GPS Insight, a leading provider of SaaS-based fleet management software and complementary solutions in the United States and Canada, today announced the acquisition of FieldAware, the leader in made-for-mobile, cloud-based field service solutions.
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Dec 02, 2021 • News • Digital Transformation • field service technology • FieldAware • fleet management • GLOBAL • GPS Insight
GPS Insight, a leading provider of SaaS-based fleet management software and complementary solutions in the United States and Canada, today announced the acquisition of FieldAware, the leader in made-for-mobile, cloud-based field service solutions.
The acquisition advances field services and fleet tracking capabilities for GPS Insight, allowing them to better serve customers of all sizes through a more robust and comprehensive digital platform with capabilities to achieve operational insights and cost savings.
THIS PARTNERSHIP MOVES FIELDAWARE CLOSER TO FULLY DIGITIZING AND AUTOMATING A MADE-FOR-MOBILE FIELD OPERATIONS EXPERIENCE
"GPS Insight is thrilled to provide even better solutions for our customers through this partnership with FieldAware, while at the same time extending our competitive advantage across the field service and fleet management landscape," said Gary Fitzgerald, CEO at GPS Insight. "We're committed to creating tools for businesses to operate with more efficiency," Fitzgerald adds, "and bringing together these two platforms will provide an unparalleled synergy to guarantee high-quality, reliable service that drives bottom-line profitability, while enabling our customers to deliver a superior end-to-end service experience for their customers."
The acquisition will better position GPS Insight to expand its field service solutions to meet the unique digital field service challenges of mid-market and enterprise service organizations across core industries, such as industrial and commercial equipment, solar and renewable energy, facility and property management, waste management, construction, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing, while ensuring fleet performance—along with driver safety and compliance—to a customer base of more than 250,000 vehicles combined.
"This is an exciting time for FieldAware to join forces with GPS Insight. This partnership moves FieldAware closer to realizing our vision of fully digitizing and automating a comprehensive, made-for-mobile field operations experience," said Steve Mason, COO at FieldAware. "Existing and new customers can expect to see benefits immediately as we take our solutions and innovation to a new level to expand the impact of all types of assets in the field."
"FieldAware's history of digital innovation has been transforming field service organizations since 2011," continued Fitzgerald. "By integrating their field-first service suite with the industry-leading telematics, video telematics, and field service management solutions from GPS Insight, we'll be able to complement each other's unique strengths and market positioning—expanding our go-to-market channels and cross-selling opportunities. This acquisition not only grows the GPS Insight product portfolio, but also reinforces our commitment to helping companies realize the promise of fully digital field operation transformation."
For more information, please visit gpsinsight.com
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Service Innovation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/service-innovation
- Read more about FieldAware on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/fieldaware
- Learn more about FieldAware @ www.fieldaware.com
- Find out more about GPS Insights @ gpsinsight.com
- Follow FieldAware on Twitter @ twitter.com/fieldaware
Nov 26, 2021 • Features • White Paper • FieldAware • Leadership and Strategy • customer experience • customer success
In this final feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we discuss if customer satisfaction metrics are suitable to identify a measure of success in a servitized or customer success-based service model.
In this final feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we discuss if customer satisfaction metrics are suitable to identify a measure of success in a servitized or customer success-based service model.
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware.
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Do we need to rethink how we measure success within our organization if we move towards a servitized or customer success focused model? This is something of a complex question, and in many ways, the answer is both yes and no.
From an operational perspective, as we put forward earlier in this paper, broadly what defines operational success in a transactional break-fix service offering largely remains the same definition of success that we would see in a servitized model.
To reiterate, in the traditional break-fix setup, metrics like mean-time-to-repair, first-time-fix-rate, and technician utilization are all indicators of how efficiently the service organization can meet the customer’s external demands and expectations.
In a servitized offering, those same metrics remain vital for ensuring that the field service operation is running at a level of efficiency that makes it both feasible and financially rewarding for the service provider to offer such as solution.
Yet as the Field Service News Research study from late 2019, Understanding the metrics that matter in a rapidly changing field service sector, revealed, of those organizations that had introduced some level of servitization into their service portfolio, over 80% of them had made changes to the KPIs they measure.
Also, remember the statistic we referenced earlier in this paper from that same report- over half (51%) of all field service organizations now placed equal importance on CSAT metrics as they did operational metrics – a statistic that has steadily risen year on year since Field Service News Research began hosting benchmarking studies in this area back in 2013.
Yet, when we think of customer satisfaction metrics, are these suitable to identify a measure of success in a servitized or customer success-based service design model?
