Charlie's continued journey towards the perfect balance between service and sales continues as we explore the next section of our exclusive serialisation of the excellent industry focussed book Beyond Great Service.
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Jan 03, 2018 • Features • Management • management • beyond great service • Jim Baston
Charlie's continued journey towards the perfect balance between service and sales continues as we explore the next section of our exclusive serialisation of the excellent industry focussed book Beyond Great Service.
If you're new to this series then you can catch up on the story so far by clicking here
Last time Charlie put the preliminary plan together to implement the strategy. First stop, discuss it with the technicians and get them on board. Here we find Charlie as he presents the concept to the technicians.
It’s Charlie’s turn again and he turns on the projector. As it is warming up he gives a brief introduction. “Last week we talked about the idea of getting you guys to be more proactive in promoting our services to our customers, and many of you provided me with your opinions. I think you made it pretty clear that you didn’t see your role as selling and, when you do bring opportunities forward, we don’t have the systems in place to consistently support you.” If Charlie expected a room full of nods, he was disappointed. No one moved or showed any change in expression.
Charlie continued, “I have to tell you that your feedback put me back on my heels a bit. I was a little disappointed frankly, because I felt that you were in the best position to point out to our customers what we can do for them. Fortunately, Ken was able to re-walk me through the meeting and your comments, and help me understand what you were saying. And am I glad he did. I would like you to know that based on our meeting last week, I have come full circle. I don’t want you to sell our services to our customers. That was a mistake!”
Now there was movement in the room. Charlie noticed the techs looking at each other and the shuffling and murmurs. Angus speaks up. “Let me get this right, Charlie. Are you saying that you don’t want us to talk to our customers about our products and services?”
[quote float="left"]If you took your car in for an oil change and the mechanic noticed that your brakes needed replacement, would you not expect him to advise you of the fact and recommend they be changed?
“Good question, Angus. No, I am not saying that you shouldn’t talk to our customers about our products and services. In fact, you should, so long as you feel it is in the customer’s interest. What I am saying is that I don’t want you to act as salespeople for the company.”
“It makes sense to me, but what is the difference between what you have outlined here and selling?”
“Another good question, Angus. There is a difference and, although it is very subtle, it is critically important. If you took your car in for an oil change and the mechanic noticed that your brakes needed replacement, would you not expect him to advise you of the fact and recommend they be changed?”
“Absolutely!”
“Would you consider it selling?”
“No, not really.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is an important part of the service he provides. If he did not tell me, I don’t think he would be doing his job. In fact, I think he has an obligation to tell me. It’s a safety issue.”
“Okay. How about this? Let’s say what he observes is not a ‘safety issue’, but instead simply an action you can take that will save you money. Perhaps your particular model of car could be modified to improve your gas mileage by at least 10%. And the cost of the modification could be paid for through savings at the pump in just 9 months. Let’s say that he points this out and recommends that you do the modification. Let’s also assume that if he didn’t tell you about the modification, you would be none the wiser, and your car or your safety would not be at all compromised. Would your answer change? Would his recommendation be selling?”
[quote float="right"]The service we provide is using our knowledge and expertise to make recommendations to help the customer achieve their goals. It’s like offering them our heads as well as our hands
“That’s a harder one, Charlie. I guess strictly speaking it is selling in a way, but I don’t honestly think it is,” responds Angus. “So long as what he is telling me was not a load of bull to pry me away from my wallet, I’d say it was an essential part of the service to let me know about the modification. I could always say no.”
“So would you call that selling?” asked Charlie.
“In a way it is and in a way it isn’t. Like selling, he is talking to me about the modification and trying to convince me to take his advice, but he is doing it with the best of intentions. If I had to choose, it is more like a service and an important one at that.”
“Thanks Angus. That’s what I am talking about. We provide a service to the customer any time we use our know-how to help them be better. What I am suggesting should not be mistaken as a ‘service-of-the-month club’. The service we provide is using our knowledge and expertise to make recommendations to help the customer achieve their goals. It’s like offering them our heads as well as our hands. Does that make sense?”
