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Laurent Othacehe, CEO, Cognito iQ looks at why employee engagement is a critical pillar for achieving field service excellence and offers some crucial advice for field service companies seeking to how best to ensure they are getting the most out of their most important asset - their field service staff...

Field service is not just about IT and processes, nor is it just about parts and engineering. It is about people, this is why employee engagement is one of three fundamental aspects, alongside improving productivity and meeting customer expectations, that can lead to what we view at Cognito iQ as flawless field service.

If you want to know more about this topic there is a white paper available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Not a subscriber? If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription.

Click here to apply for your subscription and we'll send you a copy of the white paper Flawless Field Service: Employee Engagement as thanks for your application

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What is employee engagement?

So what do we mean by employee engagement?

If you Google it, you’ll get any number of definitions, but we like this one from not-for-profit organisation Engage for Success.

“Employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organisation to give their best each day, commit to their organisation’s goals and values and contribute to the organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. Employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two-way commitment and communication between an organisation and its members”.

It’s also important to say what employee engagement isn’t. It isn’t manipulative. It’s not a cynical attempt to wring productivity from employees with spurious benefits. It isn’t an annual employee engagement survey – although it can be measured - and it should only be measured if doing so leads to positive change.

This means that employee engagement must be win-win for employees and their employers. It can’t be imposed from above. It’s about creating a cultural shift in the way organisations behave.

Key drivers of employee engagement include the following:

• A culture of trust, fairness and respect for employees and management
• A culture of teamwork and co-operation
• Clarity on goals, constructive feedback and support to succeed
• Quality training and clear job progression
• Work-life balance and work that makes the most of people’s skills
• Empowerment, autonomy and a sense that people’s ideas are valued

Why employee engagement matters

In the UK, only around a third of employees are ‘engaged’. Engaged employees tend to be happy in their jobs, enthusiastic about their work, committed and driven.

This matters, not only for the wellbeing of the remaining two thirds of UK workers, but also because study after study has linked employee engagement to improved productivity, customer satisfaction, growth and profitability, as well as a whole raft of other business metrics, including employee retention; innovation; safety incidents; product quality and defects; shrinkage and theft; and sickness and absenteeism. And whilst engaged employees can bring business benefits, the reverse is also true.

A US study found that there are 51% of US workers who are not engaged, and a further 16% who can be defined as ‘actively disengaged’; whilst workers who are ‘not engaged’ tend to be indifferent – they are just showing up for their pay-check - those that are actively disengaged can be resentful and disruptive, taking up managers’ time, seeking out ways to ‘cheat the system’ and even sabotaging the work done by others.

Employee engagement in field service

1. The nature of the work:

Remote workers can feel isolated, which reduces engagement. It is important to ensure that they feel connected to the main office, and also feel part of a team, whether that is at a local or regional level, or by job specialisation.

Field service has traditionally been low-tech which has meant a lot of tedious paperwork – necessary but not as satisfying as helping customers and solving service issuesAs back-office management don’t always have good visibility of how work is actually done in the field, they might not understand how to empower and enable workers to do their jobs and may have created processes that are unhelpful or counter-productive.

In addition, field service has traditionally been low-tech which has meant a lot of tedious paperwork – necessary but not as satisfying as helping customers and solving service issues – so it is important to automate some of these admin tasks, as well as give workers electronic access to the information they need to do their jobs, such as product manuals and parts databases.

2. The nature of the workforce:

There is an ageing workforce, with the average age of the field service worker being 40 years old – and many of the older baby-boomer generation engineers are starting to retire.

To fill the skills gap in field service will mean both keeping older engineers on for the long haul by retraining and re-skilling them, as well as attracting and training new younger engineers. Engagement is essential here as it is costly to train up new workers only to have them job-hop to a competitor for a slightly better rate pay or better benefits.

3. The nature of the industry:

As products become commoditised, companies are relying on the quality of their service to differentiate from competitors. Field service workers are the face of the brand and often the only company representative that customers interact with. Engaged employees are more likely to give great customer service than disengaged employees.

The most forward-thinking companies are wise to the potential of field service workersThe most forward-thinking companies are wise to the potential of field service workers. They are considering ways to upsell other products and services during their visits and are turning field operations departments into profit centres. Technology is also changing the skills needed on the job. Connected devices are reducing some of the tasks that field workers need to do, such as routine maintenance checks, but they are creating new data, which means that workers will need analytical skills.

Technologies such as virtual or augmented reality are also changing the ways that workers carry out their tasks. Workers may see these new skill requirements as a threat – however, companies that are good at engaging their employees see these developments as opportunities to offer training, career progression and the satisfaction that comes from being part of an up-to-date and modern company.

If you want to know more about this topic there is a white paper available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Not a subscriber? If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription.

Click here to apply for your subscription and we'll send you a copy of the white paper Flawless Field Service: Employee Engagement as thanks for your application

To find out more about the many benefits of being a fieldservicenews.com subscriber and to understand how we store and may use your data please visit our subscriptions page here

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As we begin to enter the final articles in our serialisation of Jim Baston’s excellent industry focused book Beyond Great Service we conclude the section on seeking feedback - an area that has become increasingly important today as field service companies en masse are putting the customer at the heart of their entire service strategies...

Before rolling out the strategy of engaging technicians in business development, Charlie wanted to seek feedback from customers. Last time he spoke with Joe Costello of East Side Property Management. Joe’s response encouraged Charlie that he was on the right track. Joe offered a suggestion for the initiative.“Way back when I first got into the industry, I ran into a bit of trouble that cost me my job, and almost my career. I was assigned as the building manager for a condominium for Chelsea Property Management. It’s still there, and it was at least 25 years old then. You may know it—829 Becket Avenue?”

“Yeah, I know it. My sister and brother-in-law used to live there.”

“Okay, so you will know it’s a pretty prestigious building. I am not sure why I got it, since it probably should have gone to someone more senior. Management must have been desperate. Anyway, I got it. I was pretty cocky back then and had no fear, so I guess I thought that I deserved it. Here I  was just out of college and managing a big building. That was in December. The next spring, I guess it was April, the service technician suggested that I consider changing out the boiler. It seemed to be running fine, but it was as old as the building and parts were almost impossible to come by. It might have continued to operate fine through the next winter, but maybe not. That would’ve been the time to make the decision so that a new boiler could’ve been installed during the cooling system when there is no demand for hot
water for heating.”

I would suggest you encourage your technicians to set up an informal meeting every six months or so, for them to go over any outstanding proposals that have not been responded to. “I told the tech that I wanted to mull it over. I was nervous about bringing this up with the Board at this time, since we were working on a number of capital improvements including a new roof, repaving the parking lot and repairing the pool, and these were seriously depleting the reserve fund. I thought I would wait until the June Board meeting to mention it. By then, the approvals for the major expenditures would be behind us and we’d be thinking about getting things in order to prepare for winter.”

“Well, as I said, I had a lot of things on my mind and I forgot about the boiler altogether—until October, when the heating season was upon us. It was at that point I remembered the boiler, but it was too late. Fortunately, the start-up went fine and I thought I was in the clear. In January, however, the boiler
went down. As luck would have it, it was the coldest day of the year and the forecast was for at least a week, maybe two, of the same. To complicate matters, the parts that were needed were not readily available. It took the service company three days to find the parts and another two days to get them installed and the boiler back in service. We were without full heat for almost a week, and you can imagine the uproar from the unit owners. Some threatened to not pay their maintenance fees. Others wanted to change the building management company. It was absolutely crazy, and all because of my carelessness. When the dust settled, it came out that the service company had actually recommended changing out the boiler way back in the spring. For my company, that was the last straw. I was gone within a week.”

“At first I was bitter about the situation. It was an honest mistake, albeit a careless one, but not one that I thought I should’ve lost my job over. And, it could have been avoided. Had the technician reminded me that I had not made a decision on the boiler, or had he simply asked what my intentions were with regards to replacement, it would have saved my job. Was it his job to remind me? As I reflect on it now, I don’t think it was in the truest sense of the word. However, it would have provided a valuable service to me.”

“Anyway, the reason I am telling you this story is that I would suggest you encourage your technicians to set up an informal meeting every six months or so, for them to go over any outstanding proposals that have not been responded to. The customer can then tell them if they have decided against the idea or if they are waiting for budget approval. They might also thank the tech for reminding them that they have not attended to the issue. If it makes sense, your technician could also use this time to take the customer on a tour of the facility to showcase work and discuss new opportunities.”

Thinking about your business:

• Is your business development strategy clearly tied to your overall plan to provide each customer with an exceptional customer experience?
• Does everyone know what they are expected to do to delivery on the strategy?
• What hurdles stand in the way of fully engaging your field service team?
• Do you include steps like reviewing existing recommendations with customers to ensure important ideas are not lost?
• Have you sought feedback from your customers on your initiative?

Next time Charlie seeks summarizes the components of the strategy to engage technicians in business development. He calls this new service “Intelligent Service”.

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It’s been several years since the official end of the Great Recession and we finally see organizations beginning to switch from a cautionary mindset to one of business expansion. However, business and revenue expansion initiatives need to be built on an infrastructure of growth, an area where organizations haven’t invested significantly in the previous 5-10 years. The desire for growth needs to be matched with investments in knowledge, technology, and innovation.

