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Copperberg hosted 100+ field service leaders from across Europe and cross-sectors within the manufacturing industry at its 2nd Annual Field Service Forum, which took place in June at the Sheraton Amsterdam Airport.  Thomas Igou, Editorial Director for event producer Copperberg gives us his personal overview of how the two day event took place... 

Pre-Event Workshops

The conference was preceded by two pre-event workshops that focused on core aspects of a successful Field Service business. The mobility workshop, hosted by Marc Tonen, Pre-Sales Consultancy Manager EMEA at Astea, delved into how to best integrate mobility solutions to create a mobile workforce that will enhance the value of your service offerings to your customers. As many manufacturers are planning to or are currently rolling out mobility solutions, this was an essential topic to be discussed, and one that would be further covered during the rest of the conference.

The second workshop was hosted by Jim Baston, President of BBA Consulting Group, and covered an ever growing topic in field service today: the technician’s role in pro-active business growth in order to go beyond great service. In other words, how to develop the soft skills of field technicians they can lay the groundwork for up-sells or customer retention. Considering the amazing reaction to Jim’s workshop, it is clear that for many field service businesses, technicians are more than maintenance experts. They are the first pawns in the battle of creating long lasting relationships with customers.

Service Mastery Day

The conference officially kicked off with a new and highly appreciated feature: the Service Mastery Day. The three hour seminar from Chris Daffy, a renowned customer service specialist from the UK, covered the key aspects to building exceptional customer loyalty through field engineers. Chris is a very charismatic speaker who is not afraid to use humor to put forth his message, built from years of experience working in customer service, as well as research from professionals and academics into the topic. The result was a refreshing presentation on the art and science of customer loyalty building, why a balanced brain approach is essential for building sustainable customer loyalty, and the engineering excellence principles and tools that are equally effective in engineering customer loyalty.

Networking Evening

Following the Service Mastery Day, participants joined for a long evening of structured networking, always one of the highlights of Copperberg events. Delegates, speakers and partners were able, prior to the event, to schedule one-to-one meetings to ensure making the most out of the event and creating long lasting professional contacts. The evening featured different activities such as a mingling drink reception, elevator pitches from some of the partners, and an inspirational session from Motivational Coach Malcolm Larri. Participants were then invited to a very relaxed dinner banquet where they were also treated to a magic show.

The main conference day offered participants a wide array of formats, from morning masterclasses, keynotes, industry-driven and technology-driven executive circles, and parallel tracks of focus sessions meant to challenge them to not only learn, but also share. There were three key themes that floated around during the event: global workforce, smart services, and operational efficiency.

Global Workforce

Further to Jim Baston’s introductory workshop on the development of a technician’s soft sales ability, many sessions focused on talent and the workforce needed for a successful field service. ServiceMax’s morning masterclass, held by Patrice Eberline, best resumed the reason behind why this topic is of great importance: 40% of service technicians are over the age of 40, and 60% of companies are understaffed in their technical and highly skilled positions, meaning that the service industry has a looming talent problem.

There were also many discussions during networking breaks and executive circles on the underestimated importance of good leadership, as field service is by definition a people business, and people crave for good and inspiring leadership. Another session that stood out was from Brian Dahl Thomsen, Head of Operations and Regional Support for Siemens Wind Power, who shared his views on the needed competencies to be a service technician. Brian developed on Siemens Wind Service’s method of analyzing what competencies are need to cope with the environment of their products, the technology as well as the logistics aspect. Finally, they ensure to have the right approach on a management level to cope with talent management by setting clear target and objectives and investing in the right training methods.

Smart Services

Another hot topic at the event was how to develop smart services, such as predictive maintenance. A lot of manufacturers are currently looking into IoT, and how M2M/Big Data can help them improve their service business. One session from Magnus Sävenäs, VP Customer Service, Head of Global Field Service & Training at ABB Robotics gave an insight on how to use the latest technology trends to improve your business. The session focused on how to run a data driven organisation with the motto, “easy to buy, easy to service”. Magnus explained the five pillars for this: installed base data, organisation, remote service, customer access to information, and knowledge management.

Operational Efficiency

The highlight of the third track was a great case study from Andre Skerlavaj, Director Global Service Strategy for Pentair Valves and Control. His session focused on their PRONTO project, a holistic approach to increased service levels. PRONTO is a cross-functional approach that was developed to ensure streamlined processes and smooth execution from service scoping through to international service delivery. The rest of the track also featured interesting sessions from Brick, on how to make heroes of your service sales team, and Elektrobit Wireless, on how to conduct a successful mobility project.

Technology

The event was also a great showcase of the latest technological developments that support field service activities. Mobility was of course a big part of the event as more and more organizations understand the necessity to connect their front line (field service technicians dispersed all over the globe) to the back office. Through focus sessions, case studies, and roundtable discussions, delegates were able to get a full spectrum of implementing mobility solutions, from the key challenges faced when mobilising business processes, how to achieve ROI, or even the possibilities with a mobile service sales tool. Another, more disruptive, technology that was discussed was Internet of Things (IoT). Mark Brewer from PTC gave an exciting keynote on the impact IoT will have on service operations by looking at breakthroughs in operational effectiveness and strategic differentiation. Staying on the theme of connectivity, there was a lot of buzz about wearables technology. XMReality were able to give a demo of wearable tech on the exhibition floor, while Måns Granholm, General Manager Process Development & Commissioning at Wärtsilä, gave a keynote on their use of Virtual Engineers in an augmented reality environment.

The closing keynote from Edmilson Toledo, Head of Global FSO Program at Ericsson, was one of the highlights of the event. Edmilson’s session focused on the networked society, and how digital technologies can transform field service businesses in a game changing way. The keynote covered mobility, and how Ericsson is using mobile phones as a tool available for all field technicians, as well as wearables smart glasses, which Edmilson feels is a market moving to maturity. Lastly, the session highlighted UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), also known as drones, as a tool to support technicians.

Conclusion

All in all, the event was an impressive gathering of industry leaders and solution providers. A lot of innovative ideas were thrown around by the participants either during the presentations, roundtable conversations, Q&A’s, or networking sessions, on how to grow the field service business.

 

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ABOUT AFTERMARKET

The 9th Aftermarket Business Platform will take place October 21st-23rd at the Grand Hotel Huis Ter Duin in the Netherlands, gathering 200+ service leaders from global manufacturers. The theme of the event will be, Service Transformation: delivering value and differentiation to customers and will feature case studies from KONE, Zimmer, Scania, Emerson Process Management, ABB Power Generation, AGCO Parts, Hyundai Motor UK, Medtronic and many more. The event will be chaired by Rob Van Hove, CEO of Kuiken Group. For more information, visit: www.aftermarketeurope.com

 

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What is the value of a customer relationship? Is it worth it to over-deliver on SLAs just to keep a paying client? What role does field service have in keeping customers happy? Aly Pinder, senior research analyst analyst, Service Management, Aberdeen Group,  shares his views.

These are all questions which have put a microscope on service technicians and field engineers. Historically, the field service team was solely looked to in order to show up on time based on a 4-8 hour service window and fix a failure. But in this age of empowered customers, the field service team is expected to deliver real value to each customer interaction (while also, of course, fixing the failure).

But with this demand for increased value comes the opportunity to find new products and services that customers need and want to buy. As seen in Aberdeen’s Service Revenue: Unearth an Untapped Stream of Dollars research, eight out of ten top performers (81%) were able to attain their service revenue goals in 2014 and they also cultivate an environment of innovation for their service offerings to meet the needs of their customers. But how did these service organizations and manufacturers achieve these results? Did the money just fall from the trees? Of course not, these companies helped the field team excel at service and wow their customers into new opportunities.

The path to this level of engagement is outlined below and should be the centerpiece of any strategy to drive profitability from the field:

• The carrot is often more successful than the stick in business. Incentives, if targeted the right way, have the ability to drive the behaviors which can transform an organization.[quote float="left"]The carrot is often more successful than the stick in business. 

   

  This is true for the field team. If your organization only monitors or incents doing more jobs as quickly as possible, your technicians will neglect aspects of the service experience which could prove valuable to customers. Savvy service leaders implement incentives and performance goals which tackle both short-term operational objectives and long-term relationship goals like profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction.
• Give the sales team a view into the field. The sales team has a difficult job (and no, I am not pandering to the sales executives out there). They “always must be closing” new business. And one of their top challenges is having enough leads to close. This is where the field service team can help out. Service technicians are in front of customers every day, they’re in front of the equipment on site, and they even have access to the competition’s assets. But in order to connect customer insight with the sales team, the field needs the mobile tools AND the training to pass along the right information. Technicians need to ask the right questions while on site with customers and have their eyes / ears open to gaps in the current products and services being used. Passing these leads on to sales can drive the top line for the entire organization.
• Don’t give service away for free.

   

  Don’t give service away for free. Too often organizations send technicians out to customers to service equipment and assets which are no longer under warranty or within a service contract. This is a missed opportunity. Top performing organizations ensure their service team delivers service which is being paid for. And when contracts expire or are close to, technicians don’t have to refuse service but they will have the knowledge to give the customer a small nudge reminding them their bill is due.

The field service team has a special place in the hearts and minds of customers. Technicians show up when there is a problem (or before), fix it, and leave with a smile. But this relationship has the opportunity to garner insights that can turn into new revenue opportunities. I don’t think technicians should be salespeople, but they understand customers, equipment, and assets. And this insight makes them invaluable in finding the next dollar while ensuring customers remain happy.

 

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Field service organisations must adapt in a rapidly changing world, says Tom Bowe, Industry Director, Enterprise Service Management, IFS.

Agility and adaptability were the overarching themes at the recent IFS customer conference in Boston.  More than 250 service-focused attendees came to hear user case studies about implementing and using IFS’s service software, watch industry experts apply new trends to real life, and to learn about what IFS is doing to take their service solutions to the next level.

Why? Because the world is changing, rapidly. According to Erik Qualman of Socialnomics fame, 40% of the Fortune 500 will be gone within 10 years. As PJ Jakovljevic of Technology Evaluation tweeted; “You have to be prepared to destroy your own business model before a kid in a dorm room does it for you.”
[quote float="left"]Monolithic legacy systems can no longer keep up with the changing market and customer demand.

So how do you future-proof yourself as a service organisation as the world changes, new technology evolves, and customer demands shift and increase? Addressing customer service vigilantly is vital to a service organisation’s success. Let your consumers drive the trends you adopt to ensure better return on investment. Flexibility and usability matter, especially in a consistently changing environment. Monolithic legacy systems can no longer keep up with the changing market and customer demand. Those organisations that don’t adapt will be replaced.

 

We have developed a sort of nine step program to help service organisations achieve service excellence and help them adapt to an ever-changing environment. Here are some of the things you should keep in mind when you are looking to make your service organisation more adaptable, and more successful:[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. Know your business
   This may seem a bit obvious, and redundant, but in order to help your organisation streamline processes, maximise service margins, and increase customer satisfaction, you need to have a full understanding of your company’s goals, their future plans, their mission, and the vision. This will allow you to focus your efforts, systems, and processes on the right objectives
2. Excellence through insight
   The power of BI is never-ending. Use your collected data to drive more informed decisions, hone processes and affect change throughout your organisation. This should never be a static, one way function, BI should directly affect your future operations.
3. Accelerate service achievement
   A holistic view of not only your service organisation but your service value chain will accelerate service achievement. Bringing suppliers and other parties you collaborate with into the value chain adds value to them, you and ultimately your customers.
4. “Uberise” your service
   From the minute you order a car on Uber to when you arrive at your destination, Uber provides transparency from identifying the driver and license plate, to showing you on your route, to providing easy, secure payment options. Service businesses can use optimised, automated field service solutions (like IFS Field Service Management) to offer trust, security and reliability to their customers in a similar manner.
5. Delivery that delights you and your customers
   In the past, delivering superior customer service often meant accepting a reduced service margin. Now with powerful technology like M2M sensors, mobility solutions and automated processes, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Let your customers drive your initiatives and reap the benefit at the same time. Better organised internal processes often automatically improve external delivery.
6. Open up to new things
   New trends and technology in the service space can often be overwhelming, but don’t be closed off to what’s new and great in your space. Actively watch the market and evaluate which trends will affect your industry and your business the most. Sometimes this is customer driven. If a new trend can help meet a consumer demand, it is probably more than worthwhile to pursue.
7. Optimise your world
   Today, more people own a mobile device than a toothbrush (Socialnomics, 2014) and over one-third (36%) of consumers prefer using a company website or email to contact a business (2014 American Express Customer Service Barometer). Gone are the days when an excel spreadsheet, white board, or patched together legacy systems can handle customer demands and a mobile workforce effectively. Optimisation and automation allows for a seamless process from call intake to billing, reducing overhead costs, deviations, and errors.
8. Manage your future
   The future doesn’t have to be as unpredictable as it seems. Market research, watching trends, and utilising your business intelligence (and managing your big data effectively) will help give you a crystal ball into what’s coming and allow you to adapt faster, giving you a competitive edge.
9. Agile, ready for change
   If the past decade has shown the business world anything, it is that the most successful organisations are those that are two steps ahead of the game. The best way to future-proof yourself is to function as an agile, flexible operation. With the right systems and vision in place, the changing world will have nothing on you.