Thinking about your business:
- Have you clearly communicated why proactive recommendations by your technicians are an integral part of the service they provide?
- Do your actions support your words[/unordered_list]
Next time we will see how Charlie presents the strategy to his team.
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Dec 11, 2017 • Management • News • Jan Van Veen • management • moreMomentum • Events
moreMomentum organises several Momentum Impulse Sessions in Europe and the USA. Executive peers from various manufacturing industries exchange practices, challenges and ideas how to accelerate the business innovation and change and drive success...
moreMomentum organises several Momentum Impulse Sessions in Europe and the USA. Executive peers from various manufacturing industries exchange practices, challenges and ideas how to accelerate the business innovation and change and drive success into the digital service economy...
Rapid changes
It has never been a better time to be in the manufacturing industry than nowadays. New technology like big data, algorithms, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and many more are rapidly being adopted by people and organisations.
How to thrive in such a disruptive world
No doubt there exciting opportunities for manufacturing companies. With the new intelligence from the massive amount of data from connected devices and equipment they can create new value for their customers. They can enhance their value propositions and adopt new business models.
However, it’s not only the manufacturing companies that pursue these opportunities. New business are entering the into the market. These new entrants do not have metal, electronics and mechanics in their DNA, but data, algorithms and turning this into value. Besides the well-known companies like Amazon and Google there are many smaller companies moving rapidly. This is changing the competitive arena big time.
When we look at how manufacturers innovate their business and drive change, we see that many encounter 3 key problems which cause them to fall behind competition.
- Change is slow, whether it is small change or more radical changes, there seems to be a lot of energy getting lost in resistance and fighting resistance
- They are stuck in “business-as-usual”. Most innovations are about incremental improvement of current products, services and capabilities.
- Leaders and employees who see the opportunities, threats and lack of progress in their company experience they have no influence to accelerate change.
4 winning habits for momentum
It is mission-critical for manufacturing companies to accelerate business innovation and change for future success. Our research in 89 companies in 2016 identified 4 winning habits for momentum.
- Direction: Everyone shares a clear and succinct picture of changes in the industry, where the company is heading and what needs to change over the coming years. They all understand how they can contribute to the change, and ultimately, fit in.
- Dialogue: Across all teams and levels there is a constructive and forward-looking dialogue on performance, progress, priorities and aligned actions. Everyone feels secure and confident to adapt and try new approaches.
- Decision-making: Everyone has the power to make decisions within their role, to adjust, perform and improve. There are adequate guiding principles to ensure coherence and alignment of all decisions.
- Discovery: Everyone is aware of (potential) trends, opportunities and threats and the best practices available. They spend time in exploring, testing and learning. There is more focus on new things which go beyond the current core business, which is imperative for future success.
Interactive Momentum Impulse Session
moreMomentum organises a series of Momentum Impulse Sessions throughout Europe and USA. During these full day sessions, executives will discuss the 4 winning habits for momentum, their practices and challenges with business innovation and change and will identify opportunities how to accelerate change in their business.
Key-topics:
- Winning habits and strategies which make a (continuous) business innovation easy and quick
- Key obstacles and typical pitfalls for rapid business innovation and change
- Strategic priorities to accelerate business innovation and change and maximise chances for success
You will get valuable input for further developing the right innovation and change strategy and boosting your service innovation!
Upcoming sessions are:
- January 24 in Birmingham (UK) - £375
- March 21 in Munich (Germany) - €425
- May 14 in New York (USA) - $595
- May 23 in Eindhoven (The Netherlands - €425
Field Service News readers receive 30% discount. Enter FSN as promotional code to secure your discount.
Book your seat for your preferred session now.
About moreMomentum:
moreMomentum is an international consulting, training and coaching company which works with manufacturing companies to get more momentum into their ongoing business innovation and change. They exists to accelerate the transition of industrial manufacturing into the digital service economy.
