the technology required for remote service delivery to the mainstream out of necessity
Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
An EXPLORATION OF WHAT COMES NEXT
Having recently authored a white paper in partnership with Salesforce that explored whether we need to reevaluate the value proposition of service delivery as we all become more accustomed to remote service delivery, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News invited Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer on to The Field Service Podcast to explore the topic further.
Do we move to remote services first as a default, was a big theme in the white paper and the two discussed the pros and cons of such an approach at length. Here in this highlight from the full podcast, and to get further insight into that topic, we hear Brandeleer’s thoughts around what comes next, having seen remote service become table stakes almost overnight.
“One thing that is interesting to see as well is that remote assistance is a quick reaction for an issue that we all have right now,” Brandeleer commented
“Yet it's become a keystone for different things as well. So I think in the short term, remote assistance became really table stakes but I think there are other things that are going to follow this.
“When you think about remote assistance, you can speak to the customer, but for many, many call centre agents or technicians that are on the call, they might not know about the machine, and they might not have the machine connected to IoT. So I think this kind of rapid change for remote assistance will lead us towards the rapid change, for example, remote diagnostics, IoT, and all these other steps in the movement of ‘can I actually serve my customers remotely as efficiently as I was doing it before when I had somebody on site?’
“I think we are going to see an exploration of other technologies that are going to add on the remote assistance side essentially,” Brandeleer adds.
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Salesforce who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
- Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
- Connect with Gary Brandeleer on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybrandeleer/
- Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/garybrandeleer?lang=en
- Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
- Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
Nov 04, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services
Gary Brandeleer of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about how we are seeing unprecedented acceleration of digital transformation in the field service sector...
Gary Brandeleer of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about how we are seeing unprecedented acceleration of digital transformation in the field service sector...
Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY IS NOW TABLE STAKES
In a recent exclusive Field Service News white paper authored by Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News we asked an important question “Do we need to redefine the value proposition of service, as we look towards moving towards a post pandemic world?”
It is an important discussion, one that many senior leaders in our industry are currently having, yet it is also a topic that is evolving and emerging in real-time as we piece together what the new normal looks like for our sector.
To build upon the white paper, which had a particular lens looking at remote services and do we move to remote first as a default in our industry, Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer joined Kris Oldland on the Field Service Podcast to further drive the discussion forwards.
Brandeleer and the team at Salesforce have, of course had huge experience dealing with digital transformation and in the above excerpt from that conversation, Brandeleer and Oldland touch on whether the acceleration we've seen in the last six months towards digital transformation projects is truly unprecedented.
This is perhaps the biggest factor that will shape the way we view field service delivery both in terms of the value proposition and operational delivery. It is not only the leap forward that has been made, but it is also the rapidity at which almost all of us in the industry moved forward simultaneously that has caused such seismic shifts in our thinking.
As we saw in the last highlight from this podcast, we saw conversations go from “this is on our roadmap in five years’ time,” to “we need this now, how quickly can we implement it?”
"We were sending people onsite, now we are doing remote assistance. Can we do other things as well? Can we now invest in outcome-based services and push towards servitization and other things like this?"
Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce
"I would say the field service world has been quite often protected from rapid disruption, like this,” Brandeleer commented.
“We've always had time to implement things [in field service], even the optimization engine that we provide to companies. The companies who are implementing such systems know and understand the benefits the solutions will bring, but they also know that it's important to take that time when you are dealing with technicians, when you're dealing with mission critical business.
“You need to take your time to change such important things and make them more efficient over a long period of time.”
“I don't think I've ever really seen such a disruption where, from one week to another, these technologies literally became table stakes. I think that what we see as well is, of course, COVID accelerated many, many other trends for field service. I think what's happening is that the one trend that we seek from that disruption, also is this agility that you see now in field service.
“We were sending people onsite, now we are doing remote assistance. Can we do other things as well? Can we now invest in outcome-based services and push towards servitization and other things like this?" Brandeleer asks.
