Bill Pollock, President Strategies for GrowthSM outlines the importance of advanced route management for field service engineers and sks is this the responsibility of the engineer, the company or both?

Every day, your field technicians travel the highways and the side streets, they fight the rush-hour and lunchtime traffic, and they avoid both the posted and non-posted detours to get to their customers’ sites. They have made customer calls to offices once located in the middle of nowhere, that are now located in the middle of busy shopping districts; and they have driven miles to get to locations for which there are now easy-on/easy-off highway interchanges that put them instantly right where they want to be.

Your field techs probably already know as much about the geographic areas they cover as any taxi or Uber driver in the city. This is an extremely valuable resource that does not replace, but certainly augments, any GPS-mapping functionality that may be incorporated into your company’s field services operations. The key question is, "How can you best leverage this first-hand knowledge of the territories they support into an effective means for improving your overall ability to support the organisation’s customers?” And what new technologies, or tools, are available to augment this knowledge?

Every field technician has his or her own "tricks of the trade" for dealing with “getting from point A to point B". Sometimes, it is nothing more than knowing the right shortcuts and through routes for getting from one customer site to another; and other times it is simply a matter of knowing which restaurants along the way can provide them with a quick – but wholesome – meal when they're starting to run slightly behind.

 

"What is important, however, is that they [field service engineers] are able to leverage all of the resources at their disposal to empower themselves to make intelligent decision..."

 

Knowing their territories does not only mean knowing the highways; it also means knowing what is located alongside the highways, including everything from rest stops, office supply stores, fax and copy centers, drug stores, supermarkets, and any other types of facilities that provide the products and services they may require as they're making their daily calls.

The proliferation of cell phones and tablets has made all of our lives quite a bit easier; but especially for those of us who are regularly on the road. However, cell phones have little value if they are not used every time the situation warrants. For example, if the field tech has a service call scheduled for 2:00 pm; it’s 1:45, and they believe they’re about half-an-hour away, this would represent a perfect time to make a quick call to the customer to let them know that they’re running a bit late, and that they will be there shortly.

Whether they know the territory so well that they can judge how long it will take to get through traffic, detours, or bad weather; or whether they know which local radio stations to listen to for the most up-to-date and accurate traffic reports, is irrelevant. What is important, however, is that they are able to leverage all of the resources at their disposal to empower themselves to make intelligent decisions, and that they pass on that "intelligence" to their customers in the form of pre-arrival alerts, notifications, warnings, or other types of "heads-up" calls. But, sometimes, they may need extra help!

 

"It may be arguable as to whether route management is the field technician’s responsibility, the responsibility of the company in supporting them in the field, or both..."

 

In some cases, it may be arguable as to whether route management is the field technician’s responsibility, the responsibility of the company in supporting them in the field, or both. What is inarguable, however, is that route management is also a critical component of any service organisation’s call handling and management function – and that all parties – including the field technicians – have something to contribute directly to the process.

Your organisation probably utilises route management applications primarily for the purpose of achieving improved scheduling of service calls. However, the total package of benefits is quite wide ranging, and typically results in the following outcomes: 

 

• Increased number of service calls per route/per day
• Improved field technician utilisation and productivity
• Quicker and more responsive service delivery
• Increased profitability per route/per field technician
• More satisfied customers

 

Through the effective use of route management, the organisation can ultimately save a great deal of time and money by routing and scheduling its field technicians more efficiently. But merely analysing and assessing route management from an internal operations or IT center, in and of itself, will not totally do the job. From time to time, the field technicians may also need to be called on to contribute some of their first-hand territory information to the organisation's general model or, if they are not, they should be prepared to proactively contribute any information that they think may ultimately be of value with respect to their territory.

Most route management models are extremely sophisticated, relying on GPS mapping functionality and a variety of mathematical algorithms to select the most efficient routes between two or more points. They may also provide field techs with real-time maps and recommended travel route printouts, or they may be displayable on screens embedded either in their vehicle’s dashboard and/or their handhelds; but they may end up being totally worthless in any given situation if they do not take into account the most current and accurate traffic-related data. This is where advanced tools come into play, for, otherwise, it will rest primarily on the shoulders of the field technicians’ particular expertise in their own territories that can serve to elevate a good route management system to a great one.

In addition to travel optimisation, route management models are also relied upon to improve a service technician’s efficiency in the field by allowing them to electronically: 

 

• Log in service call activity reports
• Place orders for parts
• Collect an electronic signature and close out the call
• Generate customer invoices
• Print customer receipts
• Enter updated customer information

 

The benefits of route management are also multi-fold, typically including:

 

• More effective scheduling of service calls and appointments
• The elimination of manual data entry and paperwork
• Reduced data entry errors (i.e., through the use of barcode scanning, etc.)
• Improved cash flow resulting from real-time, point-of-service billing
• Shortened time windows for customers
• Reduced mileage and fuel costs
• Reduced overtime hour requirements
• Improved time efficiency in the field

 

An efficient route management system can make a good services organisation even better. And, the organisation’s field technicians should learn to rely on it when they can, suggest improvements to it when they are able, and use it as a tool for making both themselves and their customers happy.

Knowing their territories is important; however the ability to apply that knowledge is what will ultimately differentiate your field technicians from those who cannot. It is a safe bet that by applying this knowledge effectively, augmented by the new technologies and tools that are currently available, they can avoid many cases of unnecessarily keeping their customers “hanging”, while increasing their ability to complete their calls more productively.

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Further Reading:

• Read more exclusive Field Service News from Bill Pollock @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/bill-pollock
• Read more about Managing the Mobile Workforce @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Follow Bill Pollock on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/sfgonservice
• Read Bill's personal blog @ https://pollockonservice.com/
• Connect with Bill Pollock on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-pollock-b74874/

As part of our ongoing series where we go beyond the industry headlines to dig deeper into the news that matters for field service management professionals, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to ServiceMax's Neil Barua and Stacey Epstein about the recent announcement of a deeper relationship with one time competitor Salesforce... 

 

A Compelling Move by Two of the Big Names in Field Service Technology:

The last time I spent time with ServiceMax's Neil Barua and Stacey Epstein in person was nearly 18 months ago, where, in the desert heat of Palm Springs we shared a beer towards the end of a long day of discussions, presentations and interviews at the Field Service USA conference.

Fast forward to today, and the memory seems like a relic from a different time. Such casual catch-ups, indeed, even simple business conferences seem like a luxurious relic of another time. A time where we weren't restricted by a pandemic that no-one saw coming.

