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John Cameron outline some key areas of focus for organisations looking to improve the cash flow of their field service division...

 

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For equipment dealers and companies that manage large service operations, service-to-cash cycles can be a headache. Indeed, the gap between when a technician is assigned a job to when accounting receives payment and recognises the revenue, can turn out to be one of the most stressful tasks if it is prolonged. Why? Because it can put a squeeze on your cash flow and profits.

Aberdeen Group reports that the average service-to-cash cycle is 34 days, with the best performers able to reduce this to around 26 days.

 

What Causes Long Service to Cash Cycles? 

A recent Trimble study1 amongst equipment dealers and service organisations found that most payment delays will often lie in the service-to-invoice process.

The main reasons for this being:

1. Paper forms are still being used by technicians to capture job details

40 per cent of those surveyed either do not use mobile devices to capture data in the field or are still in the process of rolling it out. If technicians must wait until the end of the day to enter job information, or if back office staff must manually enter job data into a separate billing application, the closing of work orders will be delayed.

2. A lack of visibility into customer data 

When a work order is closed, not having instant access to view customer data, such as discounts, service contracts, warranty info and equipment data may delay the work order process in the back-office.

3. A lack of process automation

When an invoice is generated and sent to the customer, there is a lack of process automation that would otherwise enable invoice creation and email upon work completion. Automated workflows also lack when exceptions occur eg: if additional parts are needed during a repair. 39% of those surveyed admitted that it takes 14-30 days to get an invoice to a customer once the job has been completed.

4. A lack of visibility into job details for the customer

When a customer receives an invoice, there may be little or inconsistent job details added, so the customer disputes it. There may also be no process automation or easy-pay options causing the customer to be dissatisfied and payment is delayed. 48% of those surveyed had no process in place for their customers to pay online.

 

What is the Impact to the Business?

Long service-to-cash cycles tie up excessive amounts of cash for working capital, instead of using that money to grow the business. When the service workflow and cross-departments are not connected, there is no real-time view of what’s going on in the field. What’s more, if paper-based forms are being relied upon to inform billing departments, the service organisation can suffer from both delayed and missed revenue.

For example, all too often, a technician will arrive at a job to find out that there are multiple items that require a fix. He may perform these fixes, run over his allocated time for the job and forgets to jot his extra hours down as he urgently moves on to the next job. This may end up in customers not being billed for all relevant hours, resulting in missed service revenue.

 

How Can You Improve Your Service to Cash Cycles?

Turning service-to-cash starts with identifying obstructions that are holding you back from receiving payment quickly and accurately. These can be identified by mapping out your service workflow, from the back office, through schedule and dispatch, to those out in the field.

Since each customer has different service requirements and service delivery can be complex, connecting your entire service workflow with a flexible and automated solution and following a three-step “manage, mobilise, monitor” process, is vital to making sure that no money is left behind.

Manage

An advanced service workflow solution automates workflows and completely removes the unnecessary and error-prone task of having to manually enter the same information, multiple times, into different systems and duplicating work. Being able to pull up work orders, billing information, parts inventory, service contract information and customer data in real-time, from a single source, gives the customer a more tailored experience in a consistent, professional and timely manner.

It is important to ensure that the service workflow solution is fully integrated with other systems, such as ERP solutions, telematics devices and CRM platforms.

This should include a workflow that communicates in real-time with every other part of the business and allows for streamlined business processes that are repeatable, predictable and instantaneous. When done right, companies get service revenue into their business as quickly as possible.

Mobilise

Equipping technicians with a mobile device out in the field enables them to connect and share real-time information with the back office, customers and equipment. They can capture the exact parts used on a job and change work orders to accurately reflect what services were performed onsite, which means that no profit is left on the table. Additionally, if the technician was able to perform some preventative maintenance at the same time, they wouldn’t need to plan a return trip. Mobile service apps give the technician flexibility to pass this information back to the office at the push of a button.

Monitor

Adding GPS into the equation means that you can verify that technicians are at the job when they say they are. Tracking your technicians through their smart device or vehicle telematics allows you to accurately bill for the amount of time the technician was actually onsite. If a task overruns because its actual complexity wasn’t originally planned for, not only are you able to reschedule the following tasks, but you will also be able to recognise that additional time in the billing process.

The back office can be instantly alerted of job completion through both signature capture on the service app and geofencing to notify that the technician has left the area. This process enables invoice generation automatically, reducing the billing cycle.

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John Cameron, is General Manager, Trimble Field Service Management 

 

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Want to know more?! There is a detailed white paper on this topic which is available for fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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Sponsored by:

 

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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 who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  Trimble
Title: A Quick to Field Service Metrics

 

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Synopsis:

Field Service Managers face a big challenge balancing customer service with operational efficiency. It can be often hard to know how each important aspect is performing; and making changes in one area can affect the other. A successful Service Manager will leverage KPIs to gain visibility into their operations; helping them to manage both aspects of their business.

This White Paper published by Trimble Pulse takes a look at the some of the key considerations as to what metrics field service managers should be focussing on.

The white paper includes sections on:

• The importance of KPIs
• The top 5 field service KPIs
• A guide to benchmarking your own KPIs against best in-class field service organisations.

Overview:

Historically, field service organisations measured their success based upon the cost of service delivery and revenue generation. However, as competition in the industry heats up and customer expectations reach an all-time high, measuring additional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has become critical to success.

Field service companies need to know what is working and what isn’t in their operations in order to make improvements. This is easier said than done.

With so much data flowing in from multiple sources, in various formats and through an array of tools, determining what is useful can be a minefield for service organisations. Nearly 30 per cent of field service managers believe their organisation is ineffective at using the data they collect and just 1 in 5 believe they get the information they need from field service data to help do their job.

 

Field Service Managers need to extract data from their operations in two ways.

Firstly, they need instant, accurate information on which they can make on-the-spot decisions and secondly, performance management analytics should also be gathered so they can benchmark performance trends and learn from  experiences.

Ultimately, you cannot improve on what is not already being measured.

Identifying KPIs, measuring them and setting goals for improving them will reap rewards for any service operation.

Importance of KPIs

In order for field service organisations to obtain and retain customers, they must have a solid understanding of how their field operations are performing at all times. When utilised well, KPIs keep the service team focused and, most importantly, identify where improvements in the business are needed.

The business dynamics of delivering field service have changed, and customers are demanding higher levels of service. Field service organisations need to adapt accordingly which often means empowering their technicians with the tools and knowledge to fix things the first time – every time.

KPIs can help measure how well an organisation is meeting this objective as well as provide data that will help improve the effectiveness of each technician in completing their job.

Top 5 field service KPIs

The white paper takes an in-depth look at the following KPIs

• Customer Satisfaction
• SLA compliance
• Technician Productivity
• Technician Utilisation
• First-time-fix rate

How do you compare

The white paper explores research by Trimble Pulse which highlights that there is a lot of room for field service organisations to improve upon when it comes to using field service data. The research surveyed field service managers to find how their organisations use KPIs and whether they are successful at leveraging KPIs to improve business productivity and efficiency.

Trimble asked a range of questions looking to establish what field service organisations perceive to be the top most important KPIs to how they use KPIs to inform business decision making, that’s if they use KPIs at all. Without this insight, how can you make decisions which enhance business productivity, cost efficiency and create loyal customers? Essentially, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

 

The final section of this white paper explores the findings of this research and outlines best-practice approaches to field service metrics.

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Operating a successful field service operation today is a challenging experience. A study recently commissioned by Trimble revealed the main factors UK consumers look for when selecting a field service provider, their expectations and biggest frustrations. John Cameron, General Manager Trimble Field Service Management explains more...

The findings were extremely insightful, revealing that today’s consumers typically expect more and are not shy of complaining, leading field service companies to have to look at new ways to balance service excellence with cost.

Consumers say fix it the first time

Getting a problem fixed on a first visit is the biggest expectation for UK consumers. Indeed, in Trimble’s study, which surveyed 2000 British adults, over half (52 per cent) considered fixing the problem on the first visit to be the most important factor in determining their satisfaction.

However, field service organisations are struggling to fully achieve this as nearly one in four UK consumers report that a return visit is required. Poor inventory and an inexperienced workforce are the most common reasons for this. 40 per cent of UK consumers complain that their technician did not have the appropriate tools or parts to fix the problem on a first visit whilst 27 per cent said that the technician lacked the skills to complete the job.

 

Problems such as this often transpire for field service organisations that schedule daily tasks based on a technician’s allocated territory. However, it is more effective to select the most knowledgeable technician, or one who has the right tools and parts in their vehicle. Adopting intelligent scheduling engines is therefore crucial as they incorporate technician knowledge, parts availability and capacity into the scheduling process to ensure that the technician arriving on site is actually the person who can resolve the customer issue on the first visit.

Short appointment windows a key factor in customer choice

Today’s consumers increasingly expect field service businesses to provide more convenient appointment options to accommodate their busy schedules. However it is apparent that consumers are failing to receive this, as long appointment windows and wait times are considered to be one of the nation’s biggest frustrations with using a field service provider.

In Trimble’s survey, more than 50 per cent considered 1-3 hours to be an acceptable appointment window, yet 36 per cent report experiencing wait times of far longer, in some cases up to eight hours.

By coupling an intelligent scheduling engine with a self-learner tool, field service businesses can look to improve service delivery times through enhanced schedule accuracy, improved productivity and workforce utilisation. The software tool uses a unique algorithm to learn preferences for each technician and will allocate tasks accordingly. This includes which mobile workers normally service particular areas and what skills technicians have and to what degree they are qualified to do certain types of work. The first step to managing productivity requires field service managers to get the right people with the right skills with the right assets to the right place within a set time, and a self-learner tool significantly helps in achieving this.

Price and customer service equally as important

When selecting a field service provider, customer service and price were revealed as being equally as important to UK consumers. Field service organisations must therefore look to balance these if they are to achieve customer satisfaction, retention and profitability.

Over half of UK consumers (55 per cent) said they would refuse to use a service provider again if they were delivered a poor customer experience and with today’s consumers increasingly tech-savvy, it is very easy for them to complain to the masses. If left unhappy, half of consumers would complain formally to the company, 1 in 5 would complain to their technician and 1 in 10 consumers would take to social media to air their woes.

 

Consumers also find lack of communication with a company or service technician prior to arrival to be a major problem and consider being kept up to date on the day about arrival to be the most important factor when selecting a service provider. It is no longer acceptable to say anytime during the day. In fact almost half of consumers have to take annual, sick or unpaid leave to wait for delivery and service.

Field service businesses have a real opportunity to leapfrog the competition by providing excellent service to every customer and technology is available today that can help them to achieve this. The key is making and keeping commitments and then ensuring the customer is informed along the way.

To achieve this, more and more organisations are integrating their work management capabilities into mobile applications, which they can then offer to their technicians to allow them to share, store and view job data while out in the field, offering them a virtual link to the back office that helps to inform and empower them.

The range of information offered through a mobile application can include previous work history of jobs and upcoming work details. For example, if a technician is en-route to a customer, a quick look at service history on a mobile phone can inform them that the customer has complained multiple times to the helpdesk about a product/equipment failure.

This is vital information that can help the technician approach the customer with more care, helping to maintain a good customer service. Furthermore, when a technician reviews and accepts a job within a mobile application, the mobile device’s navigation tool can help them find the most efficient route. The technician can then pull up the customer’s details and call them to confirm when they will be arriving on-site.

The power of technology

To conclude, Trimble’s latest research looking into consumer’s biggest expectations and frustrations with field service providers ultimately suggests that success is achieved by managing productivity and ensuring field service managers get the right people, with the right skills with the right assets to the right place within a set time, whilst keeping the customer informed along the way. Having the appropriate technology in place to achieve this is therefore essential and key to helping businesses meet customer expectations and maintain ongoing brand recognition.

Trimble’s independent study was conducted by OnePoll, a worldwide market research agency. For a summary of the report, visit: http://ow.ly/MdyUU

 

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John Cameron, general manager of Trimble Field Service Management looks at how technology can play in a part in the whole field service cycle...

Mobile technology is redefining the workday as field technicians increasingly leverage mobile devices for tasks that previously required time-intensive phone calls and paperwork.

Today this technology is helping to streamline workflow by mitigating daily challenges that used to derail even the best laid plans. In a recent Aberdeen study, 82 per cent of organisations identified mobility as a strategic initiative to gather real-time intelligence for issue resolution. Clearly, this technology offers significant benefits in enhancing end-to-end processes. The following are five ways we see mobility transforming the workday:

1.     Operational Efficiency

Mobile devices and apps connect field workers to back-office personnel, customers and equipment, facilitating a real-time end-to-end flow of information that allows field service personnel to make critical decisions so they can move on to the next task expeditiously. At any one time, an in-day schedule change might require calling a dispatcher or having to drive back to the office to pick up paperwork, but with mobile technology, information is delivered to technicians’ devices, making them more efficient and better able to perform their tasks no matter where they are.

2.     Work-driven Collaboration

By connecting field techs with each other and back-office personnel, mobile technology keeps everyone within the organisation aligned. A truly mobile workforce transcends the limitations of geography. Workers can access information anywhere, anytime, regardless of their location, and in many cases, are more connected than if they were confined to a desk. From the field, they can use mobile devices to request information or assistance from other co-workers already in the field, preventing costly disruptions in their workday caused by trips to the office. The mobile worker can contact teammates in the event of a problem such as needing a part to complete a job. If a nearby co-worker has the part, the technician doesn’t have to waste precious time and fuel driving to a warehouse to retrieve it. It is this enhanced collaboration that leads to increased productivity and, ultimately, a more efficient workday.

3. Streamlined Service

Real-time access to route and schedule information and unplanned schedule updates help field technicians to not only get to their assignments faster but also helps them resolve issues more quickly. Mobile technology provides the technician with easy access to information such as customer and equipment repair histories, invoicing and billing issues, and locations of nearby technicians to request assistance in case of problems or to notify them of jobs at risk. This access solves the immediate issue and reverberates through the workday in the form of enhanced efficiencies, time management and increased service excellence – three of the key challenges facing field service organisations today. 

4. Enhanced Integration

While mobility is extremely valuable to field service organisations, the value increases exponentially when properly integrated with other platforms, including workforce management. Integration facilitates the real-time flow of essential information, automates tasks such as the capture of location and performance data and job-related notifications and allows immediate access to information such as invoices and customer histories. Greater integration leads to greater efficiency, which leads to streamlined operations and that leads to an enhanced bottom line.

5. Tactical Planning

Field mobile devices, in-cab equipment and M2M sensors attached to field machines constantly capture and transmit data to back-office systems, where it can be stored and analysed for optimal decision-making. Whether it’s proactive maintenance to mitigate equipment failure or enhanced routing and scheduling to increase productivity, quantifiable insights delivered by the data can make the difference between running a good operation and an excellent one. Data from the field helps refine operations and identify trends and areas for improvement, which leads to enhanced performance and happier customers.

For more information about the new FSM features, view Trimble’s interactive infographic for empowering the end-to-end field service workflow at: www.trimble.com/FSM/solutions

 

 

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Trimble Field Service Management's John Cameron speaks exclusively to Field Service News ahead of the launch of Horizon, Trimble FSM's latest cloud based field service management solution...

FSN: What do you think Mobile Worker Empowerment really means?

JS: To me empowerment is all about supporting the individual to do the best job they can. For a field service organisation this means dealing with a growing number of complex challenges around scheduling, monitoring progress and enabling the worker to resolve issues in order to meet service commitments.

We know that having the right real-time information is critical to business success – it is not just about the data that is collected but how that data is analysed and turned into business intelligence and applied that counts. Both through the companies we work with and within our own business we know that information is only useful if it helps you to make the right decision and that goes through the whole organisation.

Ensuring that mobile workers have the right support and are able themselves to make use of the real-time information goes a long way in helping them to make the right decisions while on the move and remote from office or depot locations, allowing them to resolve issues and deliver the best service they can.

FSN: Do you think offering mobile workers more control can benefit a field service organisation?

JC: Mobile workers are on the front line, they are the ones who are dealing face-to-face with customers every day. When jobs go smoothly that’s great, but it often takes a number of factors to align for that job to go smoothly and if not the worker is the one who has to deal with the repercussions and the impact on the customer’s business or home.  We know the biggest cause of customer complaint is that issues are not resolved first time, but give the workforce the means so that the person allocated the work has the right skills, tools and parts and has the right amount of time to get the work done, then these can often be set into schedules to ensure that commitments are met.

The overall goal in empowering workers has to be to enable them to do the best job possible and the benefits are widespread and include increased productivity and efficiency with greater customer satisfaction and empowering a workforce to be able to control and manage outcomes can significantly impact on their own job satisfaction and ongoing motivation.  

FSN: How can businesses approach empowerment in the field?

JC: There are a number of strategies that companies may adopt in field worker empowerment and these could include use of technology, service performance measurement or through cultural change.

Technology is a great enabler but it is also critical that the organisations make the technology work hard for them and deliver the best benefits and return on investment. Hand-in-hand with this, measuring service performance is key to a field service organisation in both managing its operation on a day to day basis and also learning from these experiences. No individual wants to be going out doing the same procedure time and time again if it is not achieving the right results; achieve the right results and then replicate it.

Cultural change is possibly the hardest element to roll out, you can’t simply expect individuals to be ‘empowered’, but rather you need to make sure that they understand the reasons why, what it involves and the benefits to them and the wider organisation. As with any change programme it is essential that the workforce is totally involved, engaged and committed. It is also imperative that the drive for any initiative comes from the top so there is complete buy-in across a business.

FSN: Does best practice exist when it comes to mobile worker empowerment?

In terms of empowering workers, the field service organisations that we see doing this well are those that look to make continual

improvements. The use of technology has a key role to play, but you can’t install the best solution and then become complacent; field service organisations are finding that work is becoming increasingly complex and critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence and the challenges even greater so the application of best practice and the continual improvement that this brings is paramount in the successful empowerment of a mobile workforce. Choosing one to three benchmark points from which to grow also keeps everyone focused on specific metrics – trying to improve everything at once is a certain step in the wrong direction.  

We have also talked about change management and engagement as key dynamics to any successful roll out and we have seen that those behaviours drive the best success.

FSN: How do you think both mobile workers and businesses can manage the challenges of empowering workers? 

JC: We recently undertook a survey and found that, when a field service business sets out to implement business change, whether it is rolling out new technology or processes or ways of working, one of the major challenges it faces is engaging the workforce.

Much of this can be attributed to the fact that a field service workforce is typically spread over a large geographical area, with workers carrying out very diverse types of work remotely and rarely spending time in the office. Providing necessary training to the workforce can be a further hurdle. For many companies this means considerable expense, as well as taking workers away from their jobs especially if the training is carried out in a classroom rather than virtually. Furthermore, ensuring the training is understood and applied on an on-going basis also poses an issue for field service managers as it can be difficult to monitor field workers to prevent lapse back to the ‘way things used to be done.’

However, these obstacles can be reduced if businesses have effective change management programmes in place to ensure employee buy-in. Involving the workforce in any change plans, from the initial planning stages to the final roll-out, is key. Consistent communication to foster a culture in which the workforce understands the changes, why they are needed, what role they will play in the transformation and how to embrace it are all essential.

FSN: When we talk about providing tools for mobile workers, it would seem that mobility would be a natural element of that – is that something you are seeing??

JC: Mobility is a key technology in empowering workers. Mobility at its core provides field-based workers with a real-time connection back to their business. With all the information they need at their fingertips, they are able to become more efficient and effective.

There is little doubt that up to the minute information before, at and after a job is vital to the success of completion and provides mobile workers the ability to plan and execute their jobs better via increased knowledge. This is eliminating time, mistakes and misunderstandings out in the field. In addition avoiding the need for paper-based knowledge transfer, which adds further demands on the mobile worker, can save hours in a mobile worker’s day. Utilising cloud-based data storage, the capturing and storing of information on the go is another feature that helps mobile workers collect data in the field that they may need at a later date or to update other business systems .

FSN: With technology playing such a big part in field service, what trends so you see emerging to further transform mobile worker empowerment?

We all consume information via mobile apps on our smartphones and tablets in our consumer lives and more and more of us are expecting

to be able to do the same whilst at work. As a result, the availability of mobility applications going forward will increase, which will further enable field-based workers with the real-time knowledge needed to make better, more intelligent business decisions while in the field. Niche apps, for example, are seen to present opportunities to reach a new target audience or deepen the engagement and loyalty of users and the adoption in the business environment can only increase, along with such emerging trends as gamification of business-related apps to give greater appeal to the use of apps for everyday processes and procedures.

 

M2M communication is certainly transforming how companies do business. Data transmitted from devices in the field to applications in the office can lead to decisions that significantly improve the business. In field service, that data flows in from both handheld and in-vehicle data-capturing devices, as well as sensors and monitoring devices on everything from household appliances and utility meters to complex machinery in oil fields transmitting data on diagnostics, measurements, temperature and overall conditions, all of which is instrumental in preventing equipment failure, scheduling maintenance, and improving safety and energy consumption.

Additionally, I think we’ll also start to see a rise in field service businesses offering field technicians the chance to bring their own or choose their own mobility devices to adopt at work. Field service is undeniably being reshaped by the mobile revolution and with much of today’s information being shared through smartphones, in the not too distant future, I think we’ll start to see even greater sets of data being shared through wearable technology, such as watches and google glass. This technology will revolutionise the way field technicians go about their day-to-day tasks. They will be able to stay in touch in real-time and gain immediate access to what’s important the second that they need it, helping to improve productivity and customer satisfaction. 

Managers have access to more performance data than ever before but simply don’t know how to use it to drive operational efficiency. Trimble Field Service Management's John Cameron explains...

A high-performance culture is the heartbeat of any successful organisation however managing business performance levels effectively can be challenging.

As the business adage goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” and this has never been truer – especially when it comes to the performance of field service organisations.

A field service operation is extremely dynamic and often unpredictable. Each day, managers are faced with complex issues which require fast action. However lack of real-time visibility into what is actually happening out in the field can result in managers making poor decisions; directly impacting the performance level of their mobile workforce.

In order to develop new strategies which will improve operational decision-making and drive future performance, field service managers must begin to utilise instant and accurate information about key trends occurring in the field. Real-time data about why a service window wasn’t met, how many planned jobs were left incomplete, duration of tasks and which technicians are performing well, can all be used to drive service performance levels. By using in-depth insight, managers are able to effectively transform the way work is planned, allocated, managed, reported and evaluated.

Field service managers have access to more data than ever before. But are they actually using it effectively to measure service levels so they can improve operational performance? The simple answer is no. Often field service managers view big data as simply too big or too fast to manage and analyse. They have large quantities of data but simply don’t know what it means or how to use it to help manage performance.

Fortunately, advancements in performance management analytics technology are taking the complexity out of big data analysis. By providing greater visibility and enhanced analytics capabilities, the technology helps field service managers monitor the productivity of their operations while at the same time analysing key trends in order to optimise the way they operate.

Based on actual location data, technology can generate and customise digestible reports that showcase the key measures including quality of service, statistics for individual workers, actual tasks completed against the total time of the working day, actual against estimated task duration, total tasks completed, total fuel usage and distance travelled.

By adopting performance management analytics technology, the field service manager is able to quickly identify what is preventing their workforce from completing more jobs. Managers can look at regions, teams and even individual workers by job type and performance to gain insight into how to improve the utilisation and productivity of their staff.

Aberdeen Group, a leading analyst firm, has found that best-in-class companies were more than 35 per cent more likely to use workforce management solutions such as performance management tools to optimise resources and workforce processes. Aberdeen Group says laggards need to act now and start to automate the management of their workforce in order to catch up with the efficiency and enhanced response times of best-in-class companies.

 

Driving productivity and performance has been on the top of boardroom agendas for years and this is still certainly the case in the field service industry. A recent survey by the Service Council, a research and advisory company, reaffirms this fact with the study finding performance management and visibility continue to top the list of key business concerns.

Reassuringly, developments in technology have meant that businesses now have a way of addressing these concerns directly. Managers can collect, analyse and report operational performance based on data they can trust and generate real value from the information to make educated decisions that positively impact their businesses bottom line.

This increased insight also means that not only are field service managers provided with the ability to constantly learn from day-to-day experiences, but all the relevant stakeholders across different business units have the salient information they need to manage the daily performance of the organisation. Such performance analysis can also help feed into strategic business planning on targets, budgets and resourcing.

Knowing what is happening in the field and having the ability to measure its effectiveness is crucial to delivering higher levels of service excellence. As a result, business leaders need to start exploring new and cost-effective ways to manage and optimise the performance of their workforce. Investment in technology is the first logical step. Technology has the power to place the right information in the right hands to ensure the right decisions are made which will ultimately foster a high-performance culture that guarantees short- and long-term business success.

Trimble Field Service Management's new Managing Director John Cameron joins Field Service Service News as a guest columnist and outlines the importance of managing mobile resources effectively...

Many companies managing a large field service workforce operate in industries which require highly skilled individuals, whose work is variable and complex in terms of location and task. Add in a high degree of compliance-focused work and that means that field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. However, with market competition and customer expectations at an all-time high it is more important than ever that organisation’s ensure that their field service is not derailed by unpredictable dynamics of the working day. Understandably, the biggest area of concern for those in field service is workforce management[1] and 69 per cent of organisations are investing in technology to help manage jobs more effectively[2].

Expert Insight: Defining the challenges

Establishing what it takes to manage a large field service operation today, from managing the people and scheduling the work, to the technology that helps to drive efficiency, is essential and requires organisations to overcome a number of obstacles, including:

• Jobs overrunning if they are more complicated than first thought
•  Traffic congestion and vehicle breakdowns causing delays or even failure to meet an appointment
•  Workers potentially calling in sick, starting late or getting delayed can impact adversely on the productivity of the workforce.

The biggest and most repetitive challenge facing organisations managing a mobile workforce is cost and this is closely related to a secondary challenge - the role of the technician in the business.

The technician is often the only contact a customer has with the company and therefore exposure to the company’s service delivery and brand. With a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability, how the technician interacts with the customer can be significant in the customer experience. The challenge facing organisations is therefore around the role and responsibility of the technician.

An additional challenge is measuring service performance, suggesting that the old adage of you cannot manage what you cannot measure certainly rings true. Measuring what is happening in a hugely diverse workforce and identifying what the key metrics are to do that is essential. Ultimately you need to understand what has happened and you want to know that ‘now’ to use that data to enable real-time decision-making.

Finally, managing change and embedding best practice is core to a successful field service operation. Organisations often wrestle with this change on a regular basis from all sorts of areas, whether it is new technology, new people, new policy or new vans and equipment. In a remote workforce, managing change and making sure that it sticks is particularly difficult, due to their activities, but finding a way to embed change and making sure that best practice is shared across the workforce is a key success factor.

Putting workforce management technology into action

Reassuringly, developments in workforce management technologies have begun to offer a solution to these challenges, through intelligent scheduling tools and performance management analytics. This capability provides the stepping stones needed to help organisations measure, manage and improve their operations through optimising resources, offering real-time visibility and monitoring and giving warning of tasks at risk or showing the impact of work allocation decisions.

Traditionally, many organisations scheduled tasks based on a technician’s allocated territory but with today’s most common customer complaint being that a technician did not resolve the issue on a first visit, scheduling the most knowledgeable technician to a task or one who has the right tools or parts in their vehicle, is crucial. As a result, more and more organisations are beginning to realise the value of intelligent scheduling - incorporating technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into their scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is actually the person who can resolve the customer’s issue the first time. Aberdeen Group[3] found that intelligence is at the heart of scheduling with over half of organisations using service performance data to evaluate the effectiveness of scheduling criteria.

Self-learner tools can also help considerably with intelligent scheduling. They incorporate an algorithm that quickly learns preferences for each mobile worker and will allocate tasks accordingly. This includes geography, such as which mobile workers normally service particular areas, and what skills mobile workers have and to what degree they are qualified to do certain types of work. Such capabilities help to improve customer service as tasks can be scheduled to best meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs), produce efficient routes to reduce travel time and ensures work is only given to those with the right skills, carrying the right assets and tools.

A case in point: Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS)  

Justin Keane, Chief Operating Officer at PTS drove change in the organisation after recognising a need for additional effectiveness in its scheduling processes. Every morning the company would give a batch of tickets to its technicians for their assigned regions and would see what they could get done in a day. Technicians would print a list of their tasks and spend half an hour planning routes based on their own knowledge of the area. They tried using a map to sequence the stops, but that took about an hour a day for each of the eight regional hubs, which is eight hours a day just to build the routes. With these scheduling problems having a detrimental effect on the company’s productivity and growth, it sought a solution which would allow it to become more efficient and reduce or eliminate the time required for scheduling.

PTS deployed a field service management solution which allows dispatchers to view all their tasks and schedules in one place. This has reduced the time that dispatchers spend on routing from three hours a day to 45 minutes a day – an efficiency saving of 75 per cent or about 11 hours a week. Additionally, since the technicians no longer needed half an hour a day to plan their own routes, it has saved more than 200 hours per week of their time and job completion rates have increased by 10 per cent.

PTS has expanded its field service technology to all of its regions and this has made the company more productive, which means improved efficiency, happier customers and a more positive bottom line.