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With 2020 on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to think about new ways to improve your field service business. Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware outlines nine key areas that you need to be targeting to ensure your service delivery remains competitive as we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century...

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about new trends and visions for the future, and it’s probably a little overwhelming. An easy way to get started is by throwing away some of the outdated practices you’ve been following. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of field service practices you might want to leave behind in 2019.

Manual scheduling

Field service scheduling requires making several quick and calculated decisions. You need to consider everything from travel time and routing, technicians’ schedules and skill sets, equipment tracking, and SLA compliance. It’s much easier to rely on an automated scheduling solution to make optimized decisions for you, so you can focus on the bigger stuff—like your customers’ satisfaction.

Using separate solutions

The only way to gain true visibility into field service schedules is to manage everything in a single solution. This includes schedules, capacity planning, long- and short-cycle work, crew allocations, and more. Limiting field service management to a single solution also gives you the flexibility to manage your workforce more efficiently and ensure that you’re equipped to handle urgent work.

Not prepping technicians for customer service

Your field resources are often the only face-to-face contact your customers have with your company. This means it’s crucial they are equipped to give the best customer service possible. Start thinking of your technicians as your brand ambassadors, and ensure they have the soft skills to make a great impression on your customers.

Lack of visibility into technician location

With Uber you can hail a ride and know exactly where your driver is and when they will arrive. And Amazon provides updates when your package is shipped and as soon as it’s delivered. Your customers know this level of visibility is possible, and they expect it in their service too. Allow customers to track their technician’s location and send them reminders and updates about the status of their service. On top of giving your customers’ peace of mind, this also helps you avoid no shows and last minute cancellations.

Long Appointment Windows & Exact Time Slots

According to our Field Service Report, more than 60% of consumers across all countries said a long wait time between their service appointment being booked and carried out led to a bad customer service experience. It’s no surprise because today’s customers expect service fast, and definitely, don’t want to be waiting around all day to get it. Use optimized scheduling and appointment booking to ensure shorter, two-hour service windows for your customers.

Leaving the customer site before booking a follow-up appointment

Sometimes a repair is more complex than originally thought or a technician doesn’t have the right part to complete a job. When a follow-up appointment is needed, don’t leave the customer site until it is booked. Instead of simply ordering a part and asking the customer to call and schedule when they receive it, do it for them. The customer will feel more at ease knowing that even though the problem wasn’t fixed today, it will be fixed as soon as possible.

Not measuring customer effort score

When it comes to measuring customer experience, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores are usually the go to. But in today’s on-demand world, convenience and ease are becoming more and more important to customers. Many organizations have started measuring customer experience by the amount of effort customers are putting into getting an issue resolved. Add this to your list of KPIs so you can ensure future customer engagements are simple and seamless.

Not using live traffic updates

As customer expectations continue to rise, the importance of route optimization and getting resources from place to place is ever increasing. Many organizations are taking advantage of predictive travel and applications like Google Maps to accurately estimate travel times and plan routes ahead of the service day. However, it’s also important to consider real-time, live traffic updates on the day of service to account for unforeseen traffic and roadblocks.

Leaving out change management

When your service team has been doing things a certain way for several years, bringing in a new solution can be overwhelming. Even if the previous solution was inefficient or completely manual and paper-based, change can be scary. When implementing a new field service management solution, it’s important to get everyone on board and comfortable with the new solution—so don’t skip out on change management. Emphasize the benefits of FSM—such as efficiency, cost savings, and customer satisfaction—and make sure everyone is properly trained on using the solution.

While no one can know exactly what the field service management landscape will look like in 2020, it’s safe to expect increasing customer expectations and new technologies. Start preparing your organization for what’s next today.

 

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The UK’s largest provider of fridge and freezer trailers has launched a new 24-hour emergency service specifically for the care home industry to provide extra storage space ahead of Christmas.

Coldtraila has just launched the unique service for care homes across the whole UK in desperate need of extra space to store meats and other produce in the build-up to Christmas, whether that be due to their freezers malfunctioning or just running out of space.

Ross Pushman, Managing Director of Coldtraila, said: “This new Christmas service will ensure care homes won’t run out of storage space this winter.

“We know how vital this time of year can be for care homes as they look to keep residents warm, comfortable and well-fed in the harsh winter months. That’s why we decided to offer a bespoke 24-hour emergency service to ensure they can provide more than adequate space for their turkey and geese ahead of the big day.

“If a trailer is needed, our new service will ensure it will be delivered and set-up within 24 hours of contacting us. That’s the Coldtraila promise.”