Yet, for all the pain, suffering and heartache COVID-19 has brought us, in the field service sector at least, in equal measure the pandemic has sharpened us, refined our offerings and pushed us singularly as an industry towards the adoption of what were, not too long ago, seen as best-in-class technologies, processes and strategies.

When a market is disrupted, we see innovation flourish. COVID-19 has been the most significant disruptor the world has ever seen.

 

"While others may want to talk about the great reset, I see what we are currently going through more akin to hitting the fast forward button..."

 

It feels like we are living in triple time at the moment. While others may want to talk about the great reset, I see what we are currently going through more akin to hitting the fast forward button (for those of us old enough to remember the halcyon days of analogue tape). In a major research project for which I am currently authoring the report, I see evidence of this. What we are seeing emerge around us in many ways is not the sudden emergence of new thinking and new technologies. It is the natural endpoint of a journey we have been on for a long, long time. We are just getting there a lot quicker than we ever thought we might, because, quite simply, we have to.

This sentiment is echoed in Neil Barua's words as we reconnect. "If you recall, when we last me 18 months ago, that was only the first week of my taking on the CEO role with ServiceMax although it feels like 6 years ago, a lot has happened since then."

It certainly has. The very world in which we all exist has changed. However, even without the backdrop of a global pandemic, you have a feeling this was going to be a big period of evolution for Barua and ServiceMax either way.

"I'm really proud of this team and what we have achieved since I've been here and candidly, the tail-winds of service transformation that you have been following for many years, if not decades, is now truly upon us and COVID, while the tragedy continues, has really driven the need for our customer base to adopt new tools to both be competitive and also to be able to serve the essential workers out there in a way that is modern that can support them out there on the frontline," Barua adds.

This is an important point. In our sector, we have always known that our field service engineers are the unsung heroes of our industry, long before the term 'essential workers' ever entered into our everyday lexicon. However, as that value is magnified even further, we must be able to offer our engineers the latest technologies. Technologies that not only allow them to do what they do best and keep the world working but to be able to do it safely and effectively.

 

"This announcement is the evolution of the reconnection with Salesforce that began back in February that is a far greater partnership..."

- Neil Barua, CEO  ServiceMax

 

The role technology will play in allowing us to do that will, of course, be huge. So the recent announcement of a much deeper working partnership between two of the industry behemoths in ServiceMax and Salesforce was met with great fanfare. Add into the mix that we are now seeing Salesforce acquisition of ClickSoftware begin to bear fruit and we have something coming close to an FSM supergroup. There are a lot of very experienced, knowledgeable people now working alongside each other, pulling in the same direction. This can only be a good thing for the wider industry. To use a quote that I am particularly fond of, as JFK once said, 'a rising tide lifts all boats'.

"This announcement is the evolution of the reconnection with Salesforce that began back in February that is a far greater partnership," Barua explains. "We're taking a significant part of the eighty million dollars coming from Salesforce Ventures and began the continuous communication between the two companies to think about what more can we do beyond the transfer of money to make value for customers and to do more than what either company has ever done before.

"When we look at this market opportunity, Salesforce are really excited about the opportunity, it [FSM] is the fastest growing product in the history of Salesforce, we are also seeing extremely fast growth in our core busines and we decided to put our product teams together in collaboration," Barua added.

Yet, having seen the initial press statements from both organizations, and reading between the lines of those statements, which as with all such press announcements carry a slightly sanitized tone, polished by corporate communications departments, I couldn't escape the feeling that there was far more to the announced partnership than the standard industry collaboration.

 

"This is a time period where partnerships really matter, so we've reached across the aisle on both sides to make sure we do right by our customers..."

- Neil Barua, CEO, ServiceMax

 

Personally, knowing both companies and a number of the key players involved, I had a sense that this partnership ran far deeper than similar partnership announcements. This was more I felt than a formal agreement to share a go-to-market strategy. It seemed to be something far more engaged at the micro-level, rather than the usual surface-level macro approach.

I was keen to see if this truly was the case.

"We've brought together our R&D teams, our marketing teams and our sales teams and the announcement earlier this month,  of ServiceMax Asset 360 for Salesforce, is an announcement of a really strategic partnership which unleashes the most complete field service solution in the market out there. It brings to the table the strengths that they bring to bear, particularly the appointment centric capabilities and all the platform technologies that they are evolving and building our asset-centric capabilities on that platform. Putting this together, there is no use case we cannot serve now. We now have execution in front of us to really take advantage of the strengths of both companies."

With this in mind, then it truly is a genuinely exciting proposition for the industry to see such a complete solution come to the fore. It is also perhaps the perfect example of a solution borne in 2020 – a year where in the face of all the adversity we have begun to understand the importance of true business partnerships. As Barua wisely comments "this is a time period where partnerships really matter, so we've reached across the aisle on both sides to make sure we do right by our customers."

Again, the cynical old journalist listening to soundbites about 'doing the right thing for customers' might just see a selection of play-book quotes ready to hand. Yet, there is an earnestness and excitement to the way Barua communicates that makes it hard to stay cynical. While undoubtedly like every great CEO, Barua knows what to say and how to say it, you also get a feeling that his words are built on a foundation of honesty and a belief in doing things the right way.

When I first met Barua, one observation I made was that there was a feeling of continuation from the preceding CEO's he had taken the mantle from. Initially being Dave Yarnold, and then during the GE period, Scott Berg.

That is not to say that under the stewardship of Barua the ServiceMax story isn't evolving, it most evidently is. However, the ethos that underpinned the organization's previous meteoric rise, a focus on understanding the challenges that their customers, and the field service sector at large face remains. That ethos has been key to ServiceMax's approach to building solutions to meet those customer needs which has remained consistent across the various chapters of this compelling story.

I also commented at the time, that I felt a large factor in maintaining a consistent ethos would be the return of Stacey Epstein, now CMO and Chief Experience Officer at ServiceMax to the fold. 

Epstein was part of the early team at ServiceMax under Yarnold, who went on to become an impressive CEO in her own right, nurturing communications platform start-up Zinc to becoming an innovative tool that again addressed the needs of modern field service organizations.

 

"Integrated isn't even the right word, these solutions are all built on one data model leveraging all the same native objects... "

- Stacey Epstein, CMO & Chief Experience Officer, ServiceMax

 

ServiceMax's subsequent acquisition of Zinc was thus doubly important.

It not only brought another piece of the FSM puzzle into Servicemax's suite of solutions, but it also brought back another experienced voice and mind, one who understood the 'special sauce' that made ServiceMax such a success, back into their senior leadership team. 

"I've been in this space for decades," Epstein reflects.