Rudimentary statistics such as Net Promoter Score can offer a broad overview of service standards. More detailed tools like customer surveys allow more specific insights to come to the fore, and modern tools such as sentiment analysis can fill in the gaps between the two.
However, all CSAT metrics are the equivalent of driving while looking in the rearview mirror and while valuable indicators, are perhaps not focused enough for the end-goal of defining customer success.
“CSAT metrics are the equivalentof driving while looking in the rearview mirror and while valuable indicators are perhaps not focused enough for the end-goal of defining customer success...”
In earlier sections of this paper, we have touched on how co-creation often lies at the heart of many successful servitization case studies and the potential importance of an onboarding team.
When it comes to defining the core metrics for a customer success-based service model, a critical role of the onboarding team (and also of pre-sales and/or account management) should be to work with the customer to identify a shared set of metrics that will shape how success is defined.
This may require data sets from both organizations to combine a new set of KPIs that allow the service provider to ensure they meet the requirements. Should these KPIs indicate an issue, then traditional operational KPIs can provide an insight as to why. Meanwhile, broader CSAT metrics can offer an indication of the overall temperature of the service organisations success.
This more complex understanding not only of what success looks like for each customer but also leveraging existing KPIs to ensure that is happening at the macro and granular level, serves once more to re-enforce the importance of not only having the tools to empower effective service delivery but also the critical importance of reporting tools that allow the service provider to quickly and easily keep their finger on the pulse of how the service operation is performing.
In addition, such reporting tools allow the service provider to offer a layer of transparency that is crucial in communicating with the customer. This transparency leads to a relationship founded on trust. In summary, new metrics will evolve, but the old metrics remain vital and access to data is key in all areas.
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware..
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Data Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/data-management
- Read more about FieldAware on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/exel
- Learn more about FieldAware @ www.fieldaware.com
- Follow FieldAware on Twitter @ twitter.com/fieldaware
Nov 19, 2021 • Features • White Paper • FieldAware • Leadership and Strategy • customer experience • customer success
In this new feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we discuss the proper technological infrastructure to ensure that the service operation can operate at maximum efficiency.
In this new feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we discuss the proper technological infrastructure to ensure that the service operation can operate at maximum efficiency.
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware.
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
In the previous section of this paper, we discussed the importance of a new role at the executive level, the CRO, that has oversight of revenue generation and operational efficiency. We also noted that core to this role is an understanding of how the wider business must adapt, support and buy into the broader servitization strategy.
However, perhaps of equal importance is the flow of data across the business.
Often, data is locked away in silos across a business, yet in a servitized model, the seamless movement of data is essential. For example, asset data that provides actionable insight for when service is required, which is the key to unlocking genuinely efficient predictive maintenance, is also exceptionally valuable to the product design teams as it enables them to see the common causes of asset failure and work to resolve these issues.
If accessible to account managers in a customer success model, that same data allows for a level of transparency within the relationship that can be the foundation of trust that is required for deeper, more effective partnerships. Similarly, data flow into the accounting tools used within an organization can significantly reduce the service-to-cash cycle.
To achieve this flow of data, there is an inherent need for critical systems to be able to talk to each other. Two approaches are applicable here. Either a broad platform that encompasses all of the solutions required, such as FSM, ERP and CRM or a focus on best of breed solutions in each of these areas that have easy to use APIs that allow for effortless data flow across the broader system.
While there are arguments that can be put forward for both approaches, largely, it is the latter that is the more common.
There is a degree of complexity in any organization that operates a field service division that means multiple systems in place will be running alongside each other. Replacing all of these with one platform may seem like a straightforward proposition, but in fact, it is a challenge not only from a technology standpoint but also from a change management perspective. Put simply, such a project requires time and resources that many organizations, especially those in the mid-market, just don’t have.
The alternative is not only more achievable for companies of all sizes, but with an open approach to integration, the ability for data flow to drive forward customer success efforts can be harnessed while also having the added advantage of best in class solutions where they are most needed.
When we look at the field service operation, the tools and technology that enable the efficiency required for a servitized approach are now mature and well established, with most field service organizations having at least a legacy form of FSM. Indeed, technology has become a critical aspect of field service operations. As we continue to move towards more advanced service offerings, this symbiosis of processes and technology will only increase.
Ultimately, the ability to deliver effective and efficient field service is firmly wedded to having a technology infrastructure in place.
The pandemic has been shown to have significantly driven investment within digital transformation amongst field service organizations. A study by Field Service News Research, Benchmarking the New Normal from Year Zero, from late 2020 revealed that two-thirds (65%) of field service companies stated that their digital transformation programs had been accelerated since Covid-19.