"These trends have been there for a while and people have been talking about it, but not really acting very fast. Are we now going to see the mentality of ‘well, we did it for remote assistance, we implemented in two weeks, and we have return on investment here – can’t we just do that for other things that we wanted to do?’ The world is in such a chaotic state right now, we must take this opportunity to drive more acceleration of things that we wanted to do, things that were part of a roadmap, but now we want to accelerate them.
“I think this digital transformation that's out there which traditionally can take quite a while for many field service companies, I think people are going to take as a table stakes now as well. Now companies want these digital transformation projects to happen very, very fast. They went time to value and that's another trend that came out of this COVID-19 disruption."
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Salesforce who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
- Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
- Connect with Gary Brandeleer on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybrandeleer/
- Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/garybrandeleer?lang=en
- Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
- Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
Nov 03, 2020 • Features • Cognito iQ • White Paper • Digital Transformation
This second excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ provides an analysis of the challenges and difficulties service leaders face and why field service operations are complex......
This second excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ provides an analysis of the challenges and difficulties service leaders face and why field service operations are complex......
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
why FIELD SERVICE IS HARD
Field service is hard for a number of reasons, all of which are interconnected:
- Field-service operations are inherently complex, involving multiple elements in the service chain, such as people and processes, and they are affected by multiple factors outside of the control of the service organisation, such as traffic, access to customer premises or repair tasks that are hard to resolve. This complexity means plans are vulnerable to unpredictable, disruptive, short-notice changes.
- The complexity and uniqueness of the challenge in field service is also why generic business intelligence (BI) tools, designed to adapt to multiple management environments, are often less effective within service organisations. Because the underlying metrics don’t match the situation on the ground, changes can have unintended consequences, and end users can be resistant to the implementation of such tools.
- The Service Level Agreements (SLAs), business rules and processes that drive field service typically vary across the organisation, and by end customer. Even if these processes are standardised, the intricacy of operations means there are many potential sources of ineffectiveness.
- Compounding the problem is the challenge of managing the performance of the mobile workforce. Performance management is demanding enough when you are dealing with office-based staff; when your workforce is remote, visibility is limited and the difficulty is intensified.
- Field service has also been facing a skills shortage. The available workforce of qualified engineers and technicians is aging; fewer young people are choosing field service careers, so when engineers retire, they aren't all being replaced. There is also a need to train and upskill the existing workforce to take on new technologies, service models and working methods so they can cope with the changes, and be on board for digital transformation.
- Customer expectations are another factor. The bar for customer experience has been set high by online companies, so end customers, both consumer and business, expect to get service appointments on their terms, with real-time information about the progress of their service at all times, via any medium of their choice.
- For service managers, once something goes wrong in the field, it is hard to recover, and time that is lost can never be replaced. One task overrunning can put a field-based worker’s schedule out for the remainder of their shift, potentially jeopardising multiple SLAs and customer relationships. Service managers often lack the data to see what has happened in real time, and to move resources around to regain control.
- Many field service organisations have digitised some of their processes so that they no longer rely entirely on paper-based workflows, or store customer information in static spreadsheets. With automation and digitisation, has come an increase in the volume of data available to field-service managers - from the field as well as internal data - but without the right analytical tools, and the skills to use them, or the ability to align multiple data sources, more data is unlikely to lead to more insight.
- Even with the right analytics, it can be very difficult to implement changes to field-service processes, monitor the outcome of those changes, and understand whether the improvements have been successful, or have had unintended consequences elsewhere in the system, or even elsewhere in the organisation. Strategy for change has to link with wider organisational strategy, be communicated effectively and be effectively adopted by those who have to undertake new processes. With limited control of the ‘drivers and levers’ of performance, service operations find it very difficult to evolve and grow.
Overall, field service is hard, and exceptional service is even harder. But not impossible. Service leaders need to start by defining what exceptional looks like in their organisation.
Look out for the next feature in this series coming next week where we discuss what exceptional field service looks like.
However, www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
- Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
- Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ
Nov 02, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Remote Services
Gary Brandeleer of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about how the pandemic has ushered in a new era of remote service delivery...
Gary Brandeleer of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about how the pandemic has ushered in a new era of remote service delivery...
Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
REMOTE SERVICE DELIVERY IS NOW TABLE STAKES
Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland recently authored an exclusive white paper published in partnership with Salesforce, that looked at the sudden emergence of remote service delivery as a go to approach for service delivery. To dig further into this embryonic industry-wide discussion, Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer joined Oldland on the Field Service Podcast. Across the following weeks we will be publishing a series of excerpts from that episode beginning with this opening highlight that looks at how the pandemic has rapidly ushered in a new era of service delivery…
Across the last seven months as a direct result of the pandemic we have seen the adoption of an implementation of technology that was predominant best-in-class as we entered 2020.
In fact, for many years, many best-in-class service organisations have had the ability to deliver service remotely – certainly we've been talking about it here at Field Service News for an awfully long time. However, since the arrival of the COVID19 pandemic and the subsequent ongoing lockdowns, the tools that are required to deliver service remotely have suddenly become a necessity for almost all field service organisations, in all corners of the world, across all industries.
"Very rapidly, what was actually a good addition to a demonstration of what is possible with a FSM solution suddenly became table stakes..."
- Gary Brandeleer, Salesforce
“At first, it was only a few organisations that would be able to offer this kind of remote assistance,” commented Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer on a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast.
“However, we were already beginning to see more and more customers asking for it, even before the pandemic. However, it was not an essential requirement. It was not that if a FSM solution provider could not offer it they would be out of RFP. However, very rapidly, what was actually a good addition to a demonstration of what is possible with a FSM solution suddenly became table stakes,” Brandeleer added.
“Now, everybody wants to get a remote assistant solution. I think the story that we see as well, is that the pandemic pushed field service companies to be much more agile than before.
"Essentially companies were wanting to get remote assistance, and they had no choice in terms of implementing it very fast. There were customers coming to us, customers coming to many different companies, all asking not only for remote assistance, but also being able to implement this kind of remote assistance within the next two weeks.”
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Salesforce who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
- Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
- Connect with Gary Brandeleer on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybrandeleer/
- Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/garybrandeleer?lang=en
- Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
- Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
Nov 02, 2020 • Features • Artificial intelligence • White Paper • Digital Transformation • field service management • Aquant
This final excerpt from a recent white paper published by Aquant analyses why distributing knowledge across the team is the missing link to creating a high-performace workforce...
This final excerpt from a recent white paper published by Aquant analyses why distributing knowledge across the team is the missing link to creating a high-performace workforce...
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Aquant who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
bridging the gap between where you are now and where you want to be
Now that you know where to look and what to look for in your service data, what's next?
Distributing knowledge across the team is the missing link to creating a high-performing and engaged workforce.
Once you understand:
How your workforce is performing individually
The size of a skills gap across the organization
The next step is to figure out how to bridge the gap between where you are now, and where you want to be. Artificial intelligence can get you there quickly and enable this transformative shift in the workplace.
Here’s how:
○ AI that understands your organization’s unique service language and can quickly analyze hidden data is the first step in turning service records into actionable information.
○ Next, using that data to map out your workforce and identify heroes and challengers gives you the insights that can’t be found by simply monitoring key KPI.
○ Converting your organization’s tribal knowledge (from your service heroes) into usable information and then combining that with your own service data creates a dynamic platform is the final clue to unlock hero status for everyone.
○ That democratized knowledge, which is as easy to access as a Google search, puts the power of your best experts in the hands of the whole team.
Read the full Aquant white paper which provides an analysis of field service KPIs and the state of the workforce skills gap.
www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Aquant on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/aquant
- Read more about Artificial Intelligence @ www.fieldservicenews.com/artificial-intelligence
- Find out more about Aquant @ www.aquant.io
- Follow Aquant on Twitter @ twitter.com/Aquant_io
Oct 30, 2020 • Features • automotive • Video • APAC • Field Service News Digital Symposium
As part of our partnership with Field Service Asia and just ahead of their conference running on the 4th and 5th November Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief Field Service News spoke with one of the key speakers Jamie F. Morais, General Manager Aftersales...