"Well before ServiceMax I was selling field service software for Clarify in the nineties. Field service has been around forever; probably people were going around in wagons and on horses to offer services for people! But I think technology has just continued to fuel the maturity of what field service teams can do. In the past everything was client-server, there was no such thing as mobile. So then it was all about optimizing and tracking parts.

"When ServiceMax came along, it was one of the first Cloud-based FSM solutions and the first vendor to offer a mobile solution. Then Salesforce started building, and Click had great scheduling, and now we have really combined all of this into one very integrated solution.

"In fact, integrated isn't even the right word, these solutions are all built on one data model leveraging all the same native objects." Epstein adds as she considers the point further.

"The things that companies were buying piecemeal before, they can now access on one platform, which will mean a much faster time to value for customers. There are more features out of the box, so there is less customization, and it puts our customers in the position to adopt the new things that come up, like ScopeAR's augmented reality tools, like Aquant's artificial intelligence tools and like the Zinc communication tools.

"If my core features and functionality, asset-centricity, resource -centricity, are all covered in a very robust platform integrated into my CRM then it is not a big step to leverage the cutting-edge tools that allow me to achieve a digital transformation.

"In some ways it is a maturity, but in another way is that it doesn't mean we are 'there' yet . In a sense it simply means that when new technologies emerge, companies are really ready to adopt."

This final point of Epstein's is a good reflection on the place that FSM technology has arrived at today. Much has been refined within recent years, the foundational building blocks of what we now perceive as an FSM platform are in place and proven to be robust and reliable. However, we are also entering a new era of FSM solutions, and thanks in no small part to the pandemic our arrival at this new point came sooner than the majority of us might have anticipated.

The next iteration of FSM will involve remote diagnostics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and more. However, without a cohesive platform to build upon these tools cannot live up to the value propositions they promise. We are entering a new phase of FSM technology, and the partnership of Salesforce and ServiceMax will see both companies play a leading role in shaping how technology in our industry is set to evolve.

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Further Reading:

• Read the initial announcement about the partnership @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/servicemax-announces-new-offering-asset-360-for-salesforce-bringing-asset-centric-capabilities-to-all-types-of-field-service-organizations
• Read news and articles about ServiceMax @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=servicemax
• Read more about Digital Transformation in Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Find out about the solutions ServiceMax offer field service companies @ https://www.servicemax.com/uk
• Follow ServiceMax on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/ServiceMax

In a new series of excerpts from a a recent exclusive Field Service News white paper sponsored by Salesforce we explore how the very definition of  field service is being redefined as we move towards a world of remote service delivery. In part one we will be assessing today's environment and the challenges we face and start to look at some of the tools required for remote service delivery...

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

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

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Welcome to the New World...

As the global pandemic swept across the world, many, many things changed. The way we interacted with each other in some ways became more distant; in others, we felt closer to each other than we had ever been before. Those of us based in offices invited the world into our homes through tools such as Zoom, Skype and Got To Meeting. Switchboard recordings notified us that we might hear unusual noises like dogs or children during the call as contacts centres were moved in a surprisingly seamless manner onto kitchen tables across the land. Yet, field service delivery is not such an easy role to transition to a world of lockdowns and isolation.

Field service is by its very definition delivered off-site, in the field. However, with many field engineers being classed as essential workers, and with service and maintenance operations under intense pressure to keeping the world ticking over, while we all endured lockdown, innovative thinking was required to keep service operations moving as much as possible. The result we saw was a massive swing in demand for the delivery of remote services. Before the pandemic, remote services were an option that remained primarily viewed as an offering of less value than the traditional on-site service call. Almost overnight, this switched. Suddenly, the requirements for remote service solutions were of paramount as companies desperately avoided breaking their own carefully erected bio-security measures.

Now, as we look towards building the recovery and establishing a new normal, many field service organisations are discussing a remote-first approach to service delivery. However, there are valid concerns that too much of a swing in the other direction could be akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In this exclusive White Paper, authored by Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland, we set out to weigh up the pros and cons of adopting a remote-first as default approach and ask is this the way we should approach service delivery in the new normal of our post-pandemic world?

 

The Tools Needed for Remote First Service Operations:

To begin the discussion, we should first look at the specific requirements in terms of technology for delivering remote services at all. In today’s modern technology ecosystem, it is common to view the different layers of technology required as a stack with one building upon another rather than a self-enclosed platform.

In today’s age of APIs, mostly when it comes to software at least, everything works well in tandem. The advantage of this approach is the flexibility to build a solution that can take the best tools available to you that meet the needs of your organisation. Ultimately though, a robust platform that underpins your service technology ecosystem is crucial. Salesforce, for example, is an immensely powerful application, whether it be as a CRM or an FSM solution. Yet, it is within the flexibility of the app ecosystem, that Salesforce pioneered within business solutions, that the true power of the technology stack lies.

 

"While there are strong arguments for such devices allowing an engineer to work hands-free, the reality is that almost all AR solutions available to field service organisations currently also support tablet and smartphone configurations..."

 

With a rich layer of solutions available, the ability to build a robust and powerful solution to meet all of your field service requirements becomes far easier for companies of all sizes and levels of complexity. When it comes to remote service, there are a couple of fundamental aspects of the technology stack that need to be in place to achieve a seamless and fully optimised approach.

#1 Augmented Reality:

Augmented Reality (AR) is a crucial aspect of effective remote services. Effectively, what AR enables the field service organisation to accomplish is to place experience exactly where it is needed. This could come in the form of engineer-to-engineer (or even engineer-to-customer) assistance that is delivered in a you-see-what-I-see environment.

Alternatively, it could come in a more automated form, leveraging artificial intelligence and pre-programmed guides that can walk the engineer on-site through the various stages of the maintenance at hand. The advantage of AR over alternatives (such as video calling) is the ability to annotate clearly on the screen which area of an asset should be focused upon.

This can even be as granular as annotating which direction to turn a dial or by how much. While on the surface, this could be seen as a nice, but non-essential benefit, the reality is that as humans we take in visual instructions 8 x faster than aural instructions1. In field service, this is vitally important as we are continually looking to seek out every efficiency possible, as this soon scales up to significant resource savings when viewed across the entire mobile workforce. Indeed, one of the critical areas of focus for all field service organisations is being able to maximise resource utilisation, and alongside tools such as Salesforce’s enhanced optimisation engine, shift management and intelligent parts recommendations, the introduction of AR is an essential element for field service organisations to be able to achieve this.

One final point for consideration is that while often we think of AR solutions being based upon smart-glasses (or head-based computers as they are increasingly being termed) this is not necessarily the case. While there are strong arguments for such devices allowing an engineer to work hands-free, the reality is that almost all AR solutions available to field service organisations currently also support tablet and smartphone configurations. This can allow service organisations the ability to begin utilising AR almost instantly without the requirement of any additional hardware other than what the engineer is already using every day.

