ServiceMax, the leader in asset-centric field service management, today announced that Gartner has positioned the company as a Leader in the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management among 14 other field service software providers. Gartner based its analysis on each company’s ability to execute and completeness of vision.

“We are pleased to be recognized by Gartner as a Leader in the field service management market,” said Neil Barua, CEO of ServiceMax. “ServiceMax continues to expand its field service management capabilities for asset-centric industries with its market-leading product innovation, customer success and retention, and unmatched market expertise. As a provider solely focused on field service, we’re proud to be seen as an industry thought leader as we continue to deliver product innovations that help our customers run more profitable, efficient service operations in complex, asset-intensive industries.

innovation in FIELD SERVICE management is key for organiSations

Gartner Inc. analysts, Jim Robinson and Naved Rashid write, “Equipment operators and owners have come to expect that their service providers will use the latest technologies to provide the most efficient and highest quality service. It is increasingly difficult for analog FSPs to compete with those that use multiple digital technologies in their field service operations.”

To remain an industry leader, ServiceMax continues to build on its history of innovation and thought leadership, most recently rolling out new product features and content designed to further empower field service organizations. Enhancements include improved scheduling solutions with Service Board, additional mobile capabilities such as satellite layers on maps and improved route views, and increased collaboration with interactive hotline bots and photo annotation. The company has also delivered transformative thought leadership for the field service industry including the 2020 CSO Report, featuring insights gathered from ServiceMax’s global service leader community and the newly launched Field Service Finder, a job board designed to help customers reach qualified workers for open roles.

 

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Further Reading:

• View a complimentary copy of Digital Transformation Investment in 2020 and Beyond here
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about ServiceMax on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/servicemax
• Learn more about ServiceMax @ www.servicemax.com
• Follow ServiceMax on Twitter @ twitter.com/ServiceMax

 

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, announces that BRITA, one of the world’s leading companies in drinking water optimization, has selected IFS’s comprehensive service management solution covering field service management, workforce scheduling & planning, and customer engagement.

BRITA is fully committed to customer service as the main point of competitive differentiation. To power its pursuit of becoming global market leader, the company needed a comprehensive service management solution that could ensure a consistent and positive customer experience globally while delivering workforce efficiency and data accuracy.

THE importance OF FIELD SERVICE management for global enterprises

Following a competitive bid process involving several enterprise software vendors, BRITA selected IFS based on the solution’s wide-ranging field service management functionality and native integration with workforce scheduling and planning capabilities. 

The central IFS solution will unify a number of manual processes with a holistic end-to-end platform that spans the entire service value chain, from service request management to automated technician dispatch and maintenance and repair completion. The solution will also help BRITA in the future to return and recycle spent water filter products. 

The IFS solution, which will be used by BRITA’s field and customer service staff in Germany, France, Switzerland, Benelux, and the UK, will be fully integrated with the company’s existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

“Customer service is a vital part of our value proposition and a key differentiator in our highly competitive market segment,” said Tanja Manegold, Senior Group Director Service Prof. Dispenser at BRITA. “Investing in a best-in-class service management suite will help us advance our leading position. IFS was able to present us with a fully integrated platform that can deliver one version of the truth, which will help us deliver on our service-level agreements and enhance our first-time fix rates.”

Marcus Pannier, IFS Managing Director, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, added, “We are honored to work alongside such a globally renowned brand such as BRITA. All around the world, leading-edge manufacturers like BRITA are looking to service and servitization strategies to boost revenues and earn more customer hearts and minds. At IFS, we have anticipated this shift and are ready to equip these early movers with robust enterprise software that is designed to enhance workforce efficiency while safeguarding a great customer experience.”

 

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Further Reading:

• Learn more about IFS Service Management  @ https://www.ifs.com/service-management/
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about IFS on Field Service News @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/ifs
• Learn more about IFS @ www.ifs.com
• Read more about BRITA Group @ www.brita.com

 

Service is now moving from 'reaction' to consolidation; where the global lockdown is loosening, and service is turning back on having been left dormant. How should we approach this new phase?

 

 

In the latest Field Service Podcast, Deputy Editor Mark Glover is joined by Martin Summerhayes who gives new insight into what the sector should be considering as we emerge, blinking slightly, into a new service world. In this excerpt from that podcast Summerhayes explains why precise planning pre-empt proactive performance... 

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Planning for Fully Reopening the Field Service Sector

"We are going to come out of this at some point," Martin says. "However, it is not going to be a mass switch on of services; mass opening of markets and outlets - think of a giant “Turn On” switch being pulled - rather, it is going to be phased approach."

In this episode and off the back of a recent article exclusively for Field Service News, Martin takes the ubiquitous 'Five Ps' business acronym - Poor Planning Promotes Poor Performance - and swaps in new first, third and fourth words:  Precise Planning Pre-empts Pro-active Performance is a possible blueprint for service directors who might be daunted or overwhelmed when sizing up a re-start.

"Take a set of scenarios to then precisely plan the impacts," Martin says, unpacking the first part of the acronym. "This evolves around asking a series of open ended questions and describing in detail the responses and impacts. This is where elements of “scenario planning” and an element of “game theory” comes into their own. 

Martin backs the theory with an example: a mixed legacy IT estate distributed across a number of outlets. Here he applies open-ended questions on health and safety, customer expectations and spare parts to garner these responses and impacts.

Proactive performance is approached with questions also but the aim is to spot patterns: "Have you captured all of the impacts, potential outcomes and put it into a plan? A resource profile? A spares planning spreadsheet? Have you shared this across your organisation teams?" he says. "You will need to explore at least five different customers and scenarios to start to see a trend and start to see the common elements that you need to work."

At the moment our feeds and inboxes are being bombarded with webinars, articles and other podcasts taking a long view approach to service's current challenge. Here, Martin suggests stepping back and concentrating on the now might be the way forward. 

However, he acknowledges this approach might not be the best way and he is keen to hear your feedback and to be challenged on his theory. So please let us know your thoughts.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more from Martin Summerhayes @ www.fieldservicenews.com/martinsummerhayes
• Read more Covid-19 related content @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/covid19
• Follow Martin Summerhayes on LinkedIn here.

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Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

In this final video in our series looking at the grown-up gig economy and field service, we discuss the importance of customer perception when utilising gig workers as field service technicians...

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How to Protect the Brand Reputation of Your Field Service Operation, While Harnessing the Gig Economy

An important question remains when it comes to the gig economy. What about the perception of the gig worker in the eyes of the consumer – in an era when the service call plays a significant part of a company’s reputation and brand is it wise to hand that responsibility to someone who is not part of your corporate family?

There is a certain amount of trepidation amongst some companies around this approach for exactly this question. However, ultimately if the engineer is on an emergency break-fix call and gets the customer back up and running, realistically will they really care whether the engineer is a direct employee or a gig worker? Probably not.

Similarly, if the engineer is performing fairly routine preventative maintenance, then will it really matter if the engineer is gig worker or employed? Again in reality, the customer is unlikely to have too much of a concern. However, there is a potential negative impact to a brand if it becomes apparent that the company is sending out what could be viewed as cheaper, less qualified labour to maintain their customers assets.

There are a number of ways in which this could be overcome, however. 

 

Employ in the Gig Economy Like You Would for your Own Team. Hire Excellence.

One suggestion could be leveraging the natural gravitas and authority that more experienced engineers are able to bring to the table.

Of course, we are not suggesting that an organisation employ based on an age criterion here (that would be unfair, illegal and limit your potential reach into the gig economy market).

However, it could be wise to set a slightly higher experience requirement level for your jobs than is actually needed. This would have the benefit ensuring that each of your gig workers is overqualified for the work they are going to undertake on your behalf.

This may approach may be a bit more expensive than the regular approach to harnessing the gig economy, but it is still cheaper than it would be to develop and retain your own workforce, and you would be likely to see high level first-time-fix rates which not is not only good for your own P&L negating any additional expense, but perhaps more importantly would allow to maintain a strong brand reputation for your service operation whilst leveraging the gig economy.

This is however, just one potential suggestion, but there is one thing which is a simple necessity required in order to make sure you are able to successfully leverage the gig economy, whilst retaining the trust and loyalty of your customers. That is to present a consistent and unified look across all your communications with your customers regardless of whether they are internal workers or gig economy.

 

Embrace the Technology That Empowers Your Organisation and Delight Your Customers

It is essential that from your customers’ perspective that they still have clear visibility and a route of communication that is seamless.

This is where technology such as Localz can play a major role in facilitating field service organisations to truly harness the power of the gig worker market. 

In fact, moving towards an on-demand service model doesn’t have to be a huge operational or organisational change.

By using the power of location technology, such as that which the Localz solution has been designed to maximize, you can “offer” jobs to available engineers in the area with the right skill set, delivering a flexible schedule for employees and a seamless on demand experience for consumers, who are demanding more services which work around them.

 

Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now! 

 

 

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In the fourth part of this series looking at the grown-up gig economy in field service we explore the win-win benefits of the older gig worker being utilised within the field service sector...

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What the More Experienced Field Service Engineer Brings to the Table...

So, let’s take a look at why the gig economy can be of benefit both for more seasoned engineers and for field service organisations themselves.

 

Flexibility

The frequent travel of a field service engineer can be an exciting life for a younger worker. Indeed, this variety is something that field service organisers are starting to leverage as they seek to employ from the millennial labour pool.

However, it is a work-life balance that is perhaps less attractive for the engineer who has settled and doesn’t want to spend time away from their family so often.

Equally the older engineer, who is perhaps entering into semi-retirement may not want to (or be capable of) climbing up pylons or squeezing down cubby holes everyday but whose technical skills can be leveraged in less demanding roles.

Additionally, as our society adapts to newer thinking towards work, the entrepreneurial approach is becoming increasingly common amongst older workers as they have the necessary diligence to continue to seek out the work needed to provide them with financial support, but relish the freedom of being able to set their own agenda.

 

Experience On Tap:

For the field service organisation, the ability to tap into a pool of experienced engineers, on demand, allows them to minimise the risk of unnecessary costs while still being able to meet any peaks in service requirements.

Whilst this is of course true of any gig-worker, regardless of age, field service companies are seeking out more seasoned engineers for a number of reasons. 

 

Experienced with the Assets

The engineer that has been there, done it and got the t-shirt is likely to hit the first-time-fix rates.

Not only are they likely to have vast experience on multiple assets within the industry segment, but also their experience will shine when it comes to fault identification as well. This is crucial considering that no fault found is one of the over-riding biggest causes for costly second visits.

 

Good Under Pressure

When every second of downtime is costing your client money the front line of the service cycle can be a high-pressure environment.

In such pressure, mistakes can be made which can be costly for both you and your client. The experienced engineer is likely to be able to draw on a well of experience to help them get the job done as efficiently as possible.

Indeed, this is the reason that so many field service organizations actively seek out ex-military personnel.

 

Good with the Customers

Of course, if the customers problem is resolved nice and quickly then they are likely to be happy.

However, a confident and well-mannered engineer can then be the link in solidifying their relationship with your organisation and potentially paving the way for renewed or upgraded service contracts in the future.

The gig-economy engineer doesn’t need to be part of your sales process to achieve this, but they are the representative of your brand and the quality of their interaction with your customers will impact your sales teams conversations at some point in the future.

The experienced engineer is more likely to understand the wider business processes and be more comfortable engaging with customers whilst also naturally carrying a more authoritative tone.

 

Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now! 

 

 

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So far in this series of excerpts from a white paper recently published by Aquant, we've assessed the significant challenge field service companies face in finding balance in their workforce and the role Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play in helping companies do so. Now in the final excerpt in this series we look at how equally the implementation of AI requires a human touch to succeed. 

 

In Field Service we Must VALIDATE AI WITH HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Much has been made of the idea that machines can replace humans for essential job functions. The truth is that AI is nothing without the real-life expertise of humans to guide and validate its findings.

Automating insights from historical data is not enough on its own. In order to ensure that findings about the solutions to service challenges are accurate, an organisation must bring in its experts to assess and improve the solutions offered. Before AI, organisations needed to take experts out of the field for months to help with training or knowledge sharing. With the right AI solution, experts can optimise insights in a matter of hours.

When solutions to challenges are automatically generated by a system, it enables members of the service team to spend more time doing what they do best—which is applying their expertise in the field.

 

Speed up the Training of your Field Service Engineers and Increase Their Expertise

With easy-to-access information that understands what you mean regardless of specific phrasing, and a dynamic pool of information to draw from, smart systems give all employees equal access to previously hidden information.

Skills that previously took years to learn (usually by waiting to personally encounter and solve each unique problem) can now be passed down to newer employees in a matter of days. In addition to solving the practical problem of on-boarding new hires, it also helps to engage millennials in a way they are more comfortable with. And when knowledge is easier to acquire, employees can work on acquiring soft skills like customer service and relationship building, which can’t be taught by even the most powerful machines.

 

Case Study: How 3D Systems were able to scale their field service wrokforce and decrease repeat field engineer visits with actionable insights

3D Systems empowers modern manufacturing with best-of-breed plastic and metal 3D printers.

They help manufacturing clients dramatically reduce build time and enable healthcare organisations to custom-fit solutions and improve patient outcomes. With a robust global client base, they needed to onboard new service techs quicker to get them out in the field and solving complex service problems.

As the workforce grew, one of the hardest issues was extracting the organizational knowledge out of the heads of the most experienced engineers and into the hands of everyone in the field. They turned to Aquant’s AI-powered service intelligence platform to mine and analyze all their information, including data stored in field service solutions, CRM, and parts systems. In addition, the tool was able to uncover info that lay dormant in free text notes.

"3D Systems has seen a 62% reduction in parts usage and a 39% decrease in repeat visits, driving significant cost savings..."

The Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine embedded in the technology is even able to map different phrases and words all back to the same problem, which structured the data more efficiently and made it easier to search. During the install process, which took less than a week, the tool scoured and categorized data, and then their best engineers sat down to validate the data and improve findings.

3D Systems is now able to leverage Aquant’s Intelligent Triage product to assess and troubleshoot customer tickets quickly, helping service pros resolve issues on the first visit. They’ve also decreased parts costs and usage by correctly identifying the source of the problem and sending the right tech, with the right skills into the field with the right parts.

All employees have more equal access to knowledge, making it easy for junior techs to get up to speed quickly. As a result of implementing Aquant across the organization, 3D Systems has seen a 62% reduction in parts usage and a 39% decrease in repeat visits, driving significant cost savings.

 

Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to access it now! 

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The service sector will weather the Corona Virus storm but our customers needs will have changed so how do you operate in a post-pandemic environment? Bill Pollock talks us through the process.
For most services organisations, 2020 started out looking every bit the same as 2019 ended – full of uncertainty in an unpredictable economy, coupled with an increasingly demanding and volatile geo-political business model. Then, the world as we knew it changed dramatically – seemingly overnight – by the impact of the Coronavirus and subsequent global economic disruption. 

However, despite all of the uncertainty and volatility, it is important to remember what we all do for a living – that is, we serve our customers by making their jobs – and their lives – easier to deal with on a day-to-day basis. This is what services organisations do, and that model has not changed over the past several decades. 

What does this mean?

Time for the Field Service Sector to Stand Tall

It means that we, as an industry, still need to provide our services to our customers – but, now, even better, quicker and more efficiently than ever before. The marketplace has no tolerance for anything less than superior service and support, and if your services organisation does not already provide it, they’ll find another organisation that does! 

Everyday, businesses of all types are forced to wrestle with quickly-moving economic downturns and upheavals, staff reductions, fluctuating stock prices, an unstable global market economy, and all of the business and personal challenges that result from their ongoing attempt to make everything work together in harmony. What better can we do as an industry than to provide our products, services, and support to our customers in a fashion so well-designed and executed that we actually make their lives easier just by doing so? 

No more artificial "bundles" of services offerings or “lemon-freshened” software packages; no more late response times or missed deliveries; no more sub-par service performance; no more surprises; and no more excuses! Today’s business environment demands that services organisations get their respective acts together, manage their service delivery processes better, and provide a full complement of the types of services and support that are meaningful to customers. 

This is even more critical as ever before, as lives are literally at stake! 

But, how do we do this? There are many ways – but it will take a lot of work, and your organisation may not be able to do it all by itself.

 

An External Review of Your Customer's Field Service Needs:

First, you will need to take a hard look externally at exactly what your customers (and prospects) require from your organisation, addressing such questions as: 

• What are our customers' specific product, service, and support needs and requirements? How do their needs differ in the immediate-, short-, mid- and longer-term? 
• Does our organization's current service and support portfolio match our customers' needs? All of their needs? Their real needs? Their immediate needs? 
• Where are there gaps between our present offerings, and our customers' future needs? 
• What additional value-add, premium, and/or professional services do our customers require – but cannot get from their current vendors? (Even from us!) 

• How are the changes our customers' organisations will be going through change their needs for service and support in the future? And, to what degree? 
• What vendor options and alternatives do users presently have? What newer options and alternatives will they be looking for tomorrow? 
• Where do we stand with respect to the competition? What will it take for us to “make the cut” from a prospect's "long list" to its "short list"? How compelling are our demos? Do they reflect the proper level of criticality in today’s chaotic environment? 
• When the dust settles, where do we want our organisation to be positioned? Does the marketplace look to us as being a progressive and responsive solution provider? Or, are we perceived more as a once-progressive vendor that has become out-of-touch, or “dusty”? 

 

An Internal Review of your Field Service Capabilities:

Second, you will also need to take an equally hard look internally to determine whether your organisation's infrastructure, operations and processes are sufficiently in place to attain your – and your customers' –overall service delivery performance goals, addressing such questions as: 

• Are we organised effectively to deliver the right products, services, and support; with the right features; to the right customer segments; at the right time? 
• Is our organisational structure effective in managing all facets of the business? What do we need to do to make it stronger? 
• Do we have the right processes in place to deliver everything we promise? How can we best measure whether they are really working? 

• Are our customer support personnel adequately trained – and empowered – to support our customer base? Can they provide "knock your socks off" service? 
• Do we provide our sales, service, and tech support personnel with all of the tools they require to get their jobs done? What more do they need to become more effective? 
• Do we have all of the Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) systems in place that are needed to run our business? Where are there gaps? What “new” technologies do we need to incorporate into our existing services operations? Augmented Reality (AR)/Merged Reality (MR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Remote Expertise, etc.? 
• Are we focused enough on the customer? Is our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approach good enough – and is it working? Are we as responsive during the current pandemic crisis as we need to be? Do our customers think so? 
• Are we tracking and reporting the right things? Do our managers have all of the data and information they need to make effective decisions? 

• Do we have a formal plan for growing our services and support capabilities along with the changing needs of our customers? How agile is our operational structure? 
• Do we have our internal act together? How can we ensure that everything we do yields the desired outcome? 

These are certainly turbulent times, and the market has never been more serious about its choices – nor more educated in its ability to distinguish between the leaders and the "wannabes" or followers. More users are getting more information – faster – about your organisation – and its competitors – than ever before. And, they’re acting quickly upon the information they receive! If your message is not adequately articulated – and communicated – to the appropriate marketplace, you could end up “dead in the water” before you know it – even if your products and services are actually better than the competition's!

The market is looking for your message, and the worst thing that can happen to your organisation is letting your competition communicate it to them first – ahead of, and instead of,you! 

Look around, and you will no longer see any underachievers or “dead wood” competing in the marketplace. They’re all out of business, or about to disappear – one way or the other. What’s left – or what will be left, once the dust settles – are solely going to be the true performers – the services organisations that both “get it” – and “do it”. Be one of the organisations that "gets it" – and goes after it!

Don't follow your competitors – follow the needs and requirements of your customers! And make sure that you utilize all of the external and internal resources that are available to you! 

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Further Reading:

• Read more of Bill's features written exclusively for field service news @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/bill-pollock
• Follows Bill's blog and his analyst work @ https://pollockonservice.com/

 

In the next part of our video series published in partnership with Localz that looks at gig economy in field service, we take a look at some of the core misconceptions of the gig workers and employers...

 

The Misconceptions of the Gig Economy in Field Service

Having outlined the growing case for the field service sector embracing the gig economy in earlier features within this series,, let us now take a moment to bust some of the myths surrounding the conversation…

 

Misconception #1 : The gig economy is just young kids on bikes

If you look at the various gig work platforms that are available, it quickly becomes clear that many are targeted at workers with a specific level of expertise. When we think of the gig economy we often automatically think of platforms such as Uber or Task Rabbit. But the truth is the gig economy is a broad and wide spectrum. For example at the other end of the spectrum high level, management consultants have essentially always been part of the gig economy, long before the term was ever coined. In fact over two-thirds (66%) of the gig economy are over thirty.

When we look at field service engineers, successful platforms have emerged such as FieldNation or WorkMarket that have allowed field service organisations to effortlessly tap into a contingent labour market full of qualified and experienced service engineers.

 

Misconception #2: The gig economy is only utilised by certain types of company

Actually, 40% of companies expect that gig workers will become an increasing part of their workforce.

Many businesses are clearly seeing the value in using freelance workers to meet their staffing needs. Companies like Swiss telco giant SwissCom for example are rapidly expanding their teams and building new service revenue streams by utilising an abundance of gig workers.

This is a trend that we have seen increasing in field service and as it offers a win-win for gig workers and field service companies alike we anticipate it will only continue.

More field service companies hiring gig workers will only serve to drive the acceptance of the gig economy further bringing more experienced engineers to the gig economy market.

 

Misconception #3: Gig workers are just waiting for a ‘proper job’

There is the common misconception that gig economy work is a means to an end whilst workers seek out a more traditional form of full time employment.

In fact research by Forbes shows that only 20% of freelancers would prefer full time employment Despite scare stories that position gig workers as vulnerable from exploitation and low wages, the reality is very different and that most gig workers wouldn’t choose full-time employment even if it was available to them. Nearly a half of respondents (45%) would opt to work independently and state that they would seek to acquire new clients in order to meet their financial goals.

All of this is noteworthy because as a group, freelancers do tend to work longer hours at less pay than their employed counterparts.

At the same time, they tend to state that they work on more interesting projects and enjoy the flexibility that gig work provides to them, including being able to work from home, and spending more quality time with their family.

Overall, this could reflect a shift in priorities among workers and has been aligned with the societal change of the workforce as boomers retire and millennials replace them.

However, further study of the available data would indicate that this is in fact a universal preference that transcends generational outlooks.

 

Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now! 

 

 

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In our previous article in this series of excerpts from a recent white paper published by Aquant we explored the significant challenges field service companies are facing as they try to navigate the huge demographic changes that are underway at the moment as the ageing 'boomer workforce is replaced by their millennial cohorts. In today's article we explore why the current knowledge transfer tools are letting field service companies down. 

The labour shortage forces organisations to choose between immediate needs, such as having their most senior staff in the field addressing urgent customer issues, and long-term goals of documenting their knowledge and training new employees.

 

Knowledge Transfer in FIeld Service Requires Tools Fit-For-Purpose:

As most managers know, when resources are tight, the biggest fires get put out first and smouldering issues continue to be put off until they can’t be ignored.

It’s not that companies haven’t tried to harness insider info and scale training. There are mobile apps and field service tools designed to capture notes from the field.

However, change management can be a bigger barrier than the C-suite anticipates, leaving managers tasked with motivating the workforce to use the technology that some in the field consider clunky or time-consuming. And even when these tools are successfully put into use, it’s difficult to make these notes and comments that are captured on customer tickets actionable.

They’re often riddled with typos and contain information about multiple tasks in one long, free text form. How can any organisation parse that information and use it effectively?

This challenge is at the root of why so many internal knowledge bases are missing the deep insights of employees in the field. Plus, most of these solutions are static databases, as opposed to connected learning tools that know what information is necessary, can prompt employees to ask the right questions, and then figure out logical solutions based on partial inputs.

Digitally savvy employees are used to using tools like Siri that understand their location and habits and can offer intelligent solutions without the user having to do all the legwork.

 

Uncover Existing Data to Fill in the Gaps in Your Field Service Knowledge Base

People make the best mentors and trainers, and those with deep on the-job knowledge often excel at diagnosing obscure problems that newer employees may have never experienced, but these deeply knowledgeable employees only have so much time and ability to impart their wisdom.

As organisations seek to meet high customer service expectations, human knowledge must be combined with an artificial intelligence discipline called machine learning in order to democratize that knowledge. 

 

Use Machine Learning Technology to Distribute Existing Knowledge

Customer-facing organisations have far more information and institutional knowledge squirrelled away than most managers and executives realise.

There are free text notes, product images that sit within and outside of CRM, ERP, WFM, and other databases. Technology partners that leverage Machine Learning (the process of computers improving responses with experience) can capture this unstructured information and add it to the knowledge base, alongside real-time data, producing a rich and interactive pool of information that all employees can draw from.

The right application can make actionable recommendations and predictions based on this data, helping teams solve customer and service challenges efficiently.

 

Apply Natural Language Processing on Top of the Information Mountain

With the amount of data in play, it’s not enough to simply convert current and historical information into structured data which can easily be indexed and searched.

The problem is that different customers or regions might have different terms for the same issue. Plus, case notes about this issue might contain typos and misspellings, making it difficult to manually identify and categorise records. A solution that offers Natural Language Processing, in combination with Machine Learning, digs deep into the historical information and acts as a translator.

It will understand the root issue regardless of how it’s described by analysing the past examples, whether it’s faulty equipment or new installs. It will map these different ways of describing issues back to the same solution—even if the descriptions contain mistakes. In addition to helping call centre agents and techs in the field, it’s an essential learning tool to help employees level-up by quickly accessing critical data to get the job done.

 

In the final feature within this series of excerpts we will look at two more ways field service companies can utilsie the data within their existing records to help solve the field service skills gap as well as an industry case study from a leading high tech organisation in the 3D printing space. 

 

Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to access it now! 

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