IFS Enterprise Service Management is continually investing in our solutions to support our goal of providing service organisations with dynamic scalability, mobile solutions, ease of deployment, and cloud and wearables flexibility.
We are future-proofing ourselves by helping you succeed at what you do best; delivering unrivaled service.

 

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Field Service News podcast. This month Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland and Paul Sparkes of Advanced Field Service discuss the findings of the latest Field Service News research which assessed the mobility tools being used by field service companies today.

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Missed the research report being discussed in this podcast? Click here to download

 

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Find out more about Advanced Field Service in the Field Service directory by clicking here.

 

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by: Astea
Title: Forging a service and sales partnership
Download: Click here to download the white paper
By downloading you agree to the T&Cs listed available here

Synopsis:

The wall between sales and service activities is crumbling within many companies. Once largely viewed as a cost centre, the role of the service organisation has steadily evolved as companies recognize its potential as a source of new revenues and a valuable tool in strengthening customer loyalty.

However, there is often a disconnect between the service and sales organisations. Service technicians often serve as the face of the company, spending much of their time directly interacting with customers. They are potentially a valuable source of new sales leads, able to spot opportunities for new product sales or competitive product replacements, offer service contracts to clients, and even cross-sell/up-sell products or services. Most companies are not fully taking advantage of this potential sales leads stream

This white paper outlines the potential sources of new revenue enabled by better integrating service and sales activities, discuss the challenges of realising this revenue, and provides information on the tools, software,
and strategies that top-performing companies utilise to grow that revenue.

Overview:

The ability to leverage information coming from the field service organisation to drive sales opportunities with new and existing customers will be a critical competitive differentiator moving forward. Companies that leave their sales and service organisations technologically or operationally separated could be leaving substantial revenue on the table.

 

However, according to The Service Council, of the 55% of companies that are not utilising their service teams for sales, most report that this is because the technicians lack training, lack the skill set or incentives to sell, or the companies prefer that they don’t sell at all.  Service organisations also may lack the tools to turn those leads into revenue. The Service Council reports that 17% of service organisations still rely on paper, while another 19% don’t have any tools with which to capture leads.

Two types of service revenue

There are two ways that service creates new revenue. One is through direct sales of service offerings  from existing service contracts, non-contract service, new contract sales, and parts sales. The second is by generating direct revenue via warranty sales and other value-added services.

Breaking down barriers

Many of the chief obstacles to meeting new service revenue objectives are both structural and technological. Many companies are not currently structured properly to foster better collaboration between service and sales.

Technology can also play a role. The Service Council says 53% of companies lack real-time visibility into service performance and potential revenue opportunities: traditional paper-based service management processes make it very difficult to communicate potential sales leads and new opportunities back to the sales teams.[quote float="right"]Many companies are not currently structured properly to foster better collaboration between service and sales.

Service technicians often lack the tools to identify and document these opportunities, or to act on them while they are in front of the customers.

 

Keys to better service/sales collaboration

Linking sales and service requires a mix of operational changes and technology.[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. The ability to accept payment in the field greatly expands the sales potential for the service force.
2. Companies that do leverage the service teams to generate new sales leads typically have dedicated teams focused on service sales, and create sales quotas for the service organisations.
3. Top performers also train service agents on lead identification and sales management
4. The profile of service technicians is changing: technicians are hired also on their sales skills and experience. Some companies are hiring agents with more sales experience, and then investing their training budget on service/technical skills rather than the other way around.
5.  Should the service team should be selling directly or simply gathering leads? The decision will depend your company’s business, culture, and the type of service agents you currently employ.
6. How do your customers view your service team?  If the service technicians are simply seen as people who arrive, fix problems, and leave, then introducing a sales function may not yield the best results. If the agents are already serving as trusted advisors to the customers, however, they may receive more positive reception to sales activities.
7. Evaluating the skill sets of the service force is also important. Can your technicians sell? Are they interested in doing so? What tools, technology, and infrastructure need to be in place that will help them sell effectively? Asking your technicians to sell without giving them the tools to do the job correctly will not yield new revenues.
8. Don’t let the sales strategy compromise the work your service team is performing. It may still be more appropriate to send leads to a dedicated sales team for follow-up.

In order to leverage the service organisation to increase revenue effectively, companies will need to foster collaborative environments that will encourage the service teams to generate leads for the existing sales forces. That can be done by providing technicians with mobile technology that allows them to quickly and easily capture and communicate those leads, developing incentive programs that reward lead generation, and creating business process flows that ensure the leads will be followed up on quickly.