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Look out for the next feature in this series coming next week where we explore three more key technologies required for remote service delivery.

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!

 

 

 

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Further Reading:

• Read the initial news report about the announcement of the latest iteration of Salesforce Field Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/salesforce-announce-the-next-generation-of-field-service-ai-powered-tools-for-trusted-mission-critical-field-service
• Read more about digital transformation in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/servitization-and-advanced-services
• Read more about the impact of COVID-19 on the field service sector @ www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Read previous articles by Paul Whitelam @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/paul-whitelam
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
• Connect with Paul on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/paulwhitelam/
• Follow Salesforce on Twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce

In this first excerpt from an in-depth interview on the Field Service News Digital Symposium IDC's Aly Pinder Jr, talks to Kris Oldland about the importance of ensuring our engineers feel protected and valued as we face ongoing concerns over a second wave of lockdowns as we approach the final quarter of 2020...

2020 has been the most testing of years. We have had to rethink our approach to almost everything as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that have been ensuing for over six months now. While some parts of the world have reopened such as Germany, others such as Sweden never really closing down, others such as the UK and Australia remain on a precipice, waiting with various regional lockdowns and the threat of the return of nationwide lockdowns hanging in the air like a dark, ominous cloud.

We never expected to it to take quite so long to 'flatten the curve', back in April we were already planning on what the recovery might look like yet, as we approach the final quarter of 2020 we are still holding meaningful discussions about how we operate within such uncertain parameters.

Back in April this year, IDC's Aly Pinder Jr joined Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, for a discussion that rings as pertinent today as then, perhaps even more so. The discussion centred around the understanding the human equation to our engineers. As Pinder commented, "these are not just resources we are sending out, these are people."

At the time of the interview, it was a conversation against a backdrop of frantic scrambling as companies all across our industry adapted to the unprecedented lockdowns, and a radical rethinking of how field service operations could be delivered was created on the fly. With much of that thinking now complete, with more robust processes in place, innovative technologies that allow for remote service delivery in embraced, we are for sure much better placed to cope with further lockdowns as international governments react to the potential threat of a 'second wave.'

 

"I think having a daily check in the same way that we do in our white collar jobs, is important..."

- Aly Pinder Jr, IDC

 

Yet Pinder's thoughts from back in April still resonate powerfully. While those of us in office-based roles are now well transitioned into the routine of home working. Our engineers in many cases will still need to be out in the world, working, keeping essential services moving. How do we ensure that they feel protected and valued at such a time?

"I think the first thing is communication," Pinder explained.

"We don't all have the most appreciation for real time collaboration as we do in a more white collar scenario. For our technicians, oftentimes the environment they're working in is they have an application or a laptop that they open up and they walk through a checklist of items to close out a work order. I think we're getting to the point where we understand the technology that's out there to provide us with real time collaborative tools," he continues.

"The opportunity is to go in whatever way in which your technicians are willing to interact with you, whether it be the phone or a newsletter that provides them with a daily update or an email that you check-in and understand, this is what we hope for us to be able to deliver today and asl is there anything that's going to keep you from attaining those goals? And do that on somewhat of a daily perspective.

"I think having a daily check in the same way that we do in our white collar jobs, is important. obviously, for technician base is ten thousand then it is going to be a little more difficult. But, I think putting forth the expectation and figuring out what is stopping you from getting there, I think is a good first step. If you don't have a full, video collaborative real time tools that we're starting to see more and more service organizations have, it's still just a phone call or still just an email, it's still just a way to communicate, to get a better understanding.

 

"This also allows companies to work with their engineers to put them on a schedule that actually opens up more productivity for the organization"

- Aly Pinder Jr, IDC

 

This is good practical advice that many field service organizations will adhere to. However, Pinder is also a strong advocate of ensuring that the engineer understands that they are valued in their role as more than just a pair of hands as well. This means understanding how the current situation is impacting them beyond just their ability to do the job at hand.

As Pinder added "… and then opening up a channel that says every other day, 'I want you guys to let me know how are your home lives being impacted? Is there something where your work schedule may not be what it's always been can we readjust from a scheduling perspective what hours you're able to work based off of your own concerns.' Here in the US, it could be that they're struggling for daycare or, other support systems for their family. Maybe their working hours should be XYZ as opposed to what the regular nine to five?

"This also allows companies to work with their engineers to put them on a schedule that actually opens up more productivity for the organization because they can move things around from a scheduling perspective that also allows us to meet our customer's requirements to not have so many people on site at any given time."

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on the Field Service sector @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Read our back catalogue of articles exclusively written for Field Service News by Aly Pinder Jr @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/aly-pinder
• Read more about managing the mobile workforce @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Connect with Aly Pinder Jr on LinkedIN @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/aly-pinder-jr-2a48a92
• Follow Aly Pinder Jr on twitter @ https://twitter.com/pinderjr
• Read more about Aly's work with IDC @ https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF005055

Salesforce’s Gary Brandeleer offers six key considerations field service companies should be aware of when approaching how to empower their field workers with best-in-class mobile technologies...

A necessary change in field service is well underway: 71% of service decision makers have made significant investments in mobile technologies and headcount. As customer expectations continue to rise, the new wave of field service workers entering the mobile workforce have their own expectations: that employers equip them with the best tools and technology to do their jobs. 

Many jobs and tasks still require in-person service. When mobile workers have the same capabilities (and visibility) as office-based peers, they work more efficiently, increase the rate of first-visit resolutions, and improve the overall customer experience. If you’ve already made the investment in your mobile workforce — or are planning to - make sure you prioritise these six tools to equip field service workers for success.

 

1. Enable Field Service Workers with a Single View of the Customer

Before the leading 3D printing provider Stratasys implemented a connected field service solution, it was challenging for their field service workers to get background information about the asset or the customer before arriving on site. Now they have full control of customer engagement because of a complete view of the customer and job information from their field service app. 

The Stratasys field service experience should be the norm — but it’s not yet. A mobile worker who has to switch back and forth between screens is not operating efficiently, and 49% still toggle screens on the job. This can cause difficulties in finding customer details and all the information needed to complete a job quickly while on site.

Having all customer information easily accessible in one place on a mobile device helps to boost efficiency and improve first-visit resolution.

A mobile worker’s field service app should enable them to deliver the best customer experience. With the right field service app, a mobile worker will have complete insight to know everything before they even walk in the door, allowing them to log real-time updates and collect any needed data like photos, signatures, and more.