Technologies that enable remote service delivery and accurate predictive maintenance scheduling such as Augmented Reality and Internet of Things connectivity have rapidly evolved from being at the leading edge of an adoption curve to becoming utilized far more prevalently by field service organizations.
Adoption of such new technologies, of course, only strengthens the argument for core systems such as CRM and FSM to have robust API development.
However, while it is the newer technologies that often dominate the headlines when we consider the shift in focus of servitization and customer success models from being a mere service provider to becoming a genuine partner with a vested interest in the optimal performance of an install base, then the need for a robust technological foundation underpinning field service operations is more crucial than ever before.
From the back-office perspective, tools such as asset management, work order management, scheduling and dispatch and route optimization are now table stakes for field service organizations to deliver effective field service delivery.
Tools that can empower our field service technicians and engineers such as knowledge management, easily accessible forms, alerts and notifications and more, all packaged in an intuitive mobile app, are equally essential.
In addition to these more traditional tools found within an FSM system, customer portals, reporting and insight surfacing tools and invoicing are all becoming increasingly critical to allow the field service organization to operate at a sufficient level of efficiency where servitization or customer success models can be effectively executed.
Having looked at the potential requirements of both management structure and technologies needed to adopt a customer success orientated approach to service strategy, the final question we shall address next week is whether these changes mean that we must also change the way we measure success...
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware..
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Data Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/data-management
- Read more about FieldAware on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/exel
- Learn more about FieldAware @ www.fieldaware.com
- Follow FieldAware on Twitter @ twitter.com/fieldaware
Nov 12, 2021 • Features • White Paper • FieldAware • Leadership and Strategy • customer experience • customer success
In the second feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we analyse the need of a shift in management structure for service organisations with a customer success focused model.
In the second feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we analyse the need of a shift in management structure for service organisations with a customer success focused model.
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware.
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Suppose we consider customer success more in line with a servitization model than simply increasing CSAT metrics. In that case, we may start to see a more straightforward path towards developing the model. However, this
also leads us to conclude that such a shift in focus for a service organization will require significant changes within processes and potentially a change in management structure.
The established servitization models are centred around establishing long- standing partnerships between the service provider and the customer. Indeed, as we look at many of the high-profile examples of servitization, often in the early adoption of such service strategies, not only is customer selection crucial, very often, the evolution of the service model is one of genuine co-creation.
One acknowledged approach in developing such forward looking service design is establishing a tiger team – a group of specialists dedicated to the project full- time. In the co-creation model, such a team can comprise both organizations bringing in their specialist expertise, knowledge and insight. Additionally,
both organizations also develop the new approach parallel to existing service agreements, which is especially important when considering the mission-critical status that field service operations hold.
However, once the proof of concept is established, should the service provider wish to roll out a more comprehensive servitized offering, a clear management structure to facilitate the effective rollout is required.
We would expect to see an executive-level leader at the top of this structure – ideally reporting directly to the CEO.
Such a position may come in several guises. One option is the role of a chief revenue officer (CRO), which we are beginning to see emerge as a blend of the two roles of Chief Service Officer and Chief Sales Officer.
Another alternative could be Vice President of Customer Success. For ease of reference, we shall use the term CRO in this paper. Regardless of the name, the function of the role remains the same.
This is a position that requires an intimate understanding of where the value proposition of the service provider lies within the eyes of the customer (to drive successful approaches to revenue generation), while simultaneously having detailed knowledge of how the service operations can effectively meet the service delivery requirements while retaining efficiency both in terms of internal costs but also meeting the customer goals.
In addition to both of these skillsets, the potential CRO must also have the broader business acumen and insight to see how such a move will impact and draw upon other aspects of the organization as well – from R&D through to marketing.
Beneath the CRO, a hypothetical management structure could be mapped out into three key areas as per the graphic below.
On the left-hand side, we have a customer success team led by a director of customer success.
This would be a business division that evolves from the traditional sales team – with a heavier emphasis from account management on customer success and account development – i.e. building those long-standing, more deeply embedded relationships discussed earlier.
On the right-hand side, this structure is where our service operations business unit sits under the leadership of an operations director.
On this side of the operation, the shift in focus is perhaps less pronounced than the sales operation. In one sense, little changes in seeking the maximum efficiency and operational metrics such as technician utilization, mean-time-to- repair and first-time-fix rates remain as crucial as ever.
Ultimately, even in a fully servitized business model, the SLAs to be adhered to remain the same; however, they move from being an external agreement with the customer to being an internal requirement designed to allow the service operation to meet the guarantees of uptime that are now the bedrock of service contract.
However, we see a potential new business unit emerge in the centre of this new management structure – one dedicated to onboarding. In this case, it is also important to note that onboarding isn’t limited to new customers.
" While a similar structure could be adopted for various types of servitized offering, be it outcome-based service or a customer success focused model, the evolutionary leap from a csat focus will very likely involve both executive- level support and some restructuring of management structure..."
Most service organizations adopting such an approach will be taking their existing customers from a service model that they have been comfortable with for a long time to a far more holistic and encompassing model of service delivery.
Such significant change will almost always face some form of resistance. It is essential to have this interim team in place to help guide the customers through the transition from what is often a transactional relationship initially to one that becomes a true partnership.
Ideally, this onboarding team will bring a blend of in-depth operational experience and fantastic account management skills. A recommended approach could be to draw from both the operations and sales sides of the business to establish this new business unit.
This is, of course, just one hypothetical and fairly straightforward management structure to help illustrate the point. Many more complex variations could be implemented to achieve the effective development of a servitized or customer success-focused business model.
What is clear, though, is that while a similar structure could be adopted for various types of servitized offering, be it outcome-based service or a customer success focused model, the evolutionary leap from a CSAT focus will very likely involve both executive-level support and some restructuring of management structure.
Another critical aspect essential to the successful adoption of such a model is the easy flow of data across business units and the proper technological infrastructure to ensure that the service operation can operate at maximum efficiency – which we will discuss in the next feature from this white paper.
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware..
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Data Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/data-management
- Read more about FieldAware on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/exel
- Learn more about FieldAware @ www.fieldaware.com
- Follow FieldAware on Twitter @ twitter.com/fieldaware
Nov 05, 2021 • Features • White Paper • FieldAware • Leadership and Strategy • customer experience • customer success
In the first feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we look closely at the difference between driving customer satisfaction and driving customer success for field service organizations.
In the first feature from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware, we look closely at the difference between driving customer satisfaction and driving customer success for field service organizations.
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware.
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
There is now little doubt that Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) metrics are viewed as a critical part of measuring effective field service operation.
This is a trend that has been becoming increasingly obvious for several years. In a 2020 Field Service News Research report, “Understanding the metrics that matter in a rapidly changing field service sector”, it was revealed that 51% of field service companies now saw an equal weighting in importance between operationally focused KPIs and CSAT-focused KPIs.
Furthermore, 13% of field service companies stated that they felt CSAT focused KPIs were of greater importance for measuring their business success.
In a more recently published Field Service News Research study, “Customer- Centricity, Technology and the New Normal of the Field Service Sector” from 2021, we saw that CSAT metrics were a crucial indicator of revenue growth metrics amongst field service organizations.
This was anticipated for growing revenue with existing clients, but interestingly, strong CSAT metrics were viewed as an essential indicator for winning new business also.
In fact, of the 293 respondents within the study, 88% stated that strong CSAT metrics were at the least a ‘very strong’ element in winning new business. 32% of the total respondents even said they were an ‘extremely important’ element.
Given the above, it is a reasonable assessment to make that the importance of strong customer satisfaction has firmly taken root within the field service sector.
Yet, increasingly those discussions centred on delivering excellent customer service are morphing into discussions centred on ensuring customer success.
The question many service leaders are asking is are the two synonymous? Is customer success a natural evolution from customer satisfaction or are the two areas related but distinctly separate (like servitization and outcome-based solutions, for example)
Perhaps to help us better understand the question, we should outline some definitions of customer success.
CRM and CMS provider and specialist platform for inbound marketing software HubSpot defines customer success as follows:
“Customer success is anticipating customer challenges or questions and proactively providing solutions and answers. Customer success helps you boost customer happiness and retention, thus increasing your revenue and customer loyalty.”
The Customer Success Association however define customer success as “a long- term, scientifically engineered and professionally directed business strategy for maximizing customer and company sustainable proven profitability."
A third definition provided by Gartner is “Customer success is a method for ensuring customers reach their desired outcomes when using an organization’s product or service. A relationship-focused customer success strategy includes involvement in the purchase decision, implementation and use of products or services and customer support.”
If we look at each of these definitions, we can see why many are confused regarding the difference between CSAT and customer success.
The first definition from HubSpot doesn’t seem to stray too far from good customer service, the foundation of customer satisfaction. Within this definition, the two terms could indeed be interchangeable.
The second definition from the Customer Success Association comes across as something of a buzz-word salad – with phrases smashed together, leaving the average reader with little additional insight into what the term means and even potentially adding more confusion into the mix.