As part of our partnership with Field Service Asia and just ahead of their conference running on the 4th and 5th November Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief Field Service News spoke with one of the key speakers Jamie F. Morais, General Manager Aftersales Dealer Operations Asia and Oceania.
This video was recorded for our brand new channel the Field Service News Digital Symposium which is only available to our Premium Subscribers. However, to shine a light on the calibre of speakers at the next Field Service Asia event, Field Service News has made this interview available on our free-to-access channels as well.
You can sign up to attend Field Service Asia's Digital event for free and hear both Morais and Oldland plus a huge range of other top notch speakers https://bit.ly/30zNugP
If you would like full access to the Field Service News Digital Symposium where we publish in-depth interviews with senior industry leaders in our industry every week plus a huge range of other benefits then head over to https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en/subscrition/premium-subscription
There are also a ton of other benefits which you can find out about on the link above.
Already a premium subscriber? Don't forget to check out Field Service News Digital Symposium regularly for new content!
Oct 27, 2020 • Features • Cognito iQ • White Paper • Digital Transformation
This new series of excerpts from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ analyses why exceptional field service is important and outlines how to transform your field service operation from strategy to execution...
This new series of excerpts from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ analyses why exceptional field service is important and outlines how to transform your field service operation from strategy to execution...
Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.
If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
why exceptional field service matters...
It has become clichéd to talk about uncertainty in recent months, as the global pandemic has disrupted business and daily life across the world.
However, had we written this white paper before March 2020, we would have still been writing about the importance of exceptional field service in a climate of economic uncertainty. In 2018, PwC's Annual Global CEO Survey revealed a record level of optimism regarding worldwide economic growth. But the most recent survey, conducted just one year later in 2019, showed a record level of pessimism. More than half of the CEOs who participated believed the rate of global GDP growth will decline, and only 27% were ‘very confident’ in their prospects for revenue growth, a low level not seen since 2009. At the time of the survey, uncertainty was driven by trade tensions between US and China, and within the EU, with Brexit fuelling insecurity in the UK. The outbreak of Covid-19 has exacerbated an already difficult situation.
Field service organisations operate in an extremely competitive environment, and one in which customer expectations have been elevated by the quality of service - speed, ease and visibility - they get from online retailers. Service leaders are charged with delivering revenue and profitability growth and introducing new products and services, as well as contributing to customer retention and brand differentiation through the delivery of service excellence. In short, field service leaders can’t afford to leave any potential improvements in efficiency, cost savings, customer experience, employee engagement or competitive advantage on the table. When faced with increasing uncertainty and economic pessimism, exceptional field service becomes business critical. The pandemic also highlighted the need for field service leaders to be able to change and adapt rapidly, and to implement, manage and monitor new processes at speed.
The Impact of Digital
This is all easier said than done. Field service is tough at the best of times. What is perhaps different about this looming recession from those in the past, such as the financial crisis in 2008, is the digitisation of our lives and businesses. Digital transformation offers field service organisations the ability to make decisions that are driven by data, rather than by gut feel. We believe that this is the only way for service leaders to achieve exceptional service, and fulfil the potential of the service organisation to deliver business growth. Some service organisations are at the beginning of the digital journey, just beginning to automate paper-based or manual processes, or just starting to collect mobile data from their field-based technicians. Others are further along, using advanced analytics and data science to make sense of their data, and implementing the latest developments in technology, such as virtual reality to assist with repairs in the field, robotic process automation to expedite customer communications in the call centre, and Internet of Things (IoT) to enable predictive service. The most innovative service leaders are enhancing their digital transformation by adopting business approaches that have been successful in other disciplines. Techniques from lean manufacturing, such as continuous improvement, short interval control and value flow mapping, can be applied to field service to find opportunities to improve, test, adjust and apply to enhance the business. Management approaches such as Google’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can be used to turn strategies into actionable individual goals and to get the buy-in of employees across the organisation. Despite all the challenges, we believe the future is bright for field service organisations. This combination of digital technology, data science and advanced business approaches is what will win through for the best service organisations.
The Digital Journey of an Organization...
Look out for the next feature in this series coming next week where we analyse why field service is hard.
However, www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
- Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
- Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ
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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