 

2. Give Field Service Workers Complete Access with a Connected Device

Being a mobile worker in field service can be a solitary profession, which is a leading contributor to the high level of churn in the industry. Giving those in the field a connected device allows them to stay in sync with everyone back in the office. A connected device also links to your field service solution via an app or mobile website. This provides mobile workers with a complete set of data and insights they need to perform their jobs from any location, including:

• Customer information
• Work history
• Task lists and recommended next steps
• Schedules
• Real-time alerts from dispatchers
• Knowledge base

 

3. Allow Easily Synced Offline Access

With offline capabilities, mobile field workers download job details before they set out for the day, eliminating any need to print out (and accidentally lose) important information. That information is fully available in offline mode on their device when they’re in remote locations with the same level of access they would have online.

Mobile workers log updates and sync them once in range of service, keeping dispatchers updated on job status. Stratasys opted for offline capabilities to help their mobile workers access job information — even while serving high-security industries — and the result was better service and growing customer satisfaction.

 

4. Enable location tracking to keep everyone in the know

When field service is connected, no one is left out of the loop. Dispatchers know where a mobile worker is through location tracking and can alert them in real time of any cancellations or shifts in their schedule.

Additionally, mobile workers are able to notify dispatchers back in the office if there are any delays. Meanwhile, customers are notified with an estimated time of arrival, similar to the real-time updates they may receive about an Uber ride.

 

5. Provide Visibility Into Maintenance and Inventory

Not all mobile workers can easily tell if a customer is under warranty for a part or service — only 57% say they have that information. Enabling mobile workers to see customers’ warranty information for a part or service helps them view the maintenance information for each asset.

With a complete picture of the asset, mobile workers can better and more accurately serve their customers. When they need a part that’s not on hand, they can instantly ask any field workers nearby if they have a spare and coordinate pickup.

 

6. Offer Support for Complex Cases

When field service workers are on a job and unsure of how to solve a complex issue, they shouldn’t have to muddle through it alone — they should have a knowledge base of articles or video tutorials through their field service app. Make sure mobile workers have additional support by allowing them to connect with a remote agent via chat, video, or phone.

This helps them to achieve a resolution quickly, without needing a second visit. A chat function is particularly important since the new generation of field workers prefer chat over phone calls.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about digital transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/servitization-and-advanced-services
• Read more about mobile workforce management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
• Connect with Gary on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/garybrandeleer/
• Follow Salesforce on Twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Read about the recently announced latest iteration of Salesforce Field Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/salesforce-announce-the-next-generation-of-field-service-ai-powered-tools-for-trusted-mission-critical-field-service

One of the key areas that was discussed heavily in a recent Field Service News Think Tank Session was whether the move towards remote first as a default a key part of the new normal?

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The Pros and Cons of a Remote First Default Approach to Service Delivery 

As is always the case with the Think Tank Sessions there was robust discussion with the pros and cons of such an approach both put forward. For some around the table including Konica Minolta’s Ged Cranny the shift to a remote first approach was not only likely but also potentially a necessity.

For others in the group including Siemens' Tony Chapman, the conclusions were less certain.

As Chapman commented during the session, “the value for me in the engineer is the knowledge. By that I mean it is not just the knowledge of the product, it is knowledge of the product and the process that we delivered to a customer - then you have to devolve that to a remote service.

“The benefits of that type of knowledge for the customer are that you get the expertise on hand. The question is how much does value does the customer see in that expertise?”

What we saw begin to emerge from this Think Tank session was the start of a new conversation within the field service sector, or perhaps more accurately an increased urgency to assess a conversation we have been having for some time, but where the balance of importance has suddenly been shifted as a result of the global pandemic.

 

"It all revolves around what have you sold to your customer? Are you fixing downtime? Or are you selling uptime?”

- Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax

 

Do we need to guide our customers towards understanding that remote first is the way forward and start having firm conversations about the value of uptime and quick issue resolution over on-site presence? Yet, many customers will still see the value of having an engineer on site – something that is a fundamental part of where their value perception of field service delivery lies. Where do you sit on that?

Perhaps the answer lies in some form of halfway house as is often the way in both life and business. Perhaps, in a world of remote first as a default approach to service delivery, the physical presence of an onsite engineer becomes a premium service offering?

“There are two elements to it this conversation,” mused Coen Jeukens, Vice President of Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax during the detailed debrief session held on simultaneously on the Field Service News Digital Sympoisum and ServiceMax’s executive circles webinar series.

“On the one hand, it all revolves around what have you sold to your customer? Are you fixing downtime? Or are you selling uptime?” Jeukens continues.

“If you are selling the fixing of downtime, then I think the customer is really going to continue seeing the value of the technician being on site. If the technician isn't on site anymore and you start fixing the issues remotely then it is a completely different value proposition.

“On the other hand, if you're selling uptime, for the customer, it doesn’t really matter whether you do it with the technician on site or remote. In fact, maybe fixing it with an remote type of service has a lesser impact on the downtime of the customer. Therefore, I think you first have to know what the customer is buying.”

 

"I always would always take into account service is not only a matter of let's say metrics, I also see that service has a human element to it..."

- Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax

 

However, there as most service leaders will note, there is often more to the longevity and success of a service contract than just the cold hard metrics. There are always countless examples of customers who truly value the rapport of the field service engineer, the human interaction that will be lost within a remote services fix.

As Jeukens comments, “I always would always take into account service is not only a matter of let's say metrics, I also see that service has a human element to it. I do see that there are a lot of customers out there who really value seeing of a technician on site - especially when the technician on site is not only fixing the product, but if the technician is also ‘fixing’ the customer by providing additional services such as how they could better utilize a piece of equipment. For that you really need human interaction.

“Depending on what you're tasking your technicians to do, fixing the downtime or selling the uptime, or even fixing the customer, I think we you will see a hybrid model emerge. However, I definitely see that a lot of companies who have been reluctant in allowing remote connectivity or remote service because they always saw a fear of connectivity, the firewall, etc. - I think a lot of those customers right now see that they have to reassess the fear of opening up a chat channel in the firewall versus their need for uptime,” Jeukens adds.

 

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A few weeks ago, Scope AR and ServiceMax announced that they had established a partnership that would allow ScopeAR to be embedded into the workflow of ServiceMax users...

On the surface, it promises to be a powerful alliance and one that could provide the ease of deployment that has been a barrier for many field service organisations adopting Augmented Reality (AR) solutions as part of their field service deployment.

As we build towards the recovery, many are envisioning a world where on-site touchpoints are to be minimised and so the focus on first-time fix is greater than ever before. Therefore, how we approach service delivery and ensure we are empowering our engineers and technicians fully by giving them access to the information, they need when they need it. The most efficient manner of communicating such information is very much centred around AR, which is now sitting at the very heart of how best-in-class field service organisations are focusing their efforts.