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Dec 11, 2017 • Features • Management • Cognito • KPIs • Laurent Othacéhé • Productivity
Improving productivity is the cornerstone of establishing a framework for delivering field service excellence. Laurent Othacéhé, CEO, Cognito iQ outlines why and how you should approach improving your field service productivity...
Improving productivity is the cornerstone of establishing a framework for delivering field service excellence. Laurent Othacéhé, CEO, Cognito iQ outlines why and how you should approach improving your field service productivity...
Want to know more? A white paper on this topic is available to Field Service News subscribers - if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription - apply now and we will send you a copy of this white paper whilst we process your application!
Expectations of field service have never been higher
Customers are used to the speed of delivery and quality of service that they get from consumer companies such as Amazon; this has raised the bar for all service companies. Customers want a service appointment quickly, they want smaller appointment windows and they expect your field worker to have the right information as well as the skills, knowledge and parts to resolve their issue first time.
Against this backdrop is the growing need for the service department to both reduce costs and contribute to revenues. Uncertain economic conditions have led many companies to strive to be more efficient and field service departments are facing significant pressure to cut costs and “do more with less.”
How do field service organisations provide a better service to their customers, with fewer resources? Our customers tell us they are focused on efficiency and productivity gains, and this is borne out by the market:
- 56% of field service professionals say that their customers are demanding faster response times
- 47% of field service professionals say they need to improve service process efficiencies
- 49% of field service professionals say that the primary objective for their field mobility investment in the coming year will be maximising productivity [/unordered_list]
So how do you improve productivity?
To answer that question, you have to know what productivity means to your business. All businesses will have a different definition and an individual approach. For example, would you be happy to drive up the number of visits per day your field workers attend if that meant fewer first time fixes, or reduced customer satisfaction scores?
The old adage is that you can’t manage what you can’t measure but, these days, companies know that it is a bit more complicated than that – measurement for its own sake or using the wrong metrics to set targets can be counter-productive. It is vital to know how to measure success: which metrics are useful and which aren’t, which can be accurately determined and which can’t, how metrics interact and how setting goals and targets will affect how employees go about their jobs.
At the operational level, field service leaders need accurate, timely data about field operations and the analytic capabilities to look for bottlenecks and opportunities to improve.
In 2016, Field Service News reported that improving the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used to measure performance was the top strategic action for the year ahead for 64% of field service organisations in the UK and Europe.
Field Technologies Online reported that 75% of field service organisations do not effectively measure their KPIs and 27% of those do not use KPIs at all.
Our customers tell us that the biggest challenges in improving productivity come not only from a need to define and measure it, but also from knowing how to influence workers to behave in the most productive way. This is a challenge that plays out at an operational level and an employee level.
At the operational level, field service leaders need accurate, timely data about field operations and the analytic capabilities to look for bottlenecks and opportunities to improve. At the employee level, leaders need to know how each field worker is performing, how to solve performance problems and how to motivate, train and support each worker effectively.
Simply, through continual improvement
This is not a new idea. Continual improvement is a well-established practice that seeks to increase customer value, reduce waste and optimise resources via incremental change, feedback and analysis. These techniques originated in manufacturing; on a production line, it is relatively simple to measure variables such as number of defects, as you can easily see how the work is being done and you can observe the impact when you make changes to the process. But as continual improvement methodologies have developed, they have been profitably applied in many other industries, so why not field service operations?
There are challenges: field service workers aren’t widgets that can be counted and checked. They work remotely, often independently, and may only come back to base on rare occasions.
Field service workers aren’t widgets that can be counted and checked. They work remotely, often independently, and may only come back to base on rare occasions.
Adopting a continual improvement approach means that first you plan and do: Planning data has historically been focused on task, time and location: telling workers what to do, where to go and when. But if you want to improve the plan for tomorrow, you will need to study how efficiently the plan worked today and act to make changes.
For example, were job durations as you expected? If tasks took longer than planned you may have unhappy customers and a big overtime bill. If they took less time, are you paying workers who have gone home early? Detailed data on durations enables you to act, adjusting task durations to feed back into the plan for tomorrow. It is the combination of many small changes, and the continual feedback loop of measurement, analysis and change that will gradually and incrementally improve productivity.