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Last month, Marne Martin, CEO of Servicepower, evaluated the need to focus on the technology required to operate a field service operation and discussed recruiting, training, motivating, and retaining new Millennial employees (Technology and Technicans in field service). This month, Marne discusses the importance of performance management and how to implement it in your organisation.

Once the technology and staffing are taken care of, performance management is the next essential step to the success of a field service organisation (FSO). It involves accessing meaningful metrics, working across teams, and aligning execution to improve performance across the entire field service organisation. It involves having the right people communicate the key messages from the metrics and implement change, using analytical information to drive continuous technician improvement, business productivity goals, and customer satisfaction. This is where the best organisations differentiate themselves. Performance management provides the opportunity to train and encourage Millennials with a responsive performance culture in mind.

What is Performance Management?

Performance management is an employee centric program including metrics, leadership supported processes, and technology used to measure employee performance against pre-defined targets driven by company strategy and goals. A well-formed performance management programme incentivises employee behaviours that support company strategy and goals by measuring and reacting to positive or negative performance metrics. Flexible technology which provides easy to understand analytics that can be viewed conveniently, on a variety of devices, is essential. It also requires committed management that mentor and drive accountability, as well as a group of technicians that are motivated to continuously improve.

In the following sections, we define the building blocks of implementing performance management in your organisation.

 What are the Most Important Metrics for field service operations?

ServicePower has published several pieces on key performance indicators (KPIs) for field service, including a white paper, and a new infographic which defines the top KPIs measured by best practice field service organisations - those companies leading in service profitability.

The top KPIs include: customer satisfaction, total revenue, total service cost,  service revenue, mean time to repair, on site response time,revenues under SLA/contract, SLA compliance, contract renewal rates, field technician utilisation, first time fix rate, service parts revenue, customer retention.

The survey on which the infographic was based indicated that 62% of best practice FSOs list development and improvement of metrics or KPIs to measure field service performance as their top strategic action!  It also indicates that best practice FSOs measure field technician utilisation and productivity less frequently than peers, because they’ve already deployed intelligent scheduling and optimisation software.

 

So, assuming intelligent scheduling and optimisation technology is in place, what should a robust performance management plan look like?

Each plan should include the following:[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. Defined targets:-The operations team must decide on the baseline, and define standards or targets for scoring technicians.The KPIs mentioned above are clearly important to the best practice, top performing FSOs. Other KPIs to consider include net promoter score,  quality/inspection score, and sales.
2. Defined scoring methodology:- Scoring  can be done a number of ways, but typically the process is similar to school grading scales, which takes individual scores and rolls them up to a total score for some time. For example:[unordered_list style="bullet"]
   • First time fix rate = 90%
   • 95-100% = Exceeds expectations
   • 85-95% = Meets expectations
   • 0<85% = Does Not Meet expectations

What are the Prerequisites for a successful performance management process?

The devil is in the details. Once targets or KPIs and scoring methodology is established for each field technician, it is a matter of measurement and issuing ‘grades’ for each technician. It is also necessary to establish the process which will be used to manage the plan.[quote float="right"]Ensure the plan is easy to use,  has a defined dispute process, recognises that money talks, and encourages collarboration and competition

 

Ensure the plan is: [ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. Easy to use. Measuring, scoring, delivering the results and incentivising behaviours must be easy to administer. The process must deliver score reviews regularly, using real time information delivered to the technician on his/her connected device. Subsequent coaching must be built into the process if technicians do not meet targets/KPIs following score reviews indicating shortfalls.
2. Has a defined dispute process. The plan should incorporate a defined process for technicians to dispute metrics, in a non-confrontational way. For instance, give technicians 5-10 days to dispute a score before closing out the report for the month. Providing technicians access to real time metrics, eliminates surprise. However, escalation processes need to be defined as they will be needed from time to time.
3.  Recognises that money talks. When possible, tie compensation to meeting or exceeding targets and also tie performance improvement plans to missing targets.
4. Encourages friendly competition and collaboration. Sometimes, creating competition associated with individual, team or department scores can drive additional motivation for improving scores. Likewise, collaboration can help share best practices especially if an organisation recruits new technicians often.

Utilise technology to make performance management programes easier to administer.

Technology solutions often offer integrated business intelligence tools.[quote float="left"]Analytics data may have a negative impact on some KPIs, but yield improved overall results for a company.

Take advantage of reporting and dashboards available in your field service management software to establish targets/KPIs, continuously measure them, and use the data back at all levels of the organisation, such that it can be used to fine tune operations. The analytics data will also help to quantify and communicate gains from collaboration with other departments, such as improving call center triage for improved first-time fix, or considering parts availability when dispatching a technician. Both may have a negative impact on some KPIs, but yield improved overall results for a company.

 

Ensure that your technology is simple to understand and use, and provides data to all silos within the organisation, including the individual technicians.

Ensure that the right security is in place to limit the technician view to his/her own scores.

Establish user hierarchies. Scores typically roll up from the technician, to a higher level. Set permissions such that each user may view data and scores for his or her own team members.

Perhaps most importantly, the analytics technology must be flexible so that management can adjust targets when needed, and use the data across function groups, such as operations, marketing and sales, to drive continuous improvement across the enterprise, as well as new business opportunities.

What are the keys to successful deployment of a performance management programme?

1. Agree on metrics across the company before discussing with technicians. It’s difficult to deliver concise, understandable targets/KPIs when they conflict, or business silos have different priorities. For instance, quality and productivity can be at odds. Agreement must be achieved before delivery to field technicians to avoid confusion and disputes.
2. In union environments, rolling out a process takes longer and requires more approvals. Understand the environment in which you are working and plan ahead to facilitate / enforce adoption.
3. Pilot the plan before rolling out to the entire field organizations.

Is Performance Management Applicable to 3rd Party Contractors too?

Absolutely! Though some employee KPIs, like those above, can be utilised to measure and score 3rd party contractors, often the metrics are slightly different. The following 3rd Party KPIs can also be used to measure the effectiveness of contractors:

• Jobs accepted, % work-in-progress, job status, repair turnaround time
• Claim submission time
• % Parts used on claims
•  Number of parts used on claims
• % Labour only claims
• % Trip charges
•  Fraud

Now About these Millennials: What is the performance management opportunity?

Millennials grew up with technology, gaming, and social media. Find ways for the Millennial workforce to show self-expression by developing ideas for improved processes and efficiency. Facilitate sharing throughout the organisation.[quote float="right"]Make field service cool. Spending time around field service technicians is never boring

 

Make sure that they feel connected to their fellow technicians, even from the field. Encourage best practice sharing and competition to improve and be the best.

Make sure that the performance metrics tie into financial and other rewards so that your Millennial workers don’t become jaded about putting in the effort to sustain continuous improvement.

And lastly, make field service cool. Spending time around field service technicians is never boring. Their stories and humor are usually second to none, so facilitate interaction between the older generation that perhaps didn’t see technology as their friend, and the Millennials who couldn’t imagine being without it. This helps transfer knowledge from more experienced workers and drive KPIs achievement by new employees that need to learn about company assets, but also how to work in a world enabled by IoT.

 

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In this exclusive series written by Field Service News Publisher, Kris Oldland, we’ve seen how a number of emerging technologies could change the way our field engineers work in the not so distant future.

In part one we explored smart watches, in part two we looked at smart glasses and drones. In the third part of this series we looked at one of the simplest emerging technologies in NFC and one of the most exciting and futuristic in 3d printing.

However, in this the final instalment of this series we look at the technology that could underpin the way field service operates entirely in the not so distant future: the Internet of Things.

The Internet of Things

Now, unlike mobile 3D printing, the final inclusion on this list is here-and-now, already being actively utilised by field service companies although widespread adoption has yet to appear. However, given the recent announcement of an agreement between PTC and ServiceMax bringing the first connected field service solution to market, this may well soon change.

What exactly is the Internet of Things? Well, very simply it does what is says on the tin : it is an Internet specifically for the use of non-human things.[quote float="left"]IoT takes the concept of communication and brings it to all manner of devices.

 

We talk about smartphone communication a lot; well, essentially IoT takes the concept of communication and brings it to all manner of other devices – from washing machines to generators powering the national grid. Each of these devices is capable of communicating, of sending data about how it’s operating, so that we can remotely monitor its performance and condition.

Again the implications for such a technology in field service are phenomenal. Let’s take a simple example of a coffee machine. One of the sensors on a smart coffee machine could simply be monitoring the temperature of the water it delivers.

If the water temperature begins to move out of accepted parameters this can be communicated to the coffee machine’s manufacturer triggering an action. That action could be sending an engineer out to rectify the problem before it escalates to the point where the coffee machine stops functioning.

The benefits of such preventative maintenance can be felt by both the field service company who are able to schedule this work alongside other work in the vicinity making them more productive and also by the customer who have the benefit of no downtime on that machine.

The other benefit of IoT is that this is not a one way street.

Remote diagnostics is powerful, but there is also the potential to remedy many issues for many devices via remote maintenance whereby certain issues can be corrected by simply logging into a device and making amendments through the software.[quote float="right"]Maintenance could even be automated so that engineers are only sent out to those maintenance and repair jobs that truly require them.

 

Such an approach could further reduce the need for engineer visits with, again, massive cost-saving potential for field service companies.

Further still, much of this remote maintenance could even be automated. Corrective measures are incrementally taken as a first step, which could resolve an issue without the need for an engineer, so that engineers are only sent out to those maintenance and repair jobs that truly require them.

Also the relay of such data also makes it possible for jobs to be clearly prioritised. In fact the opportunity to implement connected devices into a field service company’s processes are truly numerous and each can have an impact on the efficiency of the company’s workflow.

The other key facet of the Internet of Things is that we are able to collect vast amounts of data from our devices which can be fed back not only into our field engineering teams – for example a best set of settings for optimal device output - , but also back into our R&D teams. Perhaps there is a very common fault that could be rectified in the next device iteration – again easily flagged up by the data recorded by our IoT-ready devices.

So there is great value in this data we are capturing, and the interpretation of this data, as well as the potential streamlining of workflow, is why IoT is envisioned by many as being the bedrock of future field service operations.

 

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With customer satisfaction now the top metric in defining field service success,  the future of service and service revenue generation is in preparing the service organisation to have the right conversations with customers before, during, and after a service visit,  says Aly Pinder, senior research analyst analyst, Service Management, Aberdeen Group.

Field service has long been a task oriented function of the organisation. Receive a customer call, schedule a technician, dispatch the tech, route the tech to the customer site, fix the problem, and then move on to the next job. Granted this is rudimentary recap of what happens, but I hope the picture is clear. A customer with a failed asset or piece of equipment, would then need the service organisation to reactively send a technician out to solve the problem with the goal of having technicians complete as many jobs as possible in a given day.
This model has been effective for quite a while, but a shift is occurring in field service. Aberdeen’s State of Service Management 2015: Connect to Your Customers (March 2015) research highlighted that the top metric defining success in service is customer satisfaction, not operational efficiency or cost containment. Furthermore, increased competition in service and heightened customer expectations demand the field service organisation enhance customer value. Unfortunately, too many organisations still view service and field technicians as reactive, fix it resources as opposed to agents building customer value and revenue opportunities. Top performers ensure they equip technicians with the support and tools to do both.[quote float="left"]Service revenue opportunities cannot come at the cost of quality service.

Aberdeen’s recent Service Revenue: Unearth an Untapped Stream of Dollars report (May 2015), highlighted top performers are 56% more likely than peers to have met their service revenue growth goals in the previous 12 months. But does this mean organisations should turn technicians into field sales people? Do technicians have the acumen to be motivated by commission? I think these are the wrong questions. The future of service and service revenue generation is in preparing the service organisation to have the right conversations with customers before, during, and after a service visit.

 

• Before the service call, provide the dispatch team with insight in regard to in-warranty or under service contract customer issues. The back office should have access to customer history, equipment information, and contract and warranty insight. The dispatch team must review warranty entitlements and service contracts before scheduling a service job. Before a work order has been issued is the best time to discuss with a customer the work that needs to be done, what is covered, and how additional services can be added if desired. This proactive conversation will not only avoid sending a technician out who must complete uncovered service, but also provides an opportunity to renew a service contract.[quote float="right"]Technicians are heroes, they want to solve problems and make customers happy.

   

• During the service call, make sure techs know if service is  being given away for free. There are times when a service organisation is OK with giving service away for free. There will be errors made or opportunities to take a short-term loss in lieu of cementing a longer term profitable customer partnership. The problem is when technicians have zero visibility into the contract or warranty status of equipment during every service call. Technicians do not want to be the bad guy / lady who denies service because a service contract has expired. Technicians are heroes, they want to solve problems and make customers happy. For this reason, it is imperative that technicians have real-time access to customer information (i.e., warranty status, repair history). This insight doesn’t only help avoid delivering “free service”, it empowers technicians to have better conversations with customers while on site.
• After the service call, help move from resolution to a sales engagement. Mobile technology empowers the field service team to not only document and close a work order, but also to create future sales opportunities. Leading organisations have incentivised technicians to be the eyes and ears of the sales function to unearth future prospects for cross- and up-sell opportunities. The key is to ensure technicians prioritise solving the customer issue and not future sales. Technicians have to remain trusted customer partners; once they are viewed as sales people they will lose the trust of the customer.

Service revenue opportunities cannot come at the cost of quality service. These two goals must be complimentary. Top performing organisations equip the entire service team with the insight to make revenue generating decisions in real-time. But these companies understand the viability of the organisation demands that customers continue to value the service being provided.

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As we continue our series of features looking at the emerging technologies that could appear in the not so distant future we turn our attention to NFC and, perhaps the most futuristic of all,  3D printing.

If you missed the earlier features in this series you can read part one here where we looked at smart watches and part two here where we looked at smart glasses and drones.

Near Field Communications

If the falling price of drones makes for a compelling argument for their inclusion in the future field engineer's tool kit, then the next item on this list is pretty much a no-brainer for a large number of Field service organisations.

That is NFC or near field communication tags.

NFC tags can be bought for as little as 30p per tag and with most modern Android and Windows smartphones and tablets supporting NFC communication they can be a very cheap means of making the field engineers workflow that much smoother.

Basically an NFC tag can be written to trigger an action on a device by simply tapping it against the tag.[quote float="left"]In theory, pretty much any action your engineer needs to take on an app can be incorporated into the script for a NFC tag.

 

A couple of quick examples…

A tag in the engineer's van could be written so that when the engineer places his smartphone against it, it opens up a dedicated mobile workforce app and logs his journey start time, plus also opens up a routing app such as Google Maps or TomTom.

The tag can also be written to include a toggle feature so when the engineer completes his journey he can again tap the tag with his device and this could log his journey end time, close his routing software, and open up the job details in his dedicated mobile workforce app.

Finally an NFC tag could be placed on the device which contains the notes of any previous engineer visits. This quick overview could be very useful in giving the engineer quick and easy access to the devices history and again similarly when the engineer updates his notes on the maintenance work he has carried our it is possible for him to include this information on the tag ready for the next engineer all with a simple tap.

And these are just three very simple ideas: in theory, pretty much any action your engineer needs to take on an app can be incorporated into the script for a NFC tag. There are also a number of apps that make the process of writing actions into a tag very simple for the lay person to do.

As I mentioned earlier the hallmark of a good technology is the ability to simplify our workflow and again NFC certainly ticks these boxes and given its low cost is another technology I think is worth considering when we look at how we can further empower our engineers.

3D Printing

The next item on my brief list is for me the most exciting and certainly the one that has the most futuristic feel about it. That is 3D printing.

Whilst we haven’t quite yet got to the point where we can instantly conjure up an earl grey tea hot like Jean Luc Picard might, the printers are still able to create physical 3D products from seemingly out of nothing just like the replicator devices seen in Star Trek.

 

However, 3D printing isn’t a particularly new concept, it actually dates back to the early eighties. So the devices we are seeing today are the product of over 30 years' worth of refinement.

This has resulted in 3D printed parts becoming robust enough and reliable enough to be used by companies such as Ford, General Electric and Boeing. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, for example, has over 30 3D printed parts; there are Leap jets and RAF Tornadoes flying around with 3D printed parts; and recently Ford printed their 500,000th 3D printed part – an engine cover for a Ford Mustang.

The fact is, 3D printed parts are out there being used more than we might think.

At the same time consumer 3D printers, much smaller and more mobile devices are becoming more readily available and at much more accessible costs.

Companies such as MakerBot and Stratysys are straddling both sides of this growing market. Is it that big a leap to envisage a meeting of these two approaches - that is,  a device with the smaller more mobile size of a consumer device capable of delivering industrial grade 3D printed parts?

When we consider the potential widespread use of the devices surely not.

Imagine it… instead of an engineer diagnosing the issue but having to delay a repair until the right part is sent to the site he could simply head out to the back of the van and print the part on site. First time fix rates would be dramatically improved.

Then there is also the benefit of not having to have stock parts kept in an engineer's van.

By removing this need a company would be able to instantly improve their cash position on their P&L as well as avoid the danger of potential loss of stock through theft.

Whilst 3D printing hasn’t quite reached this standard as yet, given the competitive nature of this growing industry and the potential gains it is hugely feasible that such developments may be made within the next five years. So I’d firmly put this into the technology-to-watch-closely category.

Look out for the final part in this series where we look at perhaps the biggest potential game changer field service companies must embrace…

 

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