As part of our Beyond the Headlines series of features we Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief Field Service News invited Gabriele Bodda, Vice President of Product Management, ServiceMax and Scott Montgomerie, CEO and Founder of Scope AR to join in him for a discussion on the Field Service News Digital Symposium.

 

"For a ServiceMax user to utilise and harness the power of Scope AR within our platform is going to be straightforward..."

- Gabrielle Bodda, ServiceMax

 

In the first of two excerpts from that session, we look at the practical side of the discussion and ask how seamless the experience of is using Scope AR within the ServiceMax platform?

"For a ServiceMax user to utilise and harness the power of Scope AR within our platform is going to be straightforward,” commented Bodda during the session.

“This is something that we put a lot of attention to when we worked through the partnership, as we do with every partnership,” he continued.

“It is not just about a go-to-market, it is not just about the mutual endorsement, it is about bringing to our customers an end-to-end experience, it is about bringing to the customers something that is ready to use.”

However, the fact that there is an ‘oven-ready’ version of the tool doesn’t mean that it cannot be customised to suit any given companies more specific requirements. As Bodda confirms, “customers can of course change it and adapt it but they also have something to start with that can be deployed very quickly.”

One point that is raised often in conversations around AR in field service is whether there is a need for additional hardware, such as smart glasses or head-mounted computers. However, having led the way with apps for technicians on Apple’s iOS platform, ServiceMax is almost synonymous with harnessing the power of the engineer’s existing device. Will Scope AR fit in with that approach or will the additional investment be required for companies that are to make the most of this partnership“There is no additional hardware necessarily required,” confirmed Montgomery when this question was put to him during the session. “For more complicated use cases, we do support a number of headsets, but for standard integration, iOS and Android are more than capable.”

 

"We really think of Augmented Reality as a way to enhance the knowledge transfer that’s needed between someone that is in the field that is the hands to solve the problem and expert that knows what to do..."

- Scott Montgomerie, Scope AR

 

So how seamless is the integration itself? According to both Bodda and Montgomerie in effect, the integration should function intuitively and holistically. This is crucial to the success of the collaboration.

“We really think of Augmented Reality as a way to enhance the knowledge transfer that’s needed between someone that is in the field that is the hands to solve the problem and expert that knows what to do,” explains Montgomerie.

“The integration we’ve built with ServiceMax is geared towards that ideal scenario where they [the field technician] is already within the work order where they can click on the procedure through a deep linking mechanism – it’s very seamless,” he concludes.

Look out for the second excerpt from this session where we look at the broader use cases of Augmented Reality in general. In that upcoming article, we get Bodda’s and Montgomerie’s insight into how the companies they are working with are leveraging the tools to navigate their way through the current crisis we are all facing.

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Further Reading:

• Learn more about how WorkLink seamlessly integrates with the ServiceMax FSM platform @  www.scopear.com/partners/servicemax/. 
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about Augmented Reality in Field Service  @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=Augmented+reality+
• Follow ScopeAR on twitter @ https://twitter.com/scopear
• Follow ServiceMax on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/ServiceMax
• Find out more about the services ServiceMax offer to field service companies @ www.servicemax.com/
• Find out more about the services ScopeAR offer to field service companies @www.scopear.com/

 

In a world of digitilization in which it is fully possible to engage with customers without human interaction at all, the field service call has become increasingly rare – it is an opportunity to deal with your customers face to face and in person.

The importance of ‘face-time’ has long been acknowledge within business and so this opportunity to build deeper levels of customer engagement should not be ignored. However, in 2020 the rules have all changed – we now exist in a world of zoom calls and remote service delivery. As we begin to build a new normal there has been much discussion about whether we should be moving to a remote first by default approach. The arguments for doing so are powerful, reduced costs for service delivery against a backdrop of an increasing requirement for zero touch service calls. But could we be throwing out the baby with the bath water in doing so?

As we look towards building the recovery from COVID-19 we spoke to a number of leading field service management experts to ask if field service engineers can and should be still be harnessed to cut through the digital noise and re-introduce the human touch. Now we reflect on those views to reiterate the importance of the human-to-human interaction that the field service visit offers, that perhaps cannot be replaced by a digital alternative.

 

Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director for Service Management at IFS

“Digitalization can streamline and improve the customer experience in many ways, but it will never replace the need for human connection. As digital experiences become more ubiquitous, field service becomes a critical tool in communicating your customer commitment, company culture, and brand identity.

“While customers expect digitalization as a means to simplify their desires to self-schedule, stay informed, and communicate; the more digital our world becomes, the more the face-to-face experience a field technician provides becomes a strategic differentiator.

“COVID-19 has put an even greater emphasis on the importance of human connection, and as recovery ramps the ability to deliver a memorable service interaction will serve as a competitive advantage.”

 

Sumair Dutta, Director of Digital Transformation at ServiceMax

“Human operators become even more vital in an automated environment, not less important. While automation helps shoulder the burden of lower level jobs that don’t generate any added value to the service function – such as locating, moving and loading of stock – it’s the people that often do the best work, innovating, problem solving and understanding customer requirements.

“The human element is essential, as it always has been. And for service teams, this means not losing sight of customers despite increased remote maintenance capabilities. Easier said than done? Not really. 

“Predictive service is one element of a proactive customer management strategy. As Roland Berger identified in its paper Predictive Maintenance: From Data Collection to Value Creation, predictive and not reactive service is essential for any organisation that wants to move forward and embrace digital transformation. By accessing sensor data through IoT networks, machine learning algorithms can analyse and predict in real time, alerting service teams to potential issues before they become serious problems.

 

"It’s so important for service teams to get in front of customers, highlighting potential issues and resolving them..."

- Sumair Dutta, ServiceMax

 

“It shouldn’t stop there. It’s so important for service teams to get in front of customers, highlighting potential issues and resolving them. Cutting through the digital noise requires communication, even if current working practices will limit face-to-face meetings. Using the data and understanding customer equipment status will be increasingly important given cost constraints and everyone wanting to get more bang for their buck. For example, are customers retiring equipment too early? According to a Forrester report commissioned by ServiceMax, From Grease to code: What drives digital transformation, forty one percent of firms don’t know if they’re retiring equipment prematurely due to lack of service data insight, an area where service teams can be proactive in helping customers optimise their equipment use.

“Customer success delivered with the combination of both a human and digital touch should be a strategic priority for service teams. Through analysing service data, teams can provide visible, proactive suggestions to customers (with recommendations delivered by human technicians), on how they can improve. This can lead, where appropriate, to upgrades, new machines or increased maintenance deals but ultimately this is about demonstrating value and building a stronger bond, something which an account rep calling up three months before a renewal can rarely achieve. 

“So, while automation is both the present and future of field service provision, with predictive maintenance the bedrock of modern servitization, organisations cannot afford to sit back and rely on automation alone to illustrate value to customers. As the economy tries to find its feet, demonstrating customer value and keeping the ‘human touch’ front and centre is more important than ever. Service maintenance data is the ammunition for proactive customer engagement, but it will be different skillsets that take this forward, such as softer skills by technicians. Communication is key and human interaction is essential to ensure organisations are not out of sight and mind of their customers.

 

Mark Tatarsky – VP Marketing, FieldAware

"Throughout the service lifecycle, customers continually assess a service company’s value and brand. As the world works to limit human interaction while keeping assets installed, maintained, and repaired, technology creates a duality to decrease “unnecessary” interactions and improve the quality of “necessary” interactions. Field Service Automation enables organizations to schedule and execute on-site jobs while managing social distancing effectively.

"Workforce management and rules-based scheduling systems decrease the number of unnecessary visits by dispatching the right technician with the correct skillset and tools/equipment to complete the job. Points of contact are further reduced via technician location tracking and arrival notifications so customers can meet technicians at the point-of-service at a specific time.

 

"Once the service engineer leaves the site, technology simplifies a digital survey process to close the loop enabling customers to provide feedback and service organizations to react quickly..."

- Marc Tatarsky, FieldAware

 

"Field techs are the face of the brand during the critical moment of service delivery. Investing in technology with innovative customer-centric communications and management capabilities ensures necessary site visits meet the customer’s requirements, SLA commitments, and provide ample time for essential on-site relationship management.

"Digitizing the process to include workforce management, mobile tech enablement, knowledge tools, work instructions, diagnostics, or remote expert advice increases the vital first-time fix rate and customer satisfaction. Ensuring estimated job durations automatically include time for engineers to spend with customers on necessary site visits to discuss their business requirements and identify areas to extend value improves the customer relationship experience. Once the service engineer leaves the site, technology simplifies a digital survey process to close the loop enabling customers to provide feedback and service organizations to react quickly to problems or take steps to solidify a robust user experience."

 

Ashok Kartham, CEO and Founder, Mize

“Digitization of Field Service has brought new meaning to the concept of providing the “Warm and Fuzzies”.   In the past, we may have taken it for granted that courteous and friendly service is the foundation of a good customer experience. Now, when a field service visit is required, technicians can arrive onsite with the knowledge, skills, and resources to fix both the problem and the customer. After all, end-customers expect their technician to be experts. The better the technician can communicate his knowledge about the customer, the customer’s install base, the customer’s experiences, preferences, history, etc. they more valuable they become and the better the experience they provide. Ultimately, this is the human touch they desire, and digitization makes his possible.”  

 

"Customers trust field service technicians because of their product knowledge and solution approach. Customers are more willing to accept advice from a person they trust..."

- Ashok Kartham, Mize

 

“Customers trust field service technicians because of their product knowledge and solution approach. Customers are more willing to accept advice from a person they trust. The Field service technician is in the best position to establish that trusted relation with the customers. “

“By being the main or only direct contact with the customers, field service technicians can help increase the attach rates of service contracts, consumables, and related products and services. Technicians need to be enabled to access customer history, provide quotes, and complete transactions while with the customer.”   

 

Michael Maoz, Senior Vice President, Innovation Strategy, Salesforce

“Advances in embedded intelligence in all devices and structures means that in the near future any on-site presence of a field technician is either for initial installation, or a complex repair. To play Devil’s Advocate, in some ways this will lessen the importance of the technician visit, as an ever-greater percentage of the customer relationship, and therefore customer satisfaction, will be cultivated and maintained remotely, through self service, in-store, or within customer communities.

"Shifts in customer priorities in some countries, brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, increasingly will mean that face-to-face engagement will happen on a screen. Remote video diagnostic sessions done in collaboration with the customer will become the preferred approach. The quality of remote video sessions will explode with the introduction of 5G over the coming three years. It will allow a feeling of genuine presence, due to high fidelity augmented reality in the form of the virtual presence of the technicians, overlaid video instructions, and voice-driven instructions from AI sources.

 

"To prevent the process change and the culture change from overwhelming their field service organizations, tight planning is necessary, and an integrated set of processes across marketing, sales and service..."

- Michael Maoz, Salesforce

 

"This sense of a shared business and customer effort at service resolution will leave the customer feeling a deeper connection with the enterprise. Connections foster trust, and trust fosters loyalty. Loyal customers buy more often and recommend to their friends that they do the same.

“There will be more thorough remote preparation for the arrival of the technician in the cases where this is necessary or a best practice (Such as relationship building, demonstrating new products and services, and marketing new offers). Digitization will simplify the job of the technician onsite. This will give the technician the time and the tools to better engage the customer from a position of empathy, and with a focus on developing business opportunities

“Organizations are already discovering that embracing the enhanced role of the field service engineer requires a new set of criteria and practices to attract talent, train and motivate and compensate talent, and to measure the business outcomes (for example: costs, upselling, retention, churn).

“To prevent the process change and the culture change from overwhelming their field service organizations, tight planning is necessary, and an integrated set of processes across marketing, sales and service. An ability to capture and analyse a constant stream of customer feedback will be vital in helping the enterprise keep such a program on track. The challenges will be great, and the rewards will be even greater.”

Last week Salesforce announced the next generation of their FSM solution, Salesforce Field Service, which was designed to equip field service organisations with the power of Artificial Intelligence-powered tools to deliver trusted mission-critical field service delivery. To find out more about this announcement Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News spoke exclusively with Paul Whitelam,VP of Product Strategy, Field Service Management, Salesforce.

The development of Salesforce as a powerhouse within the field service management sector has always been on the cards ever since they first announced their first foray into the world of Field Service Management (FSM) four years ago back in 2016. As the world's most dominant CRM platform, they had the muscle to grow in this aligned technological space rapidly and have done so at breakneck speed. However, in the last 12 months, their development has been given a turbo-boost with the acquisition of Click (formerly ClickSoftware.) Given that the original iteration of Salesforces' Field Service Lighting was developed using Click's technology, there was always something of an inevitability of the acquisition. Now just over a year after the intention to acquire Click was announced we are seeing the fulfilment of the promise of this more formal union emerge.

As Whitelam explained when I spoke to him just ahead of last week's announcement of the next generation of Salesforce Field Service (now minus the 'lightening' suffix) "we evolved particularly after the acquisition of Click in October last year it has given us an really unfair advantage in terms of accelerating the integration of the Click Intellectual Property into the Salesforce codebase."