Sumair Dutta, Chief Customer Officer, Service Council explains why he anticipates that the next twelve months will be a period when service leaders begin to transition into new revenue models.

The Voice of the Service Leader:

In The Service Council’s annual trends survey of 2017, service leaders indicated that their top initiatives were focused on the improvement of customer management, the enhancement of service operations with the aid of business data, and an expansion of knowledge management across the enterprise.

In discussions with service leaders, it seemed like most were looking to get closer to their customers via better voice of the customer and listening initiatives to truly understand what these customers valued. In several industries, we also noted that organizations were balancing the demands and needs of various customers within an organization.

2018 initiatives are similar to those planned for 2017 and we don’t see a major deviation for service leaders. The push is to continue to drive operational efficiencies and business capacity with the aid of data, information, and technology. In parallel, organizations are looking to continue to ramp up their customer experience initiatives. As these initiatives get more mature and move from the listening phase to the customer understanding phase, organizations are hoping to use customer insight and data to support revenue generation efforts.

In discussions with service leaders, it seemed like most were looking to get closer to their customers via better voice of the customer and listening initiatives to truly understand what these customers valued.Voice of the customer efforts have been popular for several years and were championed by those in business to consumer industries.

In serving a larger number of customers and customer transactions, it was essential for these organizations to get a pulse of customer sentiment tied to service transactions and business relationships. The effort from these organizations was to improve operations to support better loyalty and retention.

Some would argue that the intent of these organizations is now shifting to ensuring a greater use of purchased product and service features, akin to the customer success model.

In enterprises that work directly with other businesses, the volume of transactions and interactions might not be as large; nevertheless, these interactions can have a high degree of value or impact attached to them. Historically, organizations were happy to capture feedback from their customers, but customer listening wasn’t a prioritized activity.

That has changed; as over the last three years, we have seen more organizations invest in voice of the customer and customer surveying programs.

More so, service leaders have also sought after resources to map customer journeys and identify key pain points in the service delivery ecosystem.

These customer experience activities have led to a handful of initiatives that strive to assuage frustrated customers, increase visibility into the service process, and reduce the effort required to access the service organization.

We now believe that organizations are fairly well equipped to deal with direct customer feedback but now need to dive deeper to truly unearth customer value.

Deciphering value requires a deeper look at customer feedback. Customer complaints and outreach are typically a channel for customers to share their expressed wishes. Answering expressed needs and wishes is essential to maintaining customer satisfaction, but addressing unexpressed needs is the key to differentiation.

This requires the ability for service teams to dig deeper into the reasons for a customer contact and what that specific customer might be looking to accomplish with the delivered information.

Addressing constraint:

The delivery of improved experiences must occur in a constraint heavy environment. The biggest constraint faced by organizations is the capacity of the service workforce.

This capacity isn’t solely tied to the quantity of service tasks that must be met, but in the quality of service interactions that must be supported by service personnel. In organizations with field service groups, there is a major focus on replacing retiring service workers and in retaining and replicating their knowledge for future generations.

Several industries are having major issues tapping into the next generation of service workers. Yet service requests continue and customers require a higher level of service.

Technology might seem like the best answer to addressing capacity issues, but the real solution comes from a better understanding of available service data. This explains why service leaders are looking at their major sources of data to identify:

• Inefficient service delivery processes
• Opportunities for automation and elimination of manual intervention
• Opportunities for enhancement of service worker output and coverage

The data that is available at the service leader’s fingertips can come from multiple sources. It may come direct from the product being serviced, and this mode of data communication continues to gain traction. Yet reliable data is already available from:

• Customer requests, complaints, and claims
• Point-of-service systems tracking work completion and resources required

Once operational improvement opportunities are identified, it makes sense to inject technology solutions to address these opportunities.

For instance, portals can be created to offer customers an easier path to service information or to the creation of a service request as compared to a traditional 1-800 call queue.

Routing technology can be used to directly connect customers to higher-level technical support. Video solutions can allow for assisted service resolution or improved diagnosis prior to dispatch. And just-in-time content can be sent to technicians to ensure that their service visits are successful.

We would recommend that service leaders also analyze and review data tied to the customer experience as much as they use data to prioritize operational improvements.We would recommend that service leaders also analyze and review data tied to the customer experience as much as they use data to prioritize operational improvements.

If customers indicate that the ease of access to service personnel is a priority for them, or that other areas in the service delivery ecosystem need improvement, then these could help service leaders rank needed changes.

The growth plan:

Operational and customer-focused initiatives are being paired with those that focus on business and service revenue. In discussions around service’s impact on the business, TSC has previously highlighted two revenue buckets that are directly enhanced by service.

• Service-Impacted Revenue – Revenue generated as a result of positive customer satisfaction, typically tied to up-sells, cross-sells, renewals, new purchases, and referrals.
• Service Revenue – Revenue generated from the sale of service products such as service parts, time & material work, or service agreements.

In pursuing growth in 2018, service leaders continue to support the first bucket of revenue typically driven by other parts of the organization but are taking aim at enhancing their overall service revenue contribution.

This expansion is typically supported in two ways:

1. Understanding customer use of current service products
2. Uncovering appetite for new service products

For those organizations with service agreements in place, it’s essential to understand which customers are covered by these agreements and which ones are coming up for renewal. Better visibility into coverage and renewal opportunities can uncover millions in revenue opportunities.

Once visibility is established, it is essential to identify why customers chose to stay away from service agreements or other products. This might uncover awareness or sales opportunities for the service enterprise.

In addition to actual coverage and renewal, service organizations must understand how customers are utilizing products and services. Awareness of customer adoption and usage will allow for improved account management opportunities. It might also yield ideas for net new services that can be valuable to customers.

Summary/Conclusion: the need for service innovation

While organizations are navigating what it means to be a digital business, they are also looking to new collaboration models with their customers to ensure longer and more profitable relationships.

For organizations to be more innovative in service, an internal transformation needs to occur around business leadership, around business measurement, and around the technology in place to support a new service business.In innovation-focused research conducted by The Service Council in 2017, less than one-half of organizations highlighted that their service businesses received as much focus on innovation, as did the other parts of the business.

For organizations to be more innovative in service, an internal transformation needs to occur around business leadership, around business measurement, and around the technology in place to support a new service business.

Service leaders must develop and fuel a culture that welcomes and accepts new ways of doing business, even at the cost of cannibalizing existing revenue streams. The promise of innovation is ripe at service organizations; it’s now time for service leaders to execute on this promise.

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In this latest of his Momentum Case Studies, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, interviews proven leaders across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.

Here the case study examines a global leader serving the mining and oil & gas industries. Much of their recent success has come because they take services very seriously, being seen as a knowledge partner to help their customers improve operational efficiency, reduce risks and increase profitability.

The challenges faced

The company operates in traditionally slow-moving industries with large incumbent players and has become a leader by creating a strong service business which now generates a significant portion of total revenues, deepens customer relationships and creates resilience during economic downturns.

However, it has now spotted that a potentially significant disruptive threat could emerge from ‘big data’ and data analytics technologies, enabling new types of services. In the past, they would have considered taking five years to develop new equipment to be fast for the industry, but now understands that when it comes to future services, the speed of innovation needs to be higher.

Senior management is very aware that customers will move away if they see a better way of doing things, so the company must adapt if it is to stay a market leader.

The Strategy

The company has entered a period of change. To meet the disruptive threat ahead it must be visionary: to redesign itself and its culture so it can move much faster to keep ahead, enthusiastically embracing digital technologies with a focus on the end-to-end customer experience. In fact, it has to re-imagine its relationship with its customers so that rather than selling products, it provides ways to help its customers improve their operational processes and even their business models.

The company has demonstrated success from the 4 Winning Habits for Momentum so far, but now they need to take it to another level. Here we will show how they are using each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its strategy, creating Momentum for long-term sustainable success.

Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind

The company management has recognised that, at a time of change, a compelling vision describing their role to help customers be more profitable is important to pull everyone together in the same direction. It is being spread throughout the company using both traditional townhall meetings, the company intranet as well as new digital social sharing methods such as Salesforce, Chatter and Yammer.

It helps operational messages fit into context if there is a beacon for people to move towards if there is a vision of what the company will look like in five yearVP of Service Marketing: “It helps operational messages fit into context if there is a beacon for people to move towards if there is a vision of what the company will look like in five years, what the industry will be like, what our company will be like. Otherwise, you have isolated initiatives”.

To push the new company direction, the company has been busy hiring a new CEO, CMO and CDO (Chief Digital Officer), all with experience in driving innovation. The Board understands the need for change, but the company can be a supertanker which takes time to turn. However, it is also aware that the competitive landscape can change quite quickly.

Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas

Digital initiatives are at the centre of this company’s reinvention, so senior managers are heavily involved in steering new ideas, to get behind them and also to prevent them from breaking current business streams.

Across the company, at least 75% of targets and incentives are collective, leading to limited silo thinking between teams since they’re all in the same boat. Where there is friction, it’s usually because goals have been set too narrowly and issues fall between the silos. As a result, there is much less politics than might be expected in a large company and a higher level of transparency on performance.

This all helps create a culture of trust with less finger pointing and blame.

VP of Service Marketing: “Rather than looking for blame, people look at how to fix issues and learn from mistakes. It works well due to open dialogue. People don’t feel threatened and are not so eager to hide problems”.

Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment

The company has always had a decentralised structure. Different markets are quite autonomous and allowed to make their own local sales decisions, choosing which sales and marketing initiatives in which to participate based on market needs. This has been a successful approach so far, but staff at all levels and across the business will need to now be included in the decision making processes if the company is to continue adapting at a fast enough pace.

Discovery – Looking for new trends, opportunities and threats (internal and external)

The newly established Digital Office is a powerhouse of new ideas to add new technology to client relationships, including tools such as the Internet of Things devices and data analytics. It has been set up to operate somewhat separately from the mainstream company in order to be free from ‘business as usual’ thinking.

Companies, middle managers actually, are often quick to kill new products they see as a threat to the status quo and that’s why it’s good to have a Chief Digital Officer, tasked to create change and disruptionVP of Service Marketing: “Companies, middle managers actually, are often quick to kill new products they see as a threat to the status quo and that’s why it’s good to have a CDO, tasked to create change and disruption. We might all be comfortable with how things are today and not want to change it but I’m damn sure there’s someone out there who wants to kill our business model, and will be aided and abetted by our customers if they see a better way of doing things”.

The company has even started trying new approaches to R&D, such as hackathons.

VP of Service Marketing: “When I first heard of hackathons I have to admit I was sceptical, but from what I’ve seen they actually allow people to look at problems in new ways and get people involved who would never normally be involved, and maybe redesign the way of doing things. And for big companies, that’s what we have to do, because our competitors don’t worry about the fact we have an established base and products, they’re actually thinking ‘How can I change the industry to make money? They don’t care if it destroys our business’”.

The company has also started involving customers in its processes, for example with surveys. They keep the company honest about its achievements, drive change and allow them to spot systemic issues. The voice of the customer can be very powerful.

Next Steps:

Change is an ongoing process at this manufacturing company, but they recognise the need to accelerate the pace of change to a new level and then make it ‘business as usual’ – a revolution in the mining sector!

The 4 Winning Habits for Momentum will be key. They are working on a clearer picture of the future state of the company, to give stronger Direction to the business units and local staff for local Decisionmaking.

Dialogue with staff will improve, so personal objectives will be better aligned to the strategy and not be so focussed on purely financial targets, but also learning, collaboration and Discovery of new opportunities. If they can do all this, then they will truly be creating a revolution in mining.

Outcomes

The huge growth in the service business at the company has brought enormous benefits for their customers, made the company a trusted ‘knowledge partner’ and expertly positioned them to forge ahead into digital transformation.

People buy from them now because of the advice they give and their approach to improving their customers’ businesses. For instance, mining equipment runs 24/7/365 and downtime can cost many €100,000s per day so, they have redesigned parts, consumables and field services to reduce the time it takes to change them, so reducing costs for their customers.

Energy efficiency has been another focus, as has the charging model – customers pay for service contracts by the ton, so they know their costs in advance. These changes epitomise the innovations that the company has achieved, and there are many more on the way.

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Noventum and the Service Science Factory have been working together to help establish a working framework for service organisations seeking to harness the power of the IoT. Damien Nunes, Dr. Dominik Mahr from the Service Science Factory and Rosanne Gresnigt, Noventum introduce some of the key concepts that have underpinned their work...

Recent advances in technology put Internet-of-things (IoT)-innovation on top of the management agenda across industries. IoT innovation is predicted to increase economic value by $11.1 trillion in 2025 (McKinsey 2015).

The Service Science Factory and Noventum collaborated to showcase the implementation of IoT in organisations.

What is the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and why is it relevant?

Over the past few years, computer technology has increasingly become a commodity as it has become cheaper, faster, more reliable, more efficient, smarter, smaller, portable and more connected.

It has given the opportunity to add new capabilities to the things (products and machines) that make up our lives. Consumer-focused examples include Philips Hue lights and the Nest Thermostat that knows via your smartphone when you have arrived home and automatically turns on your lights and heating.

But this is only a small part of the opportunities that IoT can bring.

The basis of all IoT innovations are the 6 principles listed in the graphic below. The power of IoT is to combine them in such a way that they provide new services and capabilities for your customers and organisation.

How can your organisation take advantage of IoT?

Top management often delegates the development of (IoT) innovation to middle and lower management. However, new ideas frequently face scepticism and even opposition across the firm. An example of this is the belief that IoT innovation often disrupts work practices as well as current product and service portfolios, thereby cannibalising existing revenues.

More so, some employees become worried about their jobs, and can even block innovations.

Fresh ideas, awareness of opportunities and positive attitudes across the organisation are what create the breeding ground for transformative innovation. This requires a user-centred, employee participative, explorative, iterative and routed approach like Service Design Thinking.

1. Set business focus: To leverage IoT opportunities, top management not only need to commit to drive IoT innovation but also clearly determine the strategic goals such as lowering cost, creating customer delight, building the brand or driving profits.
2. Introduce IoT Capabilities & Design Thinking: Before embarking further on this explorative journey it is important to recruit an interdisciplinary team. The team should understand customer needs (in the form of critical customer pains and gains), the context of the market they are operating in, and the potential capabilities of smart connected products. In addition, the team needs to be able to think in networks and eco-systems to be able to translate this understanding into new concrete service opportunities which are both valuable to, and in line with, the organisation's ambitions.
3. Ideate IoT innovations: The field of (service) Design Thinking provides various ideation techniques which are used by the interdisciplinary team to spark creativity. This results in ideas that embody both theopportunities that IoT can provide, and also the various perspectives of the market and the organisation.
4. Share, combine and prioritise ideas: The collective sharing of ideas strengthens the feeling of organisation-wide involvement, and collective prioritisation drives commitment. It is also an important period to receive feedback and identify if ideas can be strengthened by combining them with other concepts and initiatives.
5. Map the eco-system of the IoT innovation: IoT innovations typically involve a complex ecosystem of actors, components and connections. Visually mapping out eco-systems, on both macro as well as microscale, can reveal possible challenges to realise the IoT innovation.
6. Identify the business implications: Creating a clear understanding of potential benefits, required investments, and risks is crucial to driving any innovation. In addition, managers need to know what the implications on the organisation will be and what they can expect as ‘return on investment’.
7. Pitch to important decision makers: Especially in large international organisations with multiple divisions and functions, it is critical to have ambassadors who drive internal alignment. Pitch-like presentations towards (top) management and other parts of the organisation help to create a coalition of the willing, and obtain the commitment needed for further development and implementation.
8. In summary, the outcomes of the above process are not only great ideas but also form cross-functional teams that become ambassadors for their IoT innovations. The seven-step process is, in essence, a process for changing the mindset towards an IoT future. In the end, your employees are the basis for designing IoT Innovation – Not the technology.

What’s next?

IoT enabled services usually have a disruptive nature, and this realisation often affects all areas of the organisation. The implementation, therefore, requires a clear strategy and roadmap. Without this or an agile attitude towards unforeseen events, you risk losing not only the momentum you created in the IoT exploration phase,

 

Free IoT Readiness Assesment - Do you understand the value of IoT but don't know where to start? Have you already started on your IoT journey but want to get more out of it?

Click here to take the Noventum 5 minute IoT Readiness Assesment to get an overview of where you stand in relation to IoT and determine how ready your organisation is to benefit from it.

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to New York Times and Wall St Journal bestseller, international speaker and all-around customer service guru Shep Hyken about six important steps companies must embrace if they are to deliver service excellence...

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE! You can now subscribe to the Field Service Podcast via iTunes here

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Welcome to the relaunched and revamped Field Service Podcast hosted by Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland.

In this episode, Kris is speaking to Kevin McNally, Sales Director for Asolvi about the importance of building a request for proposal when they are searching for a new field service management solution as well as sharing his insight into some of the key considerations that an organisation should have in mind when approaching building the actual RFP document.

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Want to know more? Kevin and Kris have co-authored a white paper that expands on this topic which is available exclusively for Field Service News subscribers.

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Barrett Coakley, Product Marketing Manager, ClickSoftware offers some crucial advice in the complex and crucial area of change management...

Organisational change is hard but, given constantly shifting market conditions and the rate new technologies are released, dealing with transformation is now a requirement at most firms.

However, McKinsey reports that 70% of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. With that type of failure rate, you might be wondering why even bother. Nonetheless, when done correctly, change management can have an enormous impact on employee engagement, operational efficiency and financial success.

There are three areas that are causing change within field service teams that leaders must address Field service organizations are being asked to address multiple reforms but there are three areas that should be high on your change management list; talent management issues, technology advances and new customer attitudes.

Here are some recommendations to help your field service group succeed on this change management journey.

Talent Management

According to The Service Council, 70% of service organizations report they’ll be facing a pinch as they lose workers to retirement in the coming years. The retirement of baby boomers has the potential to leave a vast knowledge and experience gap on many field service teams.

There is hope, however, as the 75 million large millennial generation has entered the workforce and they have the skills to fill these open positions.

However, field service managers must understand the drivers that motivate millennials and how they differ from the retiring baby boomers, including:

• Tech savvy: The millennial generation grew up with all things digital. They embrace technology and expect the organizations that they work for to provide the most current technology for them to perform their job.
• Mission: Millennials are looking from a deeper meaning from work. They want to feel that they are having an impact both on the company as well as greater society.
• Retention: You might have some members on your field service team that have worked in the group for 10-20+ years. Millennials, however, tend to change jobs frequently. In fact, Gallup revealed that 21% of millennials report changing jobs within the last year, which is more than three times the number of non-millennials.

Here are some areas your field service team should focus on to facilitate the changes this generation will bring to your team.

Offer Incentives:

While you might think a raise would be sufficient for millennial retention, you should instead focus on benefits you could offer.

According to Gallup, millennials are more likely than any other generation to say they would change jobs for a particular benefit or perk. They especially appreciate perks that directly impact their lives and the lives of their family. It makes sense considering many millennials are starting families, have large student loans, and desire a work-life balance.

Popular benefits for Millennials include:

• Paid paternal and maternity leave
• Student loan reimbursement
• Childcare reimbursement
• Tuition reimbursement

So instead of just offering a pay raise next year, poll your workforce to determine what they truly value.

The responses might surprise you.

Development opportunities: The best way to attract millennials is by leveraging two of their biggest desires—development and purpose.

67% of millennials are engaged at work when they strongly agree that the mission or purpose of their company makes them feel their job is importantFor instance, Gallup reports that “rallying millennials around a mission and purpose dramatically increases their employee engagement: 67% of millennials are engaged at work when they strongly agree that the mission or purpose of their company makes them feel their job is important.”

Focus your attraction and retention strategies on delivering learning opportunities and career development. This way millennials are assured that their jobs provide plenty of opportunities for skill development and career advancement.

Keep in mind millennials may want to pursue independent project work, attend conferences, take classes, and join professional organizations.

Give them the flexibility and resources to do so, whether this means tuition reimbursement, or time off work to ensure they are fulfilled.

The Impact of New Technology

New technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data analytics are having a huge impact on field service operations.

These new technologies are providing real-time insights into field assets that can be used to predict when a piece of equipment might fail, allowing for proactive maintenance. However, with all of this technology, there comes the need for change across your field team in order make sense of all this new information. Here are a few steps you can take to make sure your team is prepared for the impact of technology on your field service group.

Make a Plan:

First off, you will need a plan to prepare for the impact these technologies will have across your field service organization. For example, you will need to train field engineers on how to potentially service IoT-based equipment, build a roadmap for incorporating new devices, and identify which technician or dispatch behaviours will change based on this new technology.

Will customer issues be identified at a server level when equipment fails? What does this do to the dispatch workflow? Are you incorporating wearables at an employee level to improve communication or field-based efficiency? What software will you need to ensure these devices operate smoothly within your current frameworks and infrastructure?

Create a roadmap that accounts for the short, and long-term implications of devices, services, and technician needs.

KISS Principal:

Albert Einstein once stated, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” This is where the KISS principle comes into play during change management exercises. Stepping up to the challenges associated with all of these different technologies is difficult and complicated.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simplerWith any digital transformation, the best possible course of action is to simplify by starting with small, simple changes. Select a small behaviour, or wearable device that your customers are using, and optimize around that. Then, scale what you have learned across more devices, customer behaviours, and internal processes. With a change this impactful it is best to keep it simple, sir.

Uberization of Service

As Amazon, Uber, Airbnb and other upstart organizations continue to heighten customer expectations, field service organizations have struggled to keep pace with these new demands.

Customers now expect transparency around service delivery such as the real-time location of the field technician responsible for the appointment as well as personalized communication preferences like text or email.

However, the delivery of exceptional service requires changes to the technician’s traditional role and skill set.

Here are few areas that should be looked at to change.

Product and Service Training:

Field service professionals understand the inner workings of the products they maintain but they might not be knowledgeable enough to upsell a new product or service to a customer.

To enable this ability, sales and marketing training should be provided to field service professionals so they understand the features and benefits of different services. Sales and marketing is a new type of training and skillset for most field service professionals but one that can really benefit the top line.

Increasing revenue is an important focus for many organizations but it is proving to be a difficult one as 76% of field service providers report they are struggling to achieve revenue growth, according to the TSIA. Sales and marketing training could be the support ticket that helps change this trend.

Soft Skill Training:

Field service professionals are now required to interact with clients in a way that elevates the customer experience, resulting in upsell opportunities and less customer churn.

64% of consumers have switched providers in at least one industry due to poor customer service.Preventing customer churn is especially important as Accenture reported that 64% of consumers have switched providers in at least one industry due to poor customer service.

To provide a higher level of personalized service requires better soft skills, something not every person has, but this ability is a key to this new service delivery model. In fact, study conducted by Development Dimensions International found that for every $1,100 invested in soft skills training, employers earned an average return of $4,000.

Training soft skills can help a technician provide more empathy towards the customer, improve communication and the ability to provide a more personalized experience.

Soft skill training is especially important for millennials as they often lack these abilities. An investment in soft skills training is worthwhile for any organization but can be particularly important in delivering a great customer experience.

Conclusion

The key to handling all of these changes is a commitment from all involved. In fact, McKinsey found that when people are truly invested in change it is 30 percent more likely to stick.

However, making the challenge even more daunting is that organizations no longer have the luxury of implementing changes over a 3-5 year period of time as in the past.

Change is no longer a periodic event, but one that is constant as the market and technology continue to evolve at faster and faster rates. Field service teams need to prepare now.

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Kevin McNally, Asolvi gives us the inside track on what makes a strong RFP when looking for a new FSM solution, and the benefits the process can yield...

Want to Know More? There is a white paper that expands upon which is available to Field Service News subscribers. Not a subscriber? If you're a field service management professional click here to apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription

When building your initial RFP (i.e. the document you give to prospective solution providers that outlines your needs and objectives) for a field service management system, you are able to establish not only a firm understanding of what the challenges are that you are looking to resolve, but also a reasonably wide-ranging understanding of what is possible.

I recently co-authored a white paper with Kris Oldland, Field Service News that offers five fundamental points for consideration to help you ensure that your RFP gives you the very best chance of selecting a solution provider that will be able to work with you to deliver the right solution to help you improve efficiency in the mission-critical operations of field service.

The white paper looks at each of these in some depth but let’s take a quick look at each now.

Consideration #1: Don’t wait until you’ve completed your RFP to approach potential Field Service Management solution providers use them to develop and refine it from the outset...

Some companies like to come to the table with an understanding of what their needs are and will approach the market with a fully formalised RFP. Other companies may be less sure of what a solution can provide so they may engage with a number of providers at an earlier stage.

In today’s business world we are in the era of Everything as a Service, where business and system ecosystems and outcome based contracts require building deeper relationships - a strong argument can be made for the latter approach.

In fact, there are a number of reasons behind why this approach is becoming more and more popular and in the white paper we take a look at three of these which are:

1. You’ll never know what you don’t know you don’t know!
2. Get a feel as to if a potential provider is in it for the long-haul or the quick-buck
3. Strong relationships are built over time, but all have to begin somewhere

Consideration #2: It is crucial that you keep the fundamentals in place of what you require from a new field service management solution as you build the RFP...

As you begin to develop your RFP it is absolutely crucial that you keep the fundamentals required in mind when bringing together the roadmap for where you want your service operation to go and how you want your new solution to take you there.

Whilst the obvious starting place is to look at your current pain points, far too often companies can tend to put too much emphasis on various small problems rather than focus on the bigger picture

During this stage, you really need to be thinking macro rather than micro.

Consideration #3: Get a firm understanding of the key baseline technologies that you should be expecting from a modern FSM solution...

You’re looking for your FSM solution to become the link between your back office operations and your field workers. At its core this means that the functionality you need as a minimum requirement is to facilitate communication - whether that be between dispatcher and engineer, engineer to engineer or even the easy flow of data to and from the field and all other co-dependent business units.

Real-time information flow is therefore absolutely critical and something that you should be seeking from any modern FSM solution that you consider.

Consideration #4: Don’t make a decision from the top of an ivory tower - make sure you take in some feedback from the guys who will actually be using the system day in, day out...

It is important to get an understanding of your existing work-flows and how the end users in your team are going to be using a system. A natural default is to focus on how the engineers are going to utilise a system, but don’t fall into the common trap of glossing over how a new solution will impact on the way the back office support team works as well.

Those companies that tend to get the most out of a new FSM solution are often those that have built up a fuller picture of how they will be using the system throughout the process of building their RFP.

It is very often the case also that the companies that get this right have taken the time to listen to their end users both in the field and in the back office.

Consideration #5: Integration needs to be at the forefront of your thinking - will the FSM system play nicely with both legacy systems and even systems you may need in the future?

In one sense it almost feels that in today’s world where, as we’ve already alluded to, easy data flow should be at the top of your list for any prospective new FSM solution (or business system in general for that matter) that integration should be a bit of a gimme.

However, things aren’t quite as simple as that - it is still an important question to ask, just as it is important to understand that one integration to another can be hugely different.

There will be certain integrations that are a given - but there may well be some that fall outside of that group, so it is important that you understand the whole ecosystem of your business network across various different units of your organisation.

Want to Know More? There is a white paper that expands upon which is available to Field Service News subscribers. Not a subscriber? If you're a field service management professional click here to apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription

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