Coldtraila recently acquired two new trailers exclusive to the UK market; the Chill-Tow and Freeze-Tow.

The trailers’ heavy-duty chiller capabilities, which include surplus cooling power and rapid temperature recovery, offer the most cost-effective solution to storing frozen produce.

They also come equipped with a special multifunctional digital display unit that can manage and control the temperature of produce being stored.

For more information on the new service, call 01684 311811. Alternatively, for more information on Coldtraila, please visit https://www.coldtraila.co.uk/.

 

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This year's Aftermarket Business Platform was once again a hive of information as senior leaders from across the European continent and beyond came together to share their insight, learn from their peers and see first hand the technology that is shaping the sector.

The conference was packed with the leading thinkers within the industry from both the practitioner and solution provider side and in this second in a series of articles with those key speakers Coppperberg's Mark McCord joins reflects on his discussion with Thomas Radau of German firm Titan following his presentation...

 

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The schedule for Aftermarket 2019 is already being put together and it promises to be a key date in the calendar once again. This is an event that almost always sells out so head over to aftermarketeurope.com now and secure your place at this important industry event...

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In a distinguished career in engineering services, Thomas Radau has seen a lot of change. The biggest, however, has been industry’s attitude towards the customer.

No longer just the endpoint in a supply and process chain, manufacturers increasingly see customers as long-term partners.

“There’s been a revolution in thought,” says Radau, service manager for German packaging and strap-making firm Titan.

“In the past, the customer was paid lip service to and customer-focus was more an attitude than a practice. But now it’s key to our business.”

It’s no longer enough simply to offer customers a product, Radau says.

 

"You have to be very focused to say ‘am I understanding you correctly, this is the problem, that’s where I can help you..."

 

“You have to be very focused to say ‘am I understanding you correctly, this is the problem, that’s where I can help you’.”

Radau began his career as a service technician and electronics expert and was posted in various locations around the world. He gained an up-close understanding of the importance of aftermarket service provision while working within the compressed air and gas purification industry, where the smooth running of equipment and minimisation of downtime are critical.

He later moved to DEUTZ, a manufacturer of industrial diesel engines before joining Titan in 2015.

In an engrossing presentation at Aftermarket 2018, Radau stressed the importance of customer focus by personalising his customer base to an idealised character called “Paul”.

“You have to think forward, and ask how do I help Paul meet his projects,” Radau told the delegates in Berlin. “If what we do doesn’t add value to Paul, then it’s useless.”

In an increasingly competitive world, it’s important for companies to put aftermarket services at the forefront because that wins customer loyalty and satisfaction, Radua argues.

“It’s now more difficult to sell things because everybody wants to sell products – it’s difficult to get customers’ attention,” Radau adds. “We must now do things where in the past the customer had to do it themselves.”

While Radau jokes that aftermarket service is like a social service, he believes he is in the business of making life better for his customers.

“We release them from the monkey work – that’s what the product as a service is all about,” he says animatedly. “It’s a lifestyle pitch.”

“In today’s life – everybody has more and more responsibility and everybody is more and more involved in lots of things, so if we are able to ease their lives and save them time and energy, they’re able to do their work better and easier.”

 

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I was asked recently if my thinking has evolved since writing Beyond GREAT SERVICE, The Technician’s Role in Proactive Business Growth. The book is based on the premise that field service professionals add tremendous value when they use their experience and expertise to make recommendations that will help their customers to be better off.

As I reflect on the book, that view has not changed. In fact, it has been reinforced as I have worked with more and more companies across North America and in Europe and with their local offices around the world. I have seen how field professionals react favourably to this description of their role and how managers see the value of this approach. It squares the circle between service and sales.

Although there is nothing specific that I would change about the strategy described in the book, there are two things that I would add. Firstly, I would spend more time and provide more guidance on strategies to implement a “Beyond GREAT SERVICE” approach. Secondly, I would focus more attention on the service nature of the field service team’s proactive efforts.

 

"I have seen managers struggle to provide the ongoing focus necessary to achieve the type of cultural change needed to ensure that business development by field service professionals becomes an integral part of service delivery..."

 

I have seen managers struggle to provide the ongoing focus necessary to achieve the type of cultural change needed to ensure that business development by field service professionals becomes an integral part of service delivery. To achieve this requires systems, processes and most importantly, constant coaching and support. Not everyone on the team will be convinced of the service value of proactively making recommendations to customers, and many of those that do will be uncomfortable in those situations. Without the support structures and ongoing encouragement, even those field professionals with the best of intentions will gravitate back to how they have always done things in the past.