 

"Click had hundreds of people with twenty years plus experience in the space which is now infused into the Salesforce ecosystem..."

- Paul Whitelam, Saleforce

 

However, it was not just the best-in-class technology that Click brought to the marriage. As a company that spent years at the fore of the FSM sector, they also brought a wealth of industry experience.

"It [the acquisition of Click] has also accelerated our growth in areas such as go to market implementation capabilities. Click had hundreds of people with twenty years plus experience in the space which is now infused into the Salesforce ecosystem," Whitelam explains.

So, what makes the new iteration of Salesforce Field Service so exciting? Well firstly, much has been made about the ability for companies on the platform to leverage Einstein, Salesforce's own powerful AI offering. Indeed this is something that underpins much of the tools that were central to Salesforce's initial wave of messaging that we saw across the industry trade journals across the last week or so. 

 

Understanding the New-Normal of Field Service Operations:

However, while this is an essential ingredient in the Salesforce mix, perhaps what was also apparent was how the solutions Salesforce have introduced show an increased maturity of understanding of the challenges field service organisations are now facing in a post-pandemic world

"A lot of people are now thinking about the context of what field service means in the face of today's pandemic-centric environment," comments Whitelam.

"The truth of the matter is that in terms of field service, the show must go on. These are mission-critical staff, of course in healthcare, but also elsewhere in industries such as utilities or communications that literally must continue being able to support the various infrastructures these organisations maintain.

"There are some typical ever present challenges field service companies face such as challenges around data being in disparate systems, not having a consolidated view of the history of what has taken place with an asset and information about the customer themselves," Whitelam continues.

 

"We have to ensure a task can be broken down, so that the points where there must be person to person interactions are minimised..."

- Paul Whitelam, Salesforce

 

"However, obviously there are new challenges that come from the pandemic. Safety requirements is a key issue for example. Companies need to be making sure they are not risking spreading the infection and doing everything to safeguard the safety of their staff and their customers alike."

This is at the heart of the dichotomy field service organisations now face. They must continue to deliver mission-critical maintenance, yet still some six months on from the initial lockdowns much of the exact details of the threat of COVID-19 remain uncertain. When dealing with so many unknowns, at the corporate level at least, it is essential to take every precaution possible to mitigate any potential risk while still being operationally effective.

The balancing act required to navigate this particular tightrope requires rethinking many fundamental processes within field service delivery.

"We have to ensure a task can be broken down," Whitelam suggests, "so that the points where there must be person to person interactions are minimised. Companies must do as much preparation for the job as possible in a remote environment. Also can the wrap up of the job be outside of that face to face environment?"

 

Finding a way to clear the backlog built up during lockdown:

While, finding a way to get back to work as quickly and safely as possible is the first and most obvious challenge that field service organisations face, the mountain of maintenance jobs that were put on hiatus during the height of the lockdowns also present another significant challenge.

"For me, I think [the backlog of work] has really put a new light from our perspective on the value of automation," comments Whitelam.

"What we have seen with our platform is that levels of engagement with our customers on our platform are 20% higher than it was before the pandemic. In field service at least, it is not so much a v-shaped recovery, but something more akin to a checkmark because we are simultaneously playing catch up on all of that maintenance activity as well. Companies are going to be best placed to address this new dynamic by automating as much as they can and having their dispatchers and specialists focus on exceptional cases. Automation is the surest way to free up the appropriate time to allow them to do that.

However, while automation will go a long way to helping remove much of the non-essential day-to-day tasks within the field service workflow, it may still not be enough alone to get things back on track.

 

"Elasticity in the workforce is another example of something that as we entered into 2020 was a best-in-class attribute, a nice to have, rather than a necessity. Now, it is essential..."

 

Put simply; there will still be a need for a human pair of hands to resolve issues, even in some of the most routine maintenance work. This is where the concept of the blended workforce must become more prevalent.

"Companies should be making sure they are deploying the full range of workers included badged employees, contract workers and third-party labour," agrees Whitelam when I put this motion forward to him.

"At Salesforce, we have a number of ways of engaging with those third parties. You can very easily set them up in the system and you can allocate work to them and gain visibility into that work progress. Being able to support that kind of work model and having a more elastic workforce is really important."

Elasticity in the workforce is another example of something that as we entered into 2020 was a best-in-class attribute, a nice to have, rather than a necessity. Now, it is essential. This is especially so when there is just such an unknown availability of resources generally.

"If suddenly your people can't come to work, which is still an issue we face as an industry and a society, you've got to be able to pivot and you've got to have alternative options," Whitelam asserts. "Having an elastic workforce to address these new challenges is critical," he adds.

Of course, while some jobs simply cannot be completed without an onsite field service technician, increasingly we have seen service organisations turn wherever possible to utilising remote service delivery as an alternative.

"There are a couple of aspects to this shift to remote service delivery," explains Whitelam.

"One is ensuring the field service technician has got access to knowledge when they are at the point of service. This involves recommending articles and best practices to resolve the problem or connect them with other experts within the field service organisation that have experience of the task at hand.

"However, I think in the future there is going to be more recognition of ways to serve the customer without necessarily rolling a truck. Salesforce has something of an advantage here in that the field service piece is part of the Service Cloud already.

"Field Service is one way to solve a problem, in some use cases it is going to be the only way to solve a problem. However, in many other use cases there may be alternative approaches to finding resolution. These could involve the call-centre, digital engagement tools, knowledge management and even self-service – the fact that you have all of these in one platform, that actually gives a lot of companies many advantages. They can solve a problem in one of many different ways depending on the cost profile and the nature of the issue," he adds.

Indeed, the challenges we as an industry face as we look towards the final months of 2020 and hopefully to a far less turbulent 2021 are many. However, the technologies and tools at our disposal can allow us to not only ride the tsunami of disruption caused by COVID-19 but to come out of this the other side more robust, more resilient and more responsive to our customers' needs.

With this latest iteration of their FSM solution, Salesforce have now absolutely established themselves as being at the vanguard of the organisations delivering these tools.

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Further Reading:

• Read the initial news report about the announcement of the latest iteration of Salesforce Field Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/salesforce-announce-the-next-generation-of-field-service-ai-powered-tools-for-trusted-mission-critical-field-service
• Read more about digital transformation in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/servitization-and-advanced-services
• Read more about the impact of COVID-19 on the field service sector @ www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Read previous articles by Paul Whitelam @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/paul-whitelam
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
• Connect with Paul on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/paulwhitelam/
• Follow Salesforce on Twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce