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Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware asks if IoT sensors, Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning will help the UK water industry avoid a looming crisis...

One would be forgiven for assuming a nation surrounded by water, with a storied history of naval exploration and an advanced privatised water management sector, would be exempt from facing a water or wastewater crisis.

But many experts agree that the current population boom and climate scenario are forcing the industrial, national, and regional water and wastewater situations towards crisis in the United Kingdom.

What do these mounting challenges mean for the field service management organisations? How can they innovate to meet and overcome each challenge while satisfying end consumers? In the following paragraphs, we discuss how water and wastewater service organisations can get ahead of the looming crisis.

Population boom, climate change, water scarcity combine to create the perfect storm

Ofwat, a government water management program overseeing England and Wales, recently published a report outlining many key challenges in these region. They city population growth and climate changes were identified as the key drivers of change, while growing pressure to address water scarcity, environmental quality, and resilience of systems in the face of rising consumer expectations as the  major hurdles. Key among these, you will find:

• The UK population is forecasted to grow 20% over the next 20 years
• Rising environmental standards may drive up costs
• Technology to manage new customer expectations is lacking
• Major climate change has left specific regions at risk
• Water scarcity poses immediate threat to supply
• Customer expectations for service sector and water continue to rise

In reality, many of these challenges intersect.

This report cites that a full 60% of Thames Water’s customers are concerned about the environment. In addition, 85% of Wessex Water’s customers feel protecting rivers, lakes, and estuaries was critical.

The reality is more dire than consumers may realise. Given the uneven population distribution across the country, freshwater resources are often pulled from areas that are already under pressure, while new regions have been identified that previously threatened just years ago.

As the report cites, “Water catchments across Wales, south-west and northern England are predicted to experience significant unmet demand under many of the scenario combinations that the Environment Agency has considered.”

Can water management and field service teams get ahead of this looming crisis, or will consumers simply have to cut back on consumption altogether as the population booms?

3 ways UK service organisations can innovate to overcome crisis

Luckily, the field service industry is experiencing a renaissance in service technology that could solve current and future water problems. The Internet-of-Things, artificial intelligence, and predictive maintenance technology could each provide innovative solutions for both meeting growing demand, and minimising environmental impact.

1. Invest in and inform customers of water reduction faucets, shower heads, high efficiency washing machines and emerging technology

To be fair, this first recommendation is more about customer satisfaction, not just technology, but the fastest way to avert a water and wastewater crisis is the simplest; reduce the amount of water usage in businesses, factories, and homes.

This will require service organisations convincing customers that these new faucets, shower heads, and high efficiency machines will both save them money through reduced water usage, and save the environment. And if that doesn’t work? A healthy bit of policy should do the trick.

With the number of consumers who have expressed care for environmental issues, couldn’t a bit of a nudge from service providers push many over the edge to adopting more efficient technology?

With even a 10% increase in the number of homes, businesses, and facilities equipped with smarter end using devices, we could improve our water usage future in short order.

2. Enable IoT sensors on industrial water facilities and natural resource hubs

The Internet-of-Things promises to bring advanced real-time diagnostic capabilities to equipment, that for decades has required a human to perform a diagnostic task. By embedding internet-enabled sensors on all the equipment that cleans, processes, transports and delivers water, we could improve the efficiency of the entire water lifecycle by significant margins.

Would this require an up-front investment? Most certainly, but privatised water and wastewater organisations and service companies would certainly be keen on efficiency gains, especially if margins could move up incrementally.

Using IoT sensors for advanced real-time diagnostics could allow organisations to get predictive about water usage, resource allocation, and more. With the right application of IoT technology, equipment and processing, diagnostics could stand to become more efficient than ever.

3. Use AI and machine learning for ultimate efficiency gains

While seemingly intimidating at the outset, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology are in fact well within reach for organisations willing to embrace a healthy technical challenge. How about the payoff? Datasets that take a team of data scientists several weeks to interpret can now be crunched by AI algorithms in seconds.

Upon gaining results, future-oriented field service organisations will soon apply machine learning models that are ready-built for various service scenarios.

Think of machine learning algorithms as software with a brain. First, you develop an algorithmic model. Let’s use flooding—a common water crisis scenario—as an example. By first coding your software to understand all the steps a human would take in a flood scenario, and second enabling artificial intelligence algorithms to process information in real-time, you can effectively combine real-time flood data and your algorithm to unlock an immediate decision tree.

The software acts upon data in an instant, making airtight decisions and optimising your entire field service chain the same way your dispatch, or service executives would—given the parameters of your programmed scenario. But the main difference between AI software managing a service chain, and a human being? Software will make fewer mistakes.

As the UK continues to seek a resolution to current and future water scenarios, a healthy balance of policy, innovation, and customer support will be required.

 

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It has been revealed today that preventable machine downtime in the UK manufacturing industry is costing manufacturers a staggering £180bn every year.

At a time when the UK Economy sets-out to re-establish itself as an economical, industrial and technological powerhouse on the global stage, the knowledge that over £180bn can be added back to the economy by controlling preventable manufacturing downtime will certainly come as positive news.

The comprehensive research commissioned by Oneserve, the award-winning field service management company, exposes the cost and time implications associated with traditional current machine maintenance methods.

There are 133,000 manufacturers in the UK (ONS), contributing a total of £6.7tn to the global economy, and according to industry senior business leaders, the overwhelming causes of machine downtime are internal technical faults and ageing, unreliable machinery. Yet, nearly all instances (94%) can be prevented through harnessing readily available technologies, such as predictive maintenance software. Using machine learning algorithms and data collected from sensors on machines to monitor performance 24/7, Oneserve’s software analyses and learns when and how a machine will fail and then triggers remedial actions to get operatives equipped and on-site before the failure occurs. Harnessing AI and Field Service Management in this way means machine downtime can be prevented.

 

Discussing the findings Chris Proctor, CEO of Oneserve commented “Whilst unsurprising, it is truly shocking to see the scale of losses businesses endure due to machine downtime. It is clear that existing maintenance processes aren’t working and the time has come for predictive methods to become the norm – not the exception. I hope that in light of these findings, businesses can take control of machine downtime and ensure they are working to deliver the best possible service for their customers.”

 

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IFS, the global enterprise applications company, has released a primary research study on how the Internet of Things (IoT) affects readiness for digital transformation in industrial companies.

According to survey of 200 IoT decision makers at industrial companies in North America, only 16 percent of respondents consume IoT data in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. That means 84 percent of industrial companies face a disconnect between data from connected devices and strategic decision making and operations, limiting the digital transformation potential of IoT.

The study posed questions about companies’ degree of IoT sophistication. The study also explores how well their enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM) or field service management (FSM) software prepares them for digital transformation and to consume IoT data within enterprise software.

Respondents were divided into groups including IoT Leaders and IoT Laggards, depending on how well their enterprise software prepared them to consume IoT data—as well as Digital Transformation Leaders and Digital Transformation Laggards depending on how well their enterprise software prepared them for digital transformation.

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• The two Leaders groups overlapped, with 88 percent of Digital Transformation Leaders also qualifying as IoT Leaders, suggesting IoT is a technology that underpins the loose concept of digital transformation.
• Digital Transformation Leaders made more complete use of IoT data than Digital Transformation Laggards; Leaders are almost three times as likely to use IoT data for corporate business intelligence or to monitor performance against service level agreements.
• Digital Transformation Leaders were more likely than Digital Transformation Laggards to be able to access IoT data in applications used beyond the plant floor. They were more than four times as lilkely to have access to IoT data in enterprise asset management software, twice as likely than Digital Transformation Laggards to be able to access IoT data in high-value asset performance management software, and almost twice as likely to be able to be able to use IoT data in ERP.
• The data suggests a real need for more IoT-enabled enterprise applications designed to put data from networks of connected devices into the context of the business.[/unordered_list]

In reviewing the findings, IFS Chief Technology Officer for North America, Rick Veague, commented, “Are your planning and maintenance systems robust enough to make real time decisions using IoT-sourced data? Many are facing the reality of having to answer ‘no.’ We have seen examples of companies coming to us because their incumbent software is not able to administer and use IoT data to achieve the gains they want to realize.”

Steve Andrew, IFS Vice President of Marketing for North America added, “Long before the term IoT was coined, IFS was committed to introducing machine data into enterprise applications. With the release of the IFS IoT Business Connector, we are in a better position than ever to help our customers operationalise their IoT data. These study data shows this technology is required to connect IoT with strategic data from around their organisation. This in turn lets businesses use IoT not just for cost avoidance strategies like condition-based maintenance, but to add new or enhanced product or service lines, increase enterprise agility and realise the growth and revenue benefits of digital transformation.”

 

“Study data suggest that the most common use case for IoT in these industrial settings is condition-based maintenance. The benefits go beyond operational improvements and maintenance cost avoidance,” said Ralph Rio, Vice President of Enterprise Software at ARC Advisory Group. “It increases uptime that provides additional capacity for increased revenue. It also avoids unplanned downtime that interrupts production schedules causing missed shipment dates and customer satisfaction issues. When married to demand and scheduling systems in ERP, IoT becomes a revenue-enhancement tool improving the top line.”

Download the Industrial IoT and Digital Transformation Study. 

 

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Sara Mueller, Field Service Portfolio Director, WBR, discusses why despite the growing importance of technology within our industry, the critical balance between using automation to meet tightening SLAs and losing the important human touch points field service visits offer the benefits they bring...

They say the only thing constant is change.

In just over a decade we’ve seen service organisations move from cost to profit centers. Now business models are evolving beyond product-centricity towards selling solutions or customer business outcomes. This shift in business model evolution and higher levels of customer service comes largely from the innovative technologies that are being widely adopted across global service organisations.

So much so that companies are quickly falling behind their competition and losing money to inefficiencies if they are too slow to adopt the cutting-edge technologies that have filled the service space in the last few years.

As the market analyst and director of program development for the Field Service USA and Europe events, I spend my time looking for trends that seem like they will stick, and uncovering the buzz behind buzz words.

I’d like to share with you three technology changes that have been popping across my radar lately, that seem to be here to stay.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one such buzz word.

Field service leaders are actively debating how it will impact the industry.

Do service executives believe robots will take the place of field technicians or customer service operators in the short-to-medium term future? No (though more service organisations are adopting the use of drones to carry out service inspections in a safer, more timely manner). There is a critical balance that must be maintained between the technology service organisations use to keep machines up and running, and the personal human touch points that often contributes to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Instead of condition-based monitoring of equipment that crunches connected data in the cloud to predict equipment failure before it happens, machine learning is a way of monitoring similar data for abnormalities. It takes in huge sets of data about the equipment and identifies typical measurement ranges unique to the equipment being monitored. Then it monitors for abnormalities to see what the machine can learn about its own malfunctions. If a data set is out of range, the machine is able to flag it, knowing that something is off, and begin to uncover what the problem maybe.

 

Augmented Reality

Secondly, our Field Service events have been talking about the opportunity for augmented reality (AR) in service for a few years now. I am starting to see companies that have finally piloted or are using AR as a standard tool of their service organisation.

Early conversations around AR debated whether the technology should be given to customers, so they could be the eyes for the experienced service technician (rather than the service organisation having to pay to dispatch an engineer to the site).

But generally most service organisations have decided that from a liability and legal perspective, its best to send a more junior-level technician to the site with the AR glasses or hands-free device, rather than put the tools in the hands of the customer.

A reason that the adoption of AR by service organisations has finally picked up is that the technology has gotten better, cheaper, and with more choices available. Devices are lightweight and more intuitive as the technology has evolved.

One limitation of AR is connectivity bandwidth. While only a small bandwidth is necessary for AR to work, if your customer’s facility has limited Wi-Fi or an unstable signal, it could disrupt performance and communication. So service organisations are starting to build the use of AR into their service agreements, including ownership of Wi-Fi so they can control the Wi-Fi sources themselves to produce a more stable environment to support AR.

Parts Management

Finally, if you are in service you need to have the right parts in the right place at the right time in order to get the job done. This hasn’t changed. But the way service organisations are carrying out service parts planning has.

Several years ago organisations were managing parts on Excel spreadsheets and realised they needed a more robust tool to carry out planning effectively. Nowadays, since most service organisations have adopted field service management (FSM) systems, they are no longer integrating a parts planning tool into their ERP, they are integrating it into the FSM system.

They have been able to optimise the scheduling and dispatching of their technicians with the FSM, but are finding the right parts aren’t always where they need to be. Because of the optimisation, a technician no longer serves one account or needs a regular selection of parts in his vehicle.

 

Instead, it may now be more efficient for a technician to service a wider variety of products at different customer sites; therefore the inventory he needs to carry around is more complex. Even a technician’s training becomes part of the selection criteria in the FSM to determine which customer site he will be dispatched to; so this type of training data is being integrated into service inventory planning tools as well.

It’s an exciting time for field service technology, especially if you embrace change. But as I alluded to earlier, there is still a critical piece of service that comes from the human connection between technician and customer. No matter how technology evolves, the service industry will have to figure out the right balance of technology and human intimacy in order to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty.

 

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Today’s technology is becoming more and more like science fiction - but how can we harness it in the field service sector? Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director, IFS gives us the inside scoop on how they are leveraging HoloLens...

It’s stuff straight out of the movies; Back to the Future, Ender’s Game, or Ex Machina. Imagine a young field service technician in front of an MRI machine at an NHS hospital.

He has arrived to perform preventative maintenance on the machine based on sensor feedback that had signalled a pending fault.

He is wearing Microsoft’s HoloLens, which in addition to giving him the appearance of Geordi La Forge straight of Star Trek, is allowing him to be immersed in the customer experience.

He can access customer history, warranty agreements, sensor data and even schematics, all hands free, in real-time, while he repairs the machine, maximising uptime and all the while avoiding the hassle and stress that inevitably comes with breakdown.

Only that isn’t a movie scene.

In fact, I stood in a room wearing a HoloLens as it fed me information straight from IFS Applications, our ERP backed service management software.

I was able to access and view service history, performance analysis, and temperature levels. In fact, the integration between IFS Applications and the HoloLens will also make it possible to action the data in real time by clicking a ‘work guidelines’ button to access service instructions stored in IFS Applications.

By leveraging the integrated HoloLens camera, the solution also makes it easy to document the asset and the service performed and store the information in IFS Applications for future reference.

Proof of concept today, in the field tomorrow. 

IFS’s innovation think tank, IFS Labs, has developed an integration between the enterprise applications suite IFS Applications and Microsoft HoloLens to reinvent field service management.

“We are very excited to present this proof of concept that we believe has the potential to revolutionise the way we think of field service management,” IFS Labs director Bas de Vos said. “By leveraging the Microsoft HoloLens, we can help service personnel navigate complex environments and access critical asset information to realise major benefits such as increased productivity and first-time fix rates."

 

Field service management is a highly prioritised area for IFS where we have been categorised as leaders by analysts. We will keep pioneering this field with innovative solutions that provide tangible business benefits.”

 

What does it mean?

It means improved service levels, increased first-time fix rates, and increased uptime. It means truly transformative field service delivery.

A servitization model transforms the concept, expectation and value of service, and technology enhances execution of that product service system.

Technology like the HoloLens allows technicians to do their jobs better, faster. It also helps to bridge gaps caused by an ageing workforce, providing appeal to a younger generation of employees while offering an easy to adopt user experience for your current labour force.

According to Tuong Huy Nguyen of Gartner, “AR is most useful as a tool in industries where workers are either in the field, do not have immediate access to information, or jobs that require one or both hands and the operator’s attention.”

Changing your offering…

It also breeds new opportunity for your service delivery model.

Today, fast service isn’t enough for many of your customers. According to Fast Company, 70 percent of consumers expect a self-service option for handling commercial questions and complaints. Not only can an integrated HoloLens offering provide a highly empowered field service engineer, but it can also turn your customer into a field service engineer as well.

 

Imagine providing your customer with a HoloLens linked to your service management solution when they purchase a product or service package from you.

You are then empowering your customers to act as the first line of defence in the case of failure, regular maintenance, and more, by providing them with the right guidance and virtual support to fix an issue themselves.

Innovative software helps you deliver inspired service

The power of technology ultimately lies in how it is leveraged. Combining the mixed reality capabilities of Microsoft HoloLens with the enterprise end-to-end software solution IFS Applications ultimately empowers field service technicians with innovative tools that boost productivity while creating the potential for organisations to generate new offerings and add value to their customers.

The world we grew up dreaming about in the movies is a world that we are now able to embrace. As end consumers taste the potential of new technology and expect more, field service organisations that embody innovation and leverage new technologies will become the clear leaders.

To learn more about IFS Lab’s latest innovations, email bas.de.vos@ifsworld.com or visit www.ifsworld.com

 

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO Coresystems,  takes a look at two separate ways in which Augmented Reality is set to radically change the way we approach field service delivery...

In my last article I examined the technologies that will likely play a major role in driving exponential growth of the field service market over the next few years, with one of those technologies being augmented reality (AR).

In this piece, I’ll go more in-depth into the most impactful ways in which AR can revolutionise the field service industry over the next few years and beyond.

I mentioned this in my last article, but it bears repeating: enterprise use cases for augmented reality are on such a fast track to implementation that ABI Research predicts that 21 million AR units will be shipped by 2020, with sales reaching $100 billion.

Clearly there is a huge market opportunity for organisations looking to enhance their field service businesses with AR technologies.

 

There is a wide range of ways in which AR can support field service organisations, but I’d like to focus on the two that I predict will have the most immediate impact. The first one is probably in your pocket, or somewhere within arm’s reach, as we speak: the camera in your smartphone.

Here’s how it would work: when an issue occurs with a customer’s machine or device, a field service technician would connect remotely to that end user’s/customer’s smartphone via an app.

Once the technician and the end user are connected, that user can point the phone directly to the problem at hand, so the technician can gain a clear view of the issue and walk the user through fixing the problem, step-by-step.

This remote troubleshooting capability has the potential to greatly reduce the number of onsite visits between field service technicians and their customers, which would save a huge amount of time and resources on both parties’ ends.

But what if a technician is indeed needed onsite?

The AR app would be able to notify the end user of the status of their request in real-time.

This status update would include the exact location of the technician (via GPS), as well as notifications that can be pushed to the end-user’s device, so the customer can know that technician’s estimated time of arrival, down to the minute.

Again, time and resources saved.

The second way in which AR can transform the field service industry is through the use of AR glasses. The devices and machines being used at the customer’s facility could have a pair of glasses assigned to each device or machine, or a service technician could have the glasses on their person in their toolkit.

 

Through the glasses, the technician – who undoubtedly is more skilled than the user at fixing technical issues – can walk a user (or a less skilled technician) through the fix.

While the AR glasses and the AR app for the smartphone both deliver significant benefits to the customer and technician, the AR glasses have the potential to be a tremendous asset for the field service organisation in another way: by streamlining training.

In a scenario in which a customer needs onsite support, it behooves the field service organisation to send its less skilled – and therefore less costly – technicians to actually carry out the fix.

And this could be possible through the use of the AR glasses, as the more skilled technician could remain at HQ and remotely direct the less skilled technician through the fix by using the glasses.

This way, the customer still receives the top-notch service thanks to the senior technician (literally) overseeing the process, while the field service organisation is able to execute the service call while training its less skilled technician in a real-world scenario.

This is, as the saying goes, killing two birds with one stone.

So there’s an overview of the two ways that AR can most immediately have a positive impact on the field service industry.

However, the potential is perhaps even greater than we can imagine.

 

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director for Service Management at IFS about the shifting changes within the field service management sector...

 

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ClickSoftware’s Paul Whitelam wonders if crowdsourcing could be the solution to fluctuating demands on a workforce that field service companies have been waiting for...

Service organisations have long relied on third parties to augment their core workforce to manage fluctuating demand, emergency work, and expansion to new regions.

The Service Council reported that 76% of service organisations have used a third party for service delivery and to augment their regular workforce.

By 2020, Gartner predicts 40% of service work will be delivered by contractors.

This increasing reliance on an external workforce appears to run parallel with some anxiety about talent shortages. The Service Council reported 70% of service organisations expect a talent shortage in the next 5-10 years. Many already struggle with hiring.

While contractors have supplied support to service organisations for a long time, there is growing interest in tapping into the gig economy and free agents to build an ad hoc workforce.

Rapidly scaling your field service workforce is a challenge under any circumstance, but a blended workforce can deliver many benefits. Let’s explore the pros and cons of outsourcing service work, and compare how crowdsourcing and contractors can play a role.

The Case for Outsourced Service

Variable demand persistently vexes anyone charged with scheduling a service workforce and forecasting the level of resources needed to do the expected and unexpected work.

Seasonal differences and large stand-alone projects are common reasons for temporarily increased demand, along with emergency and disaster relief work.

 

When expanding to new geographic areas, a contracted workforce enables a service organisation to quickly increase available coverage without the delay of needing to recruit, hire, and train a completely new core team. This separation from the core workforce can also provide a convenient way to pilot new technology or procedures before adopting them across the entire business.

Adding specialised skills to your roster is another massive benefit of outsourced service. A contracted workforce allows for new types of work to be done without the entire team requiring retraining.

Blended Workforce Challenges

Adding contractors to your workforce introduces challenges. Most stem from a lack of visibility into what happens once a job is assigned and accepted.

The service engineer is often the only face-to-face interaction a customer will have with a company, and serves as an ambassador capable of upholding or undermining the brand.

To blend your internal and external workforce successfully, the right processes and technology are essential. Your service organisation needs the ability to locate third-party resources, appropriately gauge their availability and skill level, track job status, and provide the support and information needed to deliver service in a manner consistent with business policies and SLAs, and customer expectations.

Some contractors will resist the adoption of new tools and processes when it forces change, but most will ultimately adopt your preferred solutions once they understand the value.

 

In a recent study from Michael Blumberg, KPIs for The Blended Workforce In the Gig Economy, his consultancy found that nearly 70% of field service organisations used a freelancer management system of some kind for staffing purposes.

Managing Contractors and Crowdsourcing in the Gig Economy

According to Intuit, the gig economy now makes up 34% of the US labor workforce. With new tools, devices, and skills, imagine how many thousands more will choose to work remotely as a part of this budding freelance economy in the coming years.

Millennials, as a subset of the working population, have already upended what had long been accepted as a standard employee-employer relationship. They are tech-savvy, adaptable, and value career advancement and mobility over longterm employment. Many are more comfortable with freelance and temporary employment and provide much of the supply to meet the demand for a more flexible workforce.

Making the most of your blended workforce will require not just better technology, but also a shift in mindset. While visibility into what’s happening is paramount to managing an internal or external workforce, service organisations will also need to consider how to best measure the performance of contracted workers and keep them engaged and enthusiastic about their work.

 

The most sophisticated service organisations have gained and maintained a competitive advantage through maximising productivity and optimising customer experience. A blended workforce should be able to extend the same level of efficiency and customer focus to its outermost layers.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty should be the ultimate goal for any business. With the right plan and solutions in place, any permanent or ad hoc worker should be able to provide the seamless experience your customers want and deserve.

 

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Emily Hackman, Global Director of Marketing, Astea, looks at how the modern phenomenon of the connected customer is driving heightened service expectations that field service companies must meet...

In the last few years we have gone through a true revolution when it comes to digital connectivity.

The widespread adoption of tools that offer ever-greater connectivity amongst the general populace is increasing at ever-faster speeds. The end result of this increase in connectivity for businesses is a rising need for meeting rapidly heightening customer expectations when it comes to service quality.

Indeed, this is truly the era of the connected customer—consumers have become accustomed to having an unprecedented access to the knowledge and insight offered by the Internet right at their fingertips. And in a world were smart phones are virtually omnipresent, that access is 24/7/365, no matter where they happen to be.

 

Today’s consumers can instantly interact with friends and associates via text or social media, they can quickly summon a ride, make restaurant reservations, or order a gift with just a few clicks and swipes on their phone. Looking back even just a decade we would never have imagined the sheer pervasiveness of connectivity that we enjoy today and the huge impact it would have on our lives.

Yet for field service business, such increased levels of connectivity can be a double-edged sword offering both challenges and opportunities in equal measure.

Rising Expectations of the Connected Customer

Thanks in no small way to the companies like Uber and Amazon - who have embraced technology to not only disrupt the markets they exist within but also in many respects establish entirely new markets, the Connected Customer is intimately aware of the capabilities mobile computing bring to service operations.

Thanks to advances in mobility, their local florist or Pizza Delivery company can provide them with updates on their orders in real time. So why shouldn’t they expect field service technicians to be able to access those same or even more advanced mobile capabilities?

When it comes to service, connected customers now expect as standard:

• Real-time alerts when technicians are on their way to the job site/residence
• Technicians that will arrive armed with their individual customer histories and preferences
• A service organisation that can respond quickly to emergency calls
• The ability to receive real-time updates on the status of their service, both online and via their mobile phones
• Technicians that have full access to the repair information and parts that they need to complete the job

In fact, whilst just a few years ago mobile technology in and of itself offered a competitive advantage, mobility is now basic table stakes when it comes to field service.

And today, by harnessing the technology, service organisations are able to satisfy the needs of their customers. This can hugely effect how they refine and improve the customer experience, enhance their reputation, and reduce both employee and customer churn

Leveraging Customer Connectivity

In the world of enterprise, companies are rapidly embracing mobility.

According to data from Frost & Sullivan, 47% of North American businesses have at least 11 different mobile worker apps deployed, and 88% plan on introducing at least one new employee-facing app within the year.

According to the same data, companies have found that key mobility benefits include:

 

• More efficient business processes (49% of respondents),
• More productive employees (46%),
• Improved collaboration (46%),
• Cost savings (45%)
• More satisfied employees (44%),
• Enhanced customer engagement (43%),
• Competitive advantage (42%)

Of course, having a mobile solution in place does not automatically enable a service organisation to effectively serve the connected customer.

Focusing on reducing costs, whilst simultaneously improving productivity and efficiency is no longer the end game when it comes to mobility.

This is largely because whilst reducing costs and completing more jobs per day is good for the bottom line, they don’t necessarily assist in improving customer satisfaction and are not always in line with value creation in the long-term  and how quickly you can get them back up and running.

 

The brutally honest fact is that your customers don’t particularly care when you save money on fuel or can bill more jobs per month, they solely care about whether you’ve met your SLAUltimately, service customers simply want reliability and visibility. Did the service organisation get their technician to the job site quickly, armed with the right parts and repair knowledge? Were they able to complete the repair in one visit?

Every decision the service organisation makes should be weighed against a backdrop of the overall impact to the customer. The fact that customers are now highly connected makes it easier for service organisations to meet their needs, provided that they have their own robust mobility solution in place. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

By leveraging analytics, the input your connected customers provide can help you understand consumption patterns and deliver a personalized solution—and potentially do so at a premium, creating new pricing models and differentiated service models, and establishing new revenue streams in the process.

 

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Want to know more - there is a white paper on this subject available for Field Service News subscribers - and FSN subscription is complimentary for industry practitioners.

Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Preparing for the Connected Customer" sent directly to your inbox now

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