Finally, as we look towards the Gartner definition, we find something we can begin to utilize as we seek an answer to our question.
Within Gartner’s definition, we can see that customer success is more than meeting or even anticipating customer requirements as we saw in the first definition, but instead has an understanding of the customers end goas and establishes a path to achieving these utilizing the organizations own service or product.
Within our industry, a considerable amount of discussion for the last few years has centred around servitization and outcome-based service models.
"Outcome-based solutions are certainly one end-point of servitization, but if we viewed servitization as a spectrum of advanced service design rather than the traditional linear perspective, could the customer success methodology sit somewhere else on that same spectrum?"
Reading through Gartner’s customer success definition, it could be viewed that customer success could and perhaps should be included within the increasingly broad umbrella of servitization.
As the continuing academic research and literature into servitization grows alongside the case studies of successful servitization, the existing model of servitization being a series of steps that lead towards a goal of outcome-based solutions is perhaps outdated.
Outcome-based solutions are certainly one end-point of servitization, but if we viewed servitization as a spectrum of advanced service design rather than the traditional linear perspective, could the customer success methodology sit somewhere else on that same spectrum?
Suppose we break down the difference between outcome-based service and customer success methodology. In that case, there are certainly plenty of aspects that are shared. It could be argued that the final responsibility for the delivery of the outcome is the only true differentiator.
Indeed, an intimate understanding of the end goal shared with the customer and the service provider is required in both service models.
Equally, while CSAT is a solid foundation to begin building towards any form of servitized offering, the leap from CSAT to a customer success based model is arguably as significant as it would be to an entirely outcome-based offering.
In the next feature from this white paper, we shall explore why...
This feature is just one short excerpt from a recent white paper we published in partnership with FieldAware..
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 registering for our complimentary subscription tier FSN Standard on a dedicated page that provides you instant access to this white paper PLUS you will also be able to access our monthly selection of premium resources as soo as you are registered.
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content FieldAware who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.
Further Reading:
- Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
- Read more about Data Management @ www.fieldservicenews.com/data-management
- Read more about FieldAware on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/exel
- Learn more about FieldAware @ www.fieldaware.com
- Follow FieldAware on Twitter @ twitter.com/fieldaware
Jan 28, 2021 • Features • Digital Transformation • FieldAware
Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware, reflects on the findings of a major research project undertaken in partnership with Field Service News and asks whether the trends that study appears to reveal will become a permanent part of the new normal...
Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware, reflects on the findings of a major research project undertaken in partnership with Field Service News and asks whether the trends that study appears to reveal will become a permanent part of the new normal as we look to a post-pandemic world...
As we come to the end of a tumultuous 2020, the speed of change in the field service sector continues to evolve at what feels like a speed of light pace. And the change is still happening - more so than many of us would prefer or could have predicted.
While there is an overarching optimism in the field service sector, the world is still grappling with getting past recovering from the pandemic and working to move into a full restoration mode.
With vaccines on the horizon, the focus is on establishing the new operating normal and paving the way for growth.
At FieldAware, we look to stay in tune with customer needs and market trends. As I reflect on our market view through 2018-19, we saw early adopters and visionaries defining the “what” of new best-in-class services and offerings such as IoT and remote assist.
As we initially encountered the global pandemic in March, we engaged in a research program with the late Bill Pollock, from Strategies for Growth, to establish a baseline of the impact the crisis would have on these services. As the pandemic’s magnitude continued to evolve, our research immediately shifted focus to measure the crisis’s repercussions and establish a Year Zero/New Normal benchmark.
The ripple effects have been more pronounced and long-lasting than anyone initially anticipated.
Yet, our research with Field Service News revealed optimism biased towards growth with three quarters (76%) of field service companies focusing on growth rather than survival.
This optimism appears to be bolstered by accelerated investment in digitization and the enablement of the best-in-class services required to deliver essential services in the new operating environment.
Best-in-class service and capabilities - the New Normal - how did we get here?
As my colleague, Steve Mason, COO at FieldAware, likes to say, “Gradually…Then Suddenly”, referring to a great Hemingway quote from the classic novel, The Sun Also Rises. This sediment perfectly surmises how several critical best-in-class services have rapidly become the “New Normal.”
Sure, the pandemic has accelerated our need or faster adoption, but we have been plodding away at the core components of these best-in-class services like remote assist for years. As a workforce, we have been getting comfortable with remote interactions, building a knowledge library of best practices and likely responses, and mobile advancements have helped to shepherd these advanced technologies into our everyday lives and activities.
What the pandemic did was to mandate remote-work commonplace for EVERYONE, not just those that were early adopters/visionaries. And so, it is, suddenly, best-in-class services like remote monitoring/assist and IoT sensing are now the “New Normal.” Not just some nice-to-have if you have time to tap into it, but a staple in today’s field service environment.
Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware, reflects on the findings of a major research project undertaken in partnership with Field Service News and asks whether the trends that study appears to reveal will become a permanent part of the new normal as we look to a post-pandemic world...
Is The Hybrid-model Here To Stay?
I don’t think this is a fad at all. There is no question that physical intervention as the first line of defense for field service will be a thing of the past even once COVID passes. However, I think the emphasis on hybrid is key to its longevity and success.
Our research indicated that almost half (48%) of respondents stated that they believe their customers will still perceive a greater value in face-to-face service calls, while only 13% believed that their customers would see greater value in remote services alone and just over a third (39%) state that they believe their customers will see equal value in both (fig 1)
So, the challenge remains, if a hybrid-model is the New Normal, how do we make it accessible and affordable to organizations of all sizes?
These shifting trends led FieldAware down a path towards a new approach to thinking about and package our platform as a field service hub. The hub approach involves expanding and strengthening the depth of our solution’s “core” field service capabilities to create a system-of-record for all field service activities (robust technician enablement, advanced scheduling & optimization, workforce management, etc.).
It also requires broader exploiting our open API/architecture to expand back-office connectivity and build embedded capabilities to tap into best-of-breed technologies to easily and affordably provide access to these best-in-class solutions.
The service hub is a different approach. It enables service providers to establish new best-in-class service delivery models by building upon the digital field service infrastructure that FieldAware provides.
This is achieved by enabling best-of-breed specialist point solutions to be quickly and affordably integrated into the service hub to form an integral part of a new service delivery model workflow. Providing field service providers the ability to quickly ramp-up or expand their service delivery capabilities to meet new market demands.
As Kris Oldland wrote in our study summary, “We truly are on the cusp of a new era of field service, our industry has slowly been building the blocks of evolution across the last decade. COVID-19 has simply put us all on the same page.”
The infrastructure for connected service has been built. The thinking for advanced services has been considered. Now, as a result of necessity, the digital transformation required has been accelerated.
This powerful combination of events and solution evolution paves the way for the success of a hybrid model that delivers value and helps drive additional growth.
Further Reading:
- Read more News and Features from FieldAware @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/fieldaware
- Visit FieldAware's website @ www.fieldaware.com
- Read more by Marc Tatarsky @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/marctatartsky
- Read more about digital transformation in service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/digitaltransformation
- Read more about field service strategies @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/strategy
- Read more about technology adoption in service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/technologyadoption
Jul 08, 2020 • Features • field aware • FieldAware • Covid-19 • Service Innovation and Design
As our industry is desperately seeking avenues to return to normality, FieldAware’s COO Steve Mason brings to the table an interesting solution...
As our industry is desperately seeking avenues to return to normality, FieldAware’s COO Steve Mason brings to the table an interesting solution...
As businesses continue to evolve their operating practices in the age of Covid-19, service organizations worldwide are resuming their operations in response to relaxed lockdown measures. In many locations, the introduction of Track and Trace protocols enables authorities to identify who a positive COVID-19 person has been in close contact. Once identified, they instruct exposed individuals to self-isolate and to get tested themselves. These new measures aggressively limit the exposure to COVID-19 and enable the suppression of uncontrolled virus breakouts.
As part of reopening plans, many countries have successfully implemented Social Bubbles. In these “bubbles,” individuals agree to only have contact with a small group of others and practice social distancing with everyone else. The idea is to break transmission chains so that nobody within the bubble gets infected or, importantly, if somebody within the bubble is infected, the number of people to test is smaller and the virus is not transmitted into the wider population.
So, what does Track and Trace and Social Bubbles have to do with field service and service organizations?
At the heart of field service is the delivery of work to customers at commercial facilities, private homes, or in open, often public, locations. This necessary public interaction creates an environment where field techs have a higher propensity to come into proximity with infected COVID-19 contacts. The result and impact on service organizations:
- A customer becomes infected, and the field resources that have been in close contact with that customer are part of the Track and Trace investigation.
- The tech becomes infected themselves, and the Track and Trace investigation includes other service team members and the customers they interacted with while providing service.
Either scenario creates an inevitable event that your field resources will have to self-isolate due to the evolving Track and Trace investigation protocols associated with COVID-19 exposure.
The question isn’t whether your techs will need to self-isolate. Rather, how do you reduce the number impacted at any one time and simultaneously minimize the impact on your service business?
Enter the concept of Service Bubbles. In the fight against COVID-19 service bubbles provides several key benefits:
- For individuals, it reduces the risk of exposure and infection.
- It provides a mechanism to manage the impact an exposure has on the available workforce for service organizations.
- For society, it contains the exposure and potential spread of an infection to a smaller number of members in the Service Bubble.
How do you set up Service Bubbles?
There are three primary ways to create service bubbles, and you mix and match options depending on business demands.
- Physical Service Bubbles are created by creating small service areas and assigning individual resources and crews to work. You build up these smaller areas until you achieve complete coverage of your original service areas.
- Logical Service Bubbles are created by using permits to allocate different customers to different resources. Once configured, a pre-determined resource can only service that customer.
- Shift-based Service Bubbles are created by allocating resources to work at different times of the day. Setting the working hours for each resource to reflect their correct shift hours, and adjusting their shifts over time ensures no overlap.
In addition to the different ways to create Service Bubbles, you can also use permits to limit further which resources can work at specific customer locations. By restricting the number of resources visiting a customer location, you minimize the resources required to self-isolate as part of a Track and Trace investigation if a customer tests positive.
The smaller team sizes require constructing teams to fully consider the skills necessary to service customers in a particular area. You want to avoid having to send experts into different Service Bubbles to resolve complex problems. Appropriately allocated experts have the benefit of keeping the integrity of your Service Bubble strategy, minimizing Track and Trace risk, while increasing first time fix rates.
Tactics used to avoid overexposing include:
- Defining Skills against all your field resources and creating a Schedule Policy to utilize these Skills Rules. Planners and the Smart Scheduler will only assign jobs to techs with prerequisite skills.
- Ensuring knowledge management capabilities are fully enabled for field resources to have access via smartphone to provide access to customer and asset history; technical manuals; specification sheets; FAQ’s; and other artifacts to reduce the need for expert involvement.
- For advanced organizations, using Augmented Reality to give access to your experts remotely. Using smart devices and even googles for a pool of experts to see what is happening on-site remotely and guiding technicians to fix more complex problems or unfamiliar systems.
Setting up and managing an effective Service Bubble operation can be difficult if you do not have a modern application and technology. FieldAware with its configuration flexibility, enables organizations to efficiently and effectively set up and administer Service Bubbles, increasing the team’s operational resilience and protecting against having vast numbers of the team self-isolating.
Once suspended and Track and Trace protocols are lifted, you can revert to your original service model by merely assigning your resources back to their original service areas and removing the customer annotated permits. Once updated, your system will automatically revert to your original service model.
Further Reading:
- Read more about Field Service and Covid-19 Recovery @ www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19-0
- Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
- Read more FSN exclusive articles from the team at FieldAware @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/fieldaware
- Connect with Steve Mason on LinkedIN @ www.linkedin.com/in/stevemason3
- Follow FieldAware on Twitter @ twitter.com/fieldaware
- Find out more about the solutions FieldAware offer @ www.fieldaware.com
May 18, 2020 • News • FieldAware • steve mason • Service Automation • localz • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations • Tim Andrew • CSAT
FieldAware's Field Service hub extends best-in-class customer engagement.
FieldAware's Field Service hub extends best-in-class customer engagement.
FieldAware, the leader in made-for-mobile, cloud-based field service hub solutions, and Localz, the leader in real-time customer communications and service tracking solutions, has announced a partnership to bring day-of-service communications to field service organizations.
To build better service experiences, FieldAware has partnered with Localz to expand its cloud-based field service management hub offerings. Localz On My Way complements and extends the functionality of the FieldAware offering to include automated customer communications, real-time service tracking and feedback capabilities to existing workflows.
Automated Field Service Workflows
The partnership uses FieldAware job data seamlessly integrated with Localz technology to trigger automated customer communication workflows before and on the day of service. Combining fully integrated, automated field service workflows with real-time technician tracking and post-appointment feedback reduces costly truck-rolls, improves service efficiency and increases first-time access. This powerful combination delivers double-digit improvements in customer satisfaction and profitability for service-based organizations across industries.
"Partnering with Localz allows our clients to quickly digitize their day of service operations and deliver customer experiences similar to the likes of Uber and Amazon," said Steve Mason, COO at FieldAware. "As a cutting-edge field service hub enabling field service companies of all sizes to automate processes and streamline operations, it was a natural step to incorporate a best-in-breed customer engagement solution."
"Now more than ever, B2B and B2C customers alike demand transparency and clear communication around service appointments. Our partnership with FieldAware allows us to make processes even easier for companies to get back to business while delivering frictionless experiences for end-customers," said Tim Andrew, CEO of Localz.
For more information, please contact: marc.tatarsky@fieldaware.com
- To find out more about FieldAware click here.
- To find out more about Localz click here.
- Read more about customer communication in service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/customerservice
Mar 09, 2020 • Features • Software & Apps • FieldAware
Steve Mason from FieldAware outlines the importance of technology evolution in your service offering.
Steve Mason from FieldAware outlines the importance of technology evolution in your service offering.
As a company’s overall field service maturity evolves, one way to move operational maturity to the next level is to invest in technology. Organizations setting out to implement a field service management solution either for the first time or upgrading an existing solution do so to achieve strategic, operational gains.
While many operational benefits are achieved from different aspects of a field service management project, arguably automated scheduling and optimization deliver group productivity that significantly moves the operational performance needle.
The gains that drive companies to implement these solutions include:
- Dramatically improving service quality to the end customer by ensuring the right resource(s) arrive at the right location(s) at the right time with the right parts and equipment.
- Increased operational productivity resulting in completing more jobs per day by the same number of field resources.
- Increased first-time fix rates and reduced repeat visits.
- Lowering greenhouse gases emissions and travel costs by reducing the average miles driven per job.
- Improved staff morale by providing a modern and productive working environment.
While delivering these results is transformative to the way an organization supports its customers and competes in the market, many companies fail to achieve full potential. We’ll outline an Evolutionary deployment approach that, when combined with an innovative technology solution, addresses common change management barriers and breaks a decades-old mould.
Field Service is Always Evolving
There are two main approaches to implementing scheduling and optimization - Big Bang or Evolutionary.
Big Bang focuses on designing and building an entirely new service offline and then introducing it in a short-focused transformation program. It historically worked well in enterprise-wide programs where all the gains are achieved once the project is live and the new operating model is not prone to change.
Evolutionary is an “agile” methodology enabling the introduction of smaller incremental improvements that form a series of steps towards achieving defined business goals. The company achieves incremental ROI with each step and progressively aligns the organization to the evolving new business model.
Traditional scheduling and optimization systems operate by immediately publishing their results live into the field service management solution. It takes time to configure and model the solution in a safe environment before introducing it and works best in a Big Bang project. New innovative capabilities provide a fully functional “what-if” environment where planners can work safely, make tweaks, and then publish schedules when they are satisfied with the results. This new capability allows the Evolutionary approach to be successfully introduced.
Both models require leaders to design how the business will operate at the end of the program. FieldAware finds the Evolutionary model provides for faster implementation and better adoption by following this approach:
Phase 1
Implement a baseline solution with just the core system parameters configured The objective is to establish a minimum viable production solution to go live as quickly as possible. Planners, dispatchers, and field resources use the system to manually schedule and deliver service using defined data plus tacit local knowledge. While the business may be working very similarly to how it did before the project, the operational transparency achieved through the visibility of resources, jobs, and customers on a scheduling Gantt chart, real-time visual maps, and system reports brings a lift to productivity and quality of service.
Phase 2
Document and capture tacit or tribal knowledge from the planning team and transform the information into system parameters. This knowledge transfer enables the implementation of semi-automated scheduling, where planners make decisions with system guidance to take into account the rules and constraints that were defined. Productivity and service quality improves through more compliant decision making. The data is further refined based on feedback from the teams.
Phase 3
Semi-automated scheduling and optimization, introduce business scheduling objectives such as minimizing travel time or balancing work across the team into the system configurations. Planners and dispatchers can use a safe “what-if” planning environment to interact with the optimizer’s calculated results and refine the schedule iteratively. They dispatch jobs only when the best results are achieved. During this period, planners refine the optimization engine for various regions and business requirements, improving optimization performance, and improving result quality.
Phase 4
Achieving fully automated scheduling and optimization. The planning team has transferred all tacit and tribal knowledge into the optimization settings and parameters. There is complete adoption because they have engaged throughout the change program. The repetitive tasks of planning and scheduling are automated, freeing up resources to address the higher value work that differentiates the business and drives it forward.
The evolutionary journey approach, when combined with advanced systems that contain “what-if” planning capabilities, break down the change management barriers. Planners and the field resources are part of the change program and contribute to its success. Each phase, has wins for every stakeholder, and centrally the company benefits include:
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Increased bottom line through group productivity improvements
- Improved working environment for service delivery teams
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Further Reading:
- Read further articles and news from Steve and his colleagues at FieldAware here
- Find out more about the solutions offered by FieldAware here
- Follow Steve Mason on Twitter @stevegmason
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