The reason that some managers struggle with the implementation of business promotion as a service is due to the very nature of the service business itself. The day-to-day immediacy of service pulls management away from the thoughtful, important but not urgent work that is needed to successfully engage technicians in proactive business development. Much of service is, by its very nature, reactive and that means much time is spent responding rather than initiating.

Although this is changing somewhat, there will always be a significant element of responding to unplanned emergencies that demand immediate attention and draws managers from the task of implementing a “Beyond GREAT SERVICE” approach. The irony in this is that, as progress is made toward implementing the “Beyond GREAT SERVICE” approach, the increasingly proactive efforts of the field team will reduce the number of, and resources required for, unplanned emergencies as many issues will be addressed before they become a problem. That means that the more progress managers make in implementing this approach, the more time they will have to support it – almost the opposite of what is needed.

It is also important that the Beyond GREAT SERVICE approach be viewed as an integral component of the service provided – as much a part of the service as troubleshooting, repairing and maintaining. Sure, you could argue that they are “selling” when they make a recommendation to the customer, but semantics aside, when the field team makes recommendations for the purpose of helping the customer achieve their goals they are really serving in its truest sense.

 

"Most service companies fail to achieve the results they desire when they engage their field service team in business development..."

 

The serving vs. selling perspective is a unique and critically important differentiator. From my experience, most service companies fail to achieve the results they desire when they engage their field service team in business development. In addition to the reason cited above, a contributing factor for these less than ideal outcomes is that managers don’t integrate these efforts as part of the service. Promotion of services is often treated as an “add-on” that many within the field team see as “optional”. Some even feel that promoting services is an unreasonable expectation by management.

If the field service professional’s efforts are part of the service, it is easier to get the field service team to buy-in. They can see a direct connection between what they are doing in promoting their services and the impact on the customer’s business. Customers see value in this too. When explained to them that the field service team is being asked to use their expertise to proactively identify steps that can help the customer achieve their business goals (as opposed to looking to increase revenues), they can see the benefit for their business.

So, to address these two issues, I would add this challenge for the reader of my book:

Assume for a moment that you will be adding a new service offering to your service portfolio. The new offering has the following characteristics:

• It is an add-on to existing services (does not replace)
• It’s a new concept – the customer needs to be educated on the value
• New knowledge and skills are required to implement effectively
• No new tools or test equipment needed
• It has the potential to be highly profitable – efficiency in delivery critical
• The service relies on another division to deliver a part of the service
• There is a 1 to 2 year head start over the competition

When implementing a service of this nature, what steps will you take to ensure that you successfully and profitably introduce this service?

As managers ponder this challenge, they will come up with a list of things to be done such as: (Note: This list is far from complete)

• Define the service so it can be understood internally and externally
• Identify the processes needed to support the initiative
• Take steps to get buy-in from supporting divisions and a seamless coordination between groups
• Provide training and coaching to achieve the behaviour change needed
• Create the messaging and strategy to promote to our customers etc.

The point of this challenge is that the service described in the challenge is the service of promoting services to help the customer to be better off and this contributes to management’s efforts in two ways.

Firstly, it gives them a better perspective of all of the moving parts of a successful strategy in a meaningful way that is familiar to them (they have implemented new services before). Secondly, when the initiative is recognized as a service, management will see that its implementation is not a “part-time job” that is pursued if there is time but rather an important service initiative that requires continuous focus to ensure its successful implementation.

By devoting more space in the book to helping management implement the strategy as a service, I think that Beyond GREAT SERVICE would become an even more valuable resource for those organizations that want to truly help their customers achieve their business goals. I have a feeling that a second edition is in the works.

 

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Bill Pollock, President of Strategies for GrowthSM gives us five questions that we need to be able to answer if we are to meet our customers’ service expectations...

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Help build the next Strategies for GrowthSM analysis report by participating in their current benchmarking research project by clicking this link and taking their current Warranty Chain Management survey... 

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The margins on hardware, software and services revenues continue to compress due to increasing competitive pressures, and as customers are becoming more knowledgeable about the growing number of support options available to them.

As a result, customer service is now an even more important factor in establishing and maintaining a strong position in the overall services community.

Every day, more services organisations are relying on customer service to differentiate their otherwise commodity-like offerings in order to bring customers in, keep them happy, and make them loyal. However, while it is not “rocket science”, any services manager can look like an “Einstein” if he or she embraces the rudimentary aspects of customer service throughout all phases of services marketing and promotion, sales prospecting, writing the contract, and managing the customer account over time.

 

"Every day, more services organisations are relying on customer service to differentiate their otherwise commodity-like offerings in order to bring customers in, keep them happy, and make them loyal..."

 

While there are many ways to go with respect to defining and establishing a strong customer service mentality within the organisation, the most direct path to determining whether your organisation is on the right track is to test yourself on a number of questions that will indicate how well positioned your organisation is from a customer service perspective.

The basic questions that any sales, marketing or customer service professional should be asking, and a corresponding set of guidelines for addressing each of them, may include:

 

Does your organisation have a formal customer service or customer care department? Does it have a well-defined customer service mission or charter? Is it adequately staffed and empowered?

Surprising as it may seem, some services organisations have no formal customer service or customer care infrastructure. Even in cases where other departments may be “managing” portions of the company’s customer service activities (e.g., handling complaints, responding to inquiries, etc.), there may still be no formal company-wide procedures or processes for managing customer service. As a result, any customer service activities provided are probably not being performed in a consistent manner. Further, in cases where customer service is performed essentially as a “secondary” activity to the department’s otherwise self-defined “primary” activities, lack of adequate staffing, empowerment and accountability may become major inhibiting factors.

 

Is there a formal process for handling customer service activities? Are specific responsibilities defined and assigned? Is there accountable ownership?

All functions within the organisation require formal processes to ensure effectiveness. Documented processes are even more important when they involve customers and other external parties (e.g., vendors, dealers, etc.). But processes, in and of themselves, do not get the job done. They must be followed by specific personnel, with specifically defined roles and responsibilities, in order to be effective.

The capability to track who actually has “ownership” of each customer service activity as it is being performed will be critical in measuring overall company performance, as well as providing an ongoing record of success (or failure) in meeting the company’s customer service goals and objectives.

 

Does your company management promote and encourage customer service? Are there incentives for doing it right, or sanctions for doing it wrong?

Regardless of where your customer service personnel get their primary inspiration, they must still be fully supported by management at all levels. However, this is clearly a case where actions speak louder than words. Management must do everything possible to articulate and communicate its philosophy of customer service throughout the organisation in order to empower its customer service personnel to get the job done – and reward them for being successful at it.

 

How interactive is your organisation with the customer base? Does it communicate with them enough? Does it provide them with a means for giving their customer service input and feedback?

A one-way street for customer service is never adequate. A services organisation’s customers must also be able to articulate and communicate their concerns to the organisation, and they will need to know how to do so. Accordingly, the organisation should have a formal process in place for soliciting and receiving customer service input and feedback from customers. The process should be well-documented and promoted, easy to access, user-friendly and sincere. Most importantly, all communications coming from the customer base must be quickly and satisfactorily answered. It is generally also a good idea to summarize some of the customer feedback and related company responses in a communicated format such as a company newsletter or Blog, or on the company Website (e.g., FAQs, Customer Service Update, etc.).

 

Are your customer service personnel properly trained? Do they have all of the necessary tools to get the job done?

Just because certain individuals are “good with people” does not necessarily mean that they are fully equipped to handle all types of customer service situations. It may mean that they have the “right stuff” – but they will still need to receive the “right training.” Even with the proper training, a customer service representative is often only as good as his/her ability to get the job done. This requires access to all of the necessary customer service and support tools, such as guidebooks and procedure manuals; software systems that allow them to log in calls, and track how and when corrective actions are taken; and state-of-the-art mobile communications capabilities.

As you can imagine, there are dozens of additional questions that will still need to be answered before you can be certain that your organisation is addressing all of its key customer service issues. However, these five questions should be at the head of your list in order to make an initial assessment of exactly where your company stands with respect to its customer service philosophy.

 

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Visit Strategies For Growth SM website @ https://pollockonservice.com/

 

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In this second excerpt from an exclusive fieldservicenews.com presentation Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined by John Hunt, Managing Director, EMEA, Astea to discuss the key findings of a research project Astea undertook with WBR.

Here, they talk about how the most cited goal for service-centric manufacturers in 2018/2019 is to increase innovation, agility and internal resource to support further development of new service initiatives...

 

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 Want to know more? The full length video of this presentation is available as premium content to fieldservicenews.com subscribers...

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Research analyst and consulting firm, Strategies For Growth^SM (SFG℠) has launched its fifth annual Warranty Chain Management (WCM) Benchmark Survey Update, and invites all Warranty Management professionals to participate. The 2019 WCM Survey will remain “live” on the Web through the end of the year.

According to SFG℠ president and principal consulting analyst, Bill Pollock, “The results of the 2018 survey revealed that nearly three-quarters (71%) of respondents believe effective warranty chain management to be at least 'very important' to the overall financial performance of the business, with just under a quarter (22%) believing it to be 'extremely important.'

[quote float="left"]All respondents that provide their e-mail address will receive a link for downloading a complimentary copy of the Executive Summary Analysts Take white paper immediately following the conference.[/quote] The results further revealed that this sense of importance continues to increase substantially, year-over-year, as one-quarter (25%) believed effective warranty chain management to be 'more important than one year ago,' compared to only 3% believing it to be 'less important' – a ratio of roughly 8:1 citing 'more important' over 'less important’. As such, we know the segment is based on a sound foundation that is getting stronger moving forward."

The final results of the current survey will be presented by Pollock at the 2019 Warranty Chain Management Conference, March 12 - 14, 2019, in Orlando, Florida. In addition, all respondents that provide their e-mail address will receive a link for downloading a complimentary copy of the Executive Summary Analysts Take white paper immediately following the conference.

The survey consists of a targeted, multiple choice questionnaire that should take less than 15 minutes to complete. All responses will remain strictly confidential, and will only be tabulated and reported in the aggregate.

Simply click on the following link to begin the survey, or, if you prefer, you may forward it to someone else in your organization to complete:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WCM_19

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BTW - Be sure to watch in Q1, 2019 for Bill Pollock’s article in Field Service News that will provide the key executive-level results of the current survey.

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SFG℠ thanks you in advance for your participation!

Oftentimes field service directors and managers can see the importance of investment within a dedicated Field Service Management (FSM) ahead of their colleagues in the boardroom. In this series of articles Kevin McNally, Sales Director, Asolvi outlines how to build a case for investment to drive your field service operations forwards.

In the first instalment in this series, we looked at how FSM systems can deliver easy Return on Investment, in part two we explored how investment in FSM solutions can help you achieve better staff retention and in part three we explored how the implementation of an FSM solution can improve worker health and safety.

Now in the final part of this series, we look at the benefits an FSM system can bring to Customer Engagement as well as offer some concluding thoughts on the series...

 

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Is building a case for investment in FSM a key topic for you?! There is a full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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Customer experience and customer engagement have become buzz phrases of recent times amongst senior executives within almost all organisations and the good news for field service professionals is that this shift of focus on service has meant an increased importance on ensuring field service management teams are able to deliver their service programs as efficiently, and effectively as possible.

Service indeed has now become the core differentiator within industry and field service is an excellent opportunity to make your service standards shine.

By investing in an FSM solution you're enabling your field service engineers to be true brand ambassadors of your organisation. By investing in an FSM solution you are giving them the tools they need to understand the specific needs of the customer they are visiting/history/asset history etc.

By investing in an FSM solution you are giving your field service engineers the tools to deliver the service excellence that will keep your customers loyal.

However, customer experience can also be enhanced through the implementation of FSM solutions in other ways than by empowering the field service engineer...

For example, many modern FSM systems also allow you to provide dashboards to your customers to offer greater visibility into how their assets are performing and how your service organisation is performing against any set SLAs.

Such transparency is very much valued in today’s digital economy where such metrics are becoming increasingly less of a USP and more of an expectation.

Indeed, many of the aspects of automation that an FSM can bring to your service delivery such as automating creation and delivery of work reports, messaging updates on engineer arrival times or even invoicing will improve both the efficiency of your service delivery and the levels of customer satisfaction you are able to achieve.

 

Conclusions: Avoiding a Competitive Disadvantage

For a long time, the key sales point for investing in an FSM solution was to gain competitive advantage.

However, we must now acknowledge that this is a maturing market and that maturation has been increased by the development of the Cloud-based systems.

So the question now is how much of a competitive disadvantage will you be in if you don’t implement a modern FSM solution – whether that be moving away from manual processes for the first time or upgrading to a new solution from a legacy product.

Investing in an FSM solution can improve your ability to meet health and safety requirements and protect your staff, make your customer’s happier, reduce field service employee turn over all while paying for itself within a relatively short time frame.

The question is no longer if you should invest in an FSM solution, but how to identify the right solution provider for you.

 

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

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief welcomes back Kevin McNally, Sales Director of Asolvi as they look through five key considerations to factor in when trying to build a case for investment within a field service management solution including, definable return on investment, health and safety compliance, increasing customer engagement, reducing staff turnover and avoiding a competitive disadvantage....

 

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Is building a case for investment in FSM a key topic for you?! There is a full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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