Want to know more? A white paper on this topic is available to Field Service News subscribers - if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription - apply now and we will send you a copy of this white paper whilst we process your application!
Please note that by applying for subscription via the above links you consent to our Terms and Conditions as listed here.
Not one for a load of legalese? Neither are we - that's why we put together a jargon-free version of our T&Cs on our subscription page which you'll find here
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Dec 05, 2017 • Features • Management • Keith Wilkinson • Waters • Waters Corporation • Wilhelm Nehring • ClickSoftware • Darren Thomas • JCB • Robin Bryant • Schlumberger • Scot JCB • thysenkrupp • Vasu Guruswamy
In September this year Field Service News and ClickSoftware teamed up to launch the FSN Think Tank Sessions. The idea was simple to bring together a selection of senior field service professionals from different industries and and different company...
In September this year Field Service News and ClickSoftware teamed up to launch the FSN Think Tank Sessions. The idea was simple to bring together a selection of senior field service professionals from different industries and and different company sizes and give them the opportunity to discuss the pain points, the challenges and their vision of the future of service and see where the similarities lay.
Across the following few months there will be a series of articles that will help share the insights discussed at this inaugural Think Tank Session and in the first part of our opening series we explored the discussion points that focused on the importance of the Field Service Engineer's role asking whether it is growing or diminishing in importance in a world of automation and digitisation. In the concluding part of this feature we continue the discussion and explore the importance of ownership when following up on customer issues...
There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service which is available for Field Service News subscribers.
If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription and we will send you a copy of this white paper along instantly.Click here to apply for your subscription now! (by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain english version is available from our main subscriptions page here)
In the part one of this feature we concluded with an excellent point being made by Keith Wilkinson, VP of Sales for ClickSoftware who commented that in today's field service environment the 'field service engineer, from a digitisation perspective, needs to have all the tools, all the knowledge and information possible at his disposal so he can be empowered - so he can become that brand ambassador.'
Wilkinson’s point is a hugely important one and indeed is one that is becoming a serious consideration for many service organisations.
Whether you are offering outcome based solutions and service is crucial to your primary revenue stream or whether you are still running your service operation as a cost centre within a product-centric business, the fact remains that good service can go along way to retaining business, whilst poor service will drive your customers into your competitors arms.
There is nothing more powerful when it comes to engendering brand loyalty than facing a real customer service challenge and bringing the client with you through that issue and into resolution.” - Kris Oldland, Field Service News
“What about the follow up as well though?” Thomas asked the group.
“Constantly informing them [the customer] about the progress that is being made? For me it is very much about how you bring that customer with you through the resolution journey - how you outline to the customer how you will solve their problem – and that can come down to communicating across the management chain as well just the field engineer.”
“It’s an information train isn’t it – and that is dependent upon transparency and honesty,” concurs Kris Oldland, Editor-in Chief, Field Service News.
“Personally, I think more companies need to perhaps embrace that notion. More companies need to say to their clients ‘this is the process we are going down to resolve your issue, we can’t get this fixed right away but we are moving heaven and earth to get it fixed and here is what is being done.’ Because there is nothing more powerful when it comes to engendering brand loyalty than facing a real customer service challenge and bringing the client with you through that issue and into resolution.”
“Turning around a bad experience and transforming it into a good experience is something that can make that customer become a customer for life – mainly because it is making them feel valued and understood,” he adds.
“I think we need to remember the old maxim about quality over quantity,” comments Vasu Guruswarmy, the recent former VP of Global Service for Schlumberger.
“Whether it’s people or automation each one brings its own power.” He adds.
“Definitely the bar on automation is rising; and there is no getting away from the fact that knowledge systems are critical. But we had the problem before we went worldwide [with their own knowledge bank] that everybody believed in reinventing the wheel because that was the value that they sought for themselves - and so the idea of putting knowledge in a system was an anathema for most people and it took us a long time to turn this culture around.”
“In fact, I had to take a slightly provