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FSN Research recently undertook a detailed study in partnership with HSO to understand precisely what CSAT metrics are being tracked by field service organisations.

At the same time, the study also explored the digital transformation journey our sector has been on for several years and how this was significantly accelerated due to the pandemic across 2020 and into this year. Having published the results, Dan Snowdon, Danny Wieder and Kevin Brown of HSO joined Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland to discuss the findings of the study in greater depth.

In this excerpt from that debrief session the group discuss why customer satisfaction has risen so dramatically amongst field service organisations in terms of the crucial KPIs that can yield effective change within the unit.

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Further Reading:

• Read more exclusive features from FSN Research  @ research.fieldservicenews.com/
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about customer service trends @ Features on CSAT trends
• Read more insights from HSO and how they are helping field service companies drive improvements in customer satisfaction and increasing operational efficiency here
• Arrange a consultation to find out how HSO can help your field service business grow by clicking here 

Having recently caught up with ServiceMax CEO, Neil Barua, Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland realised just how unusual the story of ServiceMax is amongst tech companies. It is a story of twists and turns and now that Barua is driving forward his own chapter in that story, Oldland felt it was an appropriate time to recount the epic tale of the start-up that changed the industry before becoming worth almost a Billion Dollars and ask Barua where the next chapter is going to be set in these most disrupted of times...

Most tech companies have a decent origin story.

Indeed, many could (and often have been) the subject of an entire book of their own. However, not many companies have the oh so many twists and turns that ServiceMax has had. The life story for most companies within the small $25Bn corner of the enterprise tech world that we in the field service sector call home is mostly Mills and Boon. A brief account of love that ends in the protagonist being whisked away to a quieter life far away from the frantic frontier world of innovation.

The tale of ServiceMax, at least to my mind, is more akin to the great epics, with a far less linear but ultimately more fulfilling story to be told, and like most great epics, it is a story that spans more than one volume.

Maybe it is simply because I have been personally close to the story from near the very start that I see it in this way - although I personally don’t think it is just that. I’ve been there at the birth of several companies within our sector. I’ve watched them flourish and then watched them fade back into the general noise of the industry as the cycle of innovation and acquisition, acquisition and innovation rumble ever onwards.

Such companies, the Coresystems’, the TOA’s and the FieldOne’s, all had their stories. They all had their heroes, and they all had their moments in the sun. Yet, there was a sense of inevitability when it came to the final chapter. Slowly, inevitably, they became assimilated into the corporate colours of the respective industry giants that acquired them along the way. There is no shame in that. Indeed, it is the way these things are generally done; ultimately, the innovators almost always end up becoming a footnote in someone else’s story.

 

"From these humble origins, which can be traced back to a two-week project Athani and Hari initially built for a client under the moniker of Maxplore, ServiceMax quickly rose from start-up to genuine market leader in record time..."

 

And this is what makes the ServiceMax story so intriguing.

Despite being the biggest prize of them all, despite hitting the headlines across the global technology press when GE acquired them for close to a Billion dollars, simultaneously shining a spotlight onto our sector like never before, the GE chapter remains a footnote in the ServiceMax saga and not the other way around.

As I say, I’ve been privileged to have a front-row seat for almost a decade in the ServiceMax journey. For me, as an outside observer watching the company move through its various evolutions, there are three very distinct personas of a company that has dominated our industry headlines for that same period.

Firstly, there was the brash, brightly coloured ServiceMax, all bold colours, orange lettering against a big blue cloud if I recall. Built on the Salesforce platform but identifying a gap in the market and meeting it long before the rest of the world had begun to catch up. This first iteration was the story of the plucky start-up rising to become the industry titan. It was a true story of disruption and vision.

It was only over the year’s as I got to know then CEO Dave Yarnold better that I realised just how humble the origins had been for the company. I remember Yarnold recalling one story about their rented office in a tucked-away corner of Silicon Valley lovingly nicknamed the beige palace and having to head over to Best-Buy to pick up a TV so he and founders Hari (Subramanian) and Athani (Krishna) could give a presentation to their first-ever prospect.

Yet, from these humble origins, which can be traced back to a two-week project Athani and Hari initially built for a client under the moniker of Maxplore, ServiceMax quickly rose from start-up to genuine market leader in record time.

“We looked at what everybody was doing around service and we thought everyone was missing the point,” Yarnold explained in an interview with me back in late 2016. It was this confidence that they had found a missing piece of the puzzle that oozed throughout the business. The best way to describe how ServiceMax operated in this period was with the confident swagger of a youthful start-up that knew they were destined for the stars.

Of course, the rise was meteoric. By the time they had reached the top of the FSM tree, the value of that success was the acquisition of ServiceMax by GE for an eye-watering $915 Million. While rumours of various potential suitors to acquire the Pleasanton based company had been circulating for some time, this was an acquisition from the left-field not only regarding the price tag but also, who was paying it.

However, as the dust settled, increasingly the acquisition on the surface at least, seemed to make sense. As Scott Berg, former ServiceMax COO who took over the CEO mantle from Yarnold after the initial transition to GE had been completed, explained to me when I sat down with him at the Minds and Machines conference back in 2017.

“I think with GE being largely a company and culture built around engineers, we have both shared an asset centric perspective on service. For us, it was always about a system of assets in the field that customers wanted outputs and outcomes from - we were never about being your typical field service, scheduling only solution. For us it was an awareness of the people, the schedule and the asset. And certainly GE’s culture is grounded in engineering, machinery and assets - so we are on the same page.”

Indeed, if the first iteration of ServiceMax was characterised by a swashbuckling and pioneering approach to rethinking field service management, the GE period in their history was one better characterised by a more restrained and cohesive approach as part of a bigger, more holistic whole.

 

"If you look at GE as a company, I like to call it the largest field service company in the world. There are tens of thousands of technicians, and the vast majority of revenue at GE is derived from service contracts”

- Scott Berg, Former CEO, ServiceMax

 

As Berg had explained, “if you look at GE as a company, I like to call it the largest field service company in the world. There are tens of thousands of technicians, and the vast majority of revenue at GE is derived from service contracts”. Suddenly, the vision of the future of field service management that Hari, Anthani and Dave had successfully convinced our sector was the way forward was now backed up by an organisation that had the engineering gravitas to put it to the test and had backed that vision with an investment that broke all records within the FSM sector.

For many FSM companies, this is where the story may have ground to a halt. ServiceMax was increasingly aligned within the ill-fated GE Predix platform as part of GE Digital; this is the point in the story where all too often, rebrands occur, and the identity at the core of the acquired business is slowly eroded.

Yet, while the wider GE Digital business faltered (most notably Predix, which at the time was the archetypal solution for a problem no one had yet found), ServiceMax continued to report above industry earnings.

Indeed, when GE finally made the decision to carve out their GE Digital business into a standalone company (against a backdrop of analyst rumours of a distinct lack of buyers for the various elements of the portfolio and GE’s confidence in their move into growth tech markets appearing to wane), it is little wonder that ServiceMax, the jewel in the crown that had continued to shine in an ailing portfolio, remained the one valuable asset that GE could cash in on.

As such, SilverLake, the private equity firm with investment in significant technology brands such as Dell Technologies, Stripe and Peloton among many others, were able to take advantage of the uncertain future of GE Digital and introduce the third chapter into the ServiceMax story.

And the man shaping this latest chapter of the story is Neil Barua, current CEO of ServiceMax. I recall first meeting Neil within just a few days of his announcement as CEO as we met over a beer in the dry heat of the Palm Springs desert. It had been a long day for us both; I had been chairing the mainstream at Field Service USA; Neil had literally just arrived an hour or so before we met.

Yet, at the time, I recall saying to him that his passion for the role he had just taken on and the belief he expressed in the importance of how the field service sector keeps the world turning had echoes of some of those earliest conversations I had held with Yarnold almost a decade earlier.

It’s hard to pinpoint, but there was already a distinct hint of the confidence, the belief and the sheer desire to be the change that the world needs that came across in that first conversation.

Of course, in the two years in between, our world has changed immeasurably. The appealing idea of another relaxed conversation in the Californian sun seems like a long way off still as the dust settles from the pandemic.

Yet, in many ways, everything Barua said to me that evening about the importance of the field service sector was laid bare for us all to see as we collectively made our way through what have been truly unprecedented times.

 

“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

 

His point about field service engineers being the unsung heroes of industry, now seems more prescient than ever after a year where it has been the field service workers that have quietly kept things ticking over while the rest of us adapted to the monotony of lockdown life safe in our private bubbles.

Neil and I have spoken occasionally in the intervening period, most notably after the announcement that Salesforce Ventures invested a further $80 Million into ServiceMax at a time when the partnership between the two is being firmly re-established.

It is another interesting twist in the tale, and to return to our literary metaphor from the beginning of this article; it is almost the classic plot of lost love rekindled. The classic 90s rom-com story arc of a reunion between two high-school lovers that had grown apart as they made their own paths in the world before rediscovering their affinity for each other at a later point when they are now both mature enough to realise how much they genuinely compliment each other.

ServiceMax, as we’ve covered, have had their growing pains, especially in the fall-out of the uncertainty of the GE Digital restructuring, but so to have Salesforce.

Like ServiceMax, they are another industry pioneer who for so long had so much potential to dominate within the FSM space given their position as the world’s number one CRM. Yet, somehow they never quite managed to hit the mark in terms of truly understanding the market’s needs in the granular detail that their peers and competitors did. This very much changed with the acquisition of ClickSoftware.

While the technology acquired was well accepted as an industry leader in the scheduling space, it was the depth of knowledge from former ClickSoftware CEO Mark Cantini (now GM Field Service Salesforce) and down throughout the team that has since moulded Salesforce into a true giant in the industry.

With Silverlake’s backing of ServiceMax and a newly invigorated Salesforce working in closer harmony, each aware of their own particular strengths they bring to the table, it is a formidable combination – and as our industry goes through the birth pains of seismic change brought on by the global disruption of the pandemic, to be blunt, our sector desperately needs our brightest and best innovators on top of their game and pulling in the same direction wherever possible.

As Barua commented when I spoke to him about the partnership while we were still in the depths of the pandemic, “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.”

At the heart of that partnership is Asset 360, which was at the centre of our last discussion when we caught up on Zoom a little earlier in the month.

“What does successful service delivery look like?” It was a question that we had drifted into as we had started to discuss just how much the perceived value of field service may have changed as our industry adapted to a post-pandemic world.

 

"As we continue to grow rapidly and expand into new industries with Asset 360, our core tenant of customer obsession still remains central to everything we do. All decisions we make around product and partnerships are all done with our customers in mind..."

- Neil Barua, CEO, ServiceMax

 

“For me,” Barua replied, “it absolutely requires a collection of well-orchestrated actions and data - an all-encompassing solution that supports the post-pandemic world. Honestly, that’s precisely where Asset 360 comes in – there really is no use case that we cannot support in this new era of work.

“It is one of the many reasons, that I’m incredibly optimistic about ServiceMax’s future. Despite all of the challenges and hardships we’ve faced in the last 18 months, we’ve moved so far, so fast and now the momentum is strong, to build a future that will take advantage of technologies to drive service excellence to a whole new level.”

Yet, for all the technological innovation that has come out of the ServiceMax team across the years and various iterations, there is one thing that remains consistent throughout. One thing that has become so woven into the company’s DNA that it has permeated through every incarnation and continues to shine through under Barua’s leadership.

That is an intimate understanding of the importance of customer-centricity, both for ServiceMax themselves but also for the industry they serve.

“As we continue to grow rapidly and expand into new industries with Asset 360, our core tenant of customer obsession still remains central to everything we do. All decisions we make around product and partnerships are all done with our customers in mind,” Barua explains.

“Our priority will always be to help them run more profitable, efficient service operations and ensure uptime on the world’s most important assets,” he adds.

If the first iteration of ServiceMax had the brash confidence of the arrogant start-up set to conquer the world, and the second iteration of ServiceMax had the confidence of being part of one of the world’s most iconic and successful brands, then this third iteration of ServiceMax has the confidence of a company that has been at the forefront of the industry for so long that they don’t just get the t-shirt, these guys make the t-shirts now.

Despite the significant investment from both Silverlake and Salesforce Ventures, ServiceMax distinctly has an air of entrepreneurship back in the mix and that stems no doubt from Barua’s own personal flair.

The entrepreneurial innovator is a role that just seems to suit the company better perhaps than the smaller cog in the corporate wheel that they had become under GE. It is hard to explain why, but some companies just have a natural persona and this third iteration of ServiceMax just seems to have found the right blend that fits with their corporate DNA.

Indeed, it is this blend of individual flair met with genuine passion and deep subject matter expertise that for me personifies ServiceMax and it is one that permeates across many members of the team I have grown to know well over the years (such as senior members of the Global Customer Transformation team like Kieran Notter and Coen Jeukens two of the brightest minds in the industry.)

Yet ServiceMax, also are making more measured movements this time around, perhaps having gone through the corporate machine, but equally in no small part down to Barua’s leadership and previous experience as CEO at fintech provider IPC Systems.

As our industry moves through yet another mass evolution, once again at a breakneck pace, indeed at a more incredible pace than ever before, I fully expect Barua’s iteration of ServiceMax to be at the vanguard of the innovation once more.

Whatever comes next, though, in the ServiceMax story, it almost certainly won’t be part of the standard script

In this final feature of his blog series on “supercharging” revenue generation through the field service team, Jim Baston, President of BBA Consulting Group, explains how to create a plan to maintain the focus and enthusiasm of your field team.

This is my last blog on supercharging revenue generation through your field service team.

Imagine opening up a reputable trade magazine and reading an article that states that you should stop maintaining your mechanical and electrical equipment.  You read the following:

Engineers have just discovered that maintenance of mechanical and electrical equipment is not needed to keep equipment running at peak performance.  You’ll get better performance by ignoring the equipment altogether.  The equipment will run better and you’ll save money on not having to pay those service bills!  This is great news for building owners and process managers.  They can now take a hands-off approach, while getting excellent performance from their equipment.

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it?  Who could possibly believe that the equipment that we lovingly maintain for our customers could possibly perform better if left un-serviced?  In real life, without maintenance, filters will clog, belts will break and electrical connections will overheat.  The cost of keeping things running, let alone performing at their peak will go up exponentially.  Ultimately, everything will grind to a halt.

And yet, if we don’t take steps to help our techs maintain focus, is it not suggesting that we’ve similarly unrealistic expectations when it comes to their proactive performance?  What are we doing for our field team to “maintain” their focus of making recommendations that will help the customer to be better off?  We can do little or nothing and leave it to chance, or we can take the initiative to put into place a strategy to maintain focus and continually upgrade skills.  The choice is ours.

Maintaining focus requires that we put in place a strategy to constantly “maintain” the service our technicians are providing. This includes:

• Talking about the valuable service provided by the field service team at every opportunity
• Providing skills reinforcement on a regular basis
• Coaching the desired behaviour
• Keeping the team current on all of our company’s capabilities
• Evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of our tools and processes to ensure they continue to provide the support needed to help the techs do their job
• Measuring and reporting on results

A special word about measurement. The proactive efforts of our technicians will generate new revenues so it’s natural to want to measure any revenue growth associated with their efforts. This could include measures such as overall revenue growth, growth of project business compared to the maintenance base, etc. But these types of measures only look at part of the picture. If we’re performing a valuable service, we should also consider other measures of the success of our initiative. These include:

• Customer satisfaction scores
• Customer retention rates
• Emergency vs. planned work (the percentage of emergency work should decrease vs. our planned work which will have an impact on our labour planning)

And don’t forget to ask the customer how they feel about the service itself. For example, we could ask, “How happy are you with the recommendations our technicians are making to help you achieve your business goals?

This is the last blog in our series of supercharging revenue generation through the field service team. I hope you have found it of value. To return to the first blog in this series, click here. If I can be of any assistance, please just let me know. You can reach me at jim@jimbaston.com or call me at (416) 254-2383.

Reflection

Create a plan to maintain the focus and enthusiasm of your field team in each of the following areas:

Focus

• Skills reinforcement
• Coaching and development
• Maintaining currency
  • Skills
  • Systems and tools

Measurement

• Customer satisfaction and retention
• Performance measurement
• Operational impacts

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This course is available to purchase for just £299. 

Alternatively, this course is available as part of the Field Service News Masterclass program included within an annual subscription to FSN Elite our new membership community. Currently, while we are in a beta trial of FSN Elite we are offering a free upgrade for all FSN Premium subscribers.

FSN Premium subscription costs just £299 a year (giving you a year's access to this course and others within the Masterclass program as well as access to weekly zoom discussion calls and our in-person event) 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Leadership and Strategy @ www.fieldservicenews.com/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more exclusive articles by Jim Baston @ www.fieldservicenews.com/jim-baston
• Connect with Jim Baston on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/jimbaston
• Learn more about Jim Baston and BBA Consulting Group @ jimbaston.com
• Connect with Jim Baston directly by email @ jim@jimbaston.com

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, is joined by Mark Belenky, CEO of Software Outsourcing Solutions and a specialist in workforce management solutions, to work through some of the key findings of an exclusive Field Service News Research project that spoke to over 100 service leaders from the field service sector and beyond to understand the key trends in workforce management.

During the discussion, the two discuss a number of key insights revealed from the data including the key metrics that define workforce management success, how companies are optimising the costs of managing the workforce and what tools and processes are being used for best-in-class workforce management.

In this excerpt from that full interview, the two discuss the conclusions from the findings of a research study into workforce management practices amongst service-centric companies.

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Want to know more?

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

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

 

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Workforce Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/workforce-management
• Learn more about Software Outsourcing Solutions @ www.s-o-services.com
• Connect with Mark Belenky on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/in/markbelenky

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, is joined by Mark Belenky, CEO of Software Outsourcing Solutions and a specialist in workforce management solutions, to work through some of the key findings of an exclusive Field Service News Research project that spoke to over 100 service leaders from the field service sector and beyond to understand the key trends in workforce management.

During the discussion, the two discuss a number of key insights revealed from the data including the key metrics that define workforce management success, how companies are optimising the costs of managing the workforce and what tools and processes are being used for best-in-class workforce management.

In this excerpt from that full interview, the two discuss whether there is enough transparency in the disciplinary processes of service-centric companies and what role does technology play in this.

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Want to know more?

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

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

 

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Workforce Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/workforce-management
• Learn more about Software Outsourcing Solutions @ www.s-o-services.com
• Connect with Mark Belenky on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/in/markbelenky

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined on the Field Service News Digital Symposium by Aly Pinder Jr, Program Director of Service Innovation and Connected Products at IDC. Aly is a seasoned expert in the field service industry, technology and innovation and he always thinks forward and spots the upcoming trends in the industry.

During the conversation, the two discuss a wide range of topics related to the evolution of service, the rapid changes and challenges that occurred during the last year and what organisations should do to adapt and prepare for the future.

In this final excerpt from that full interview, the discussion turns to whether the pandemic has slowed down the move to servitization for field service organizations.

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Want to know more?

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

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

 

Further Reading:

• Read more about Servitization & Advanced Services @ www.fieldservicenews.com/servitization
• Read more about the impact of COVID-19 in the Field Service industry @ www.fieldservicenews.com/covid-19
•  
• Read exclusive articles by Aly Pinder on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/aly+pinder
• Follow Aly Pinder on Twitter @ twitter.com/Pinderjr
• Connect with Aly Pinder on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/in/aly-pinder-jr

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, is joined by Mark Belenky, CEO of Software Outsourcing Solutions and a specialist in workforce management solutions, to work through some of the key findings of an exclusive Field Service News Research project that spoke to over 100 service leaders from the field service sector and beyond to understand the key trends in workforce management.

During the discussion, the two discuss a number of key insights revealed from the data including the key metrics that define workforce management success, how companies are optimising the costs of managing the workforce and what tools and processes are being used for best-in-class workforce management.

In this excerpt from that full interview, the conversation focuses on the findings of the study revealing equal issues with downtime and overtime in workforce management.

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Want to know more?

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

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

 

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Workforce Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/workforce-management
• Learn more about Software Outsourcing Solutions @ www.s-o-services.com
• Connect with Mark Belenky on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/in/markbelenky

In this new article for Field Service News, Marc Tatarsky, SVP of Marketing at FieldAware, discusses what organizations in the field service sector should expect as the world gradually reopens for business.

As we enter just past the halfway point of 2021, it feels as though the trials and tribulations of the last 24 months are finally working their way into the rearview mirror. While the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t entirely behind us, much of the world is indeed getting back to a new normal of operating, and the global economy is kicking back in. With the global vaccination rate reaching over a majority of the population in many countries (well over 50% and rising), summer vacations are starting to kick in. Airlines are adding flights, global business events are beginning to go back on the calendar, and many businesses are re-evaluating their office policies.

There is no doubt that the ramifications of COVID-19 are still being felt. Some of the effects of a paused global supply chain are still creeping up in many unanticipated areas – chip manufacturing shortages, surging lumber prices, and even a national chicken wing shortage in the US. But as the dust begins to settle and we analyze some of the lasting repercussions from our survival responses to COVID-19, several unique business model implications have risen to the top. For example, within the service management sector, one lasting transformation has been the consumerization of the end-to-end service experience.

THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE PANDEMIC WILL STILL AFFECT THE FIELD SERVICE SECTOR AS COMPANIES QUICKLY TRY TO ADAPT TO THE "NEW NORMAL"

Something interesting happened when the service industry was forced to deal with the global pandemic. A blurring of B2B and B2C customer experience (CX) expectations occurred. New biosecurity requirements forced many field service organizations to adopt new processes and technology quickly. They needed to fulfill requirements to be accountable for the timing and biosecurity of their dispatched resources. In addition, businesses and employees of all levels were exposed to the art of the possible in their personal customer experiences regarding home deliveries, food services, and other remotely delivered services. The patience for working with an organization that doesn’t take a 360-degree view of customer experience is waning.

Businesses expect the same level of service and data continuity for their business interactions as they do with their consumer interactions. Consumer industry giants like Amazon, Uber, and Netflix are leading the way. Raising the bar of expectations for what customer satisfaction and customer experience can be for all businesses resulting in elevated expectations for understanding past and future service history à la Netflix and point-to-point transparency and status monitoring à la Uber as well as a true 360-degree buyer experience à la Amazon. Businesses expect their B2B interactions to incorporate many of these consumer experiences and have increasing demands for a truly transparent customer experience.

 

"One of the most critical elements of any modern field service management system is interconnectivity and data transparency across various systems of record."

 

Field service organizations raced to adopt new processes and technologies to accommodate expanded service delivery requirements as part of their required response to COVID protocols. However, many of these efforts were rushed into production, leaving the overall customer experience somewhat flat. Now that the new normal operations are stabilizing, advanced service organizations are taking a closer look at their execution models and identifying necessary enhancements and optimizations to deliver the customer experience anticipated. They know the patience for adapting to and getting the workflows right has shortened, and B2B expectations have risen.

One of the most critical elements of any modern field service management system is interconnectivity and data transparency across various systems of record. With the rising consumerism of the service experience, customer data, history, and the workflows associated with field activities must be thoroughly interconnected and transparent. It is not sufficient to have a closed-loop field service workflow. The workflows must interact and leverage data and insights across the organization to enable a seamless 360-degree customer experience.

While this sounds intuitive, many single-vendor solutions lack the functionality or easy connectivity to accomplish this task without significant customization and professional services investment. A best-of-breed approach can often offer better ROI and additional functional advantages by providing unconflicted integration, improved specialized usability, and scale. This flexibility and robust field service-specific capabilities help meet the changing needs and requirements of the service organization – now and in the future.
Many field service segments are bracing for a surge in demand and must be agile to respond. For example, infrastructure service organizations such as renewable energy must not only contend with macro demand pressures created by a global sustainability push but, in the US, a looming federal infrastructure mandate. As both sides of the aisle start to come together to work through the pressing infrastructure challenges in the US, it appears a significant, albeit slimmed down, infrastructure bill is gaining support. This new federal legislation, combined with the global focus on sustainability and reduced carbon emissions, has set the stage for the next wave of demand in a segment that had raised customer experience expectations accelerated by COVID-19 activities. This surge in demand and hyper-focus may create a new mini “crisis” in the supporting field service management activities. Leading vendors in the segments impacted by this surge (and similar surges) will need to closely evaluate their service delivery model to ensure they can deliver on the rising expectations and capitalize on the boom in demand.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digitaltransformation
• Read more exclusive articles by Marc Tatarsky on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/marctatartsky
• Read more News and Features from FieldAware @ /www.fieldservicenews.com/fieldaware
• Learn more about FieldAware @ www.fieldaware.com
• Connect with Marc Tatarsky on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/marctatarsky/

 

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined on the Field Service News Digital Symposium by Aly Pinder Jr, Program Director of Service Innovation and Connected Products at IDC. Aly is a seasoned expert in the field service industry, technology and innovation and he always thinks forward and spots the upcoming trends in the industry.

During the conversation, the two discuss a wide range of topics related to the evolution of service, the rapid changes and challenges that occurred during the last year and what organisations should do to adapt and prepare for the future.

In this final excerpt from that full interview, the two discuss the risk for field service organisations of taking shortcuts and making the wrong decisions to adapt of the changes that happened so fast during the last year.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Servitization & Advanced Services @ www.fieldservicenews.com/servitization
• Read more about the impact of COVID-19 in the Field Service industry @ www.fieldservicenews.com/covid-19
• Read exclusive articles by Aly Pinder on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/aly+pinder
• Follow Aly Pinder on Twitter @ twitter.com/Pinderjr
• Connect with Aly Pinder on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/in/aly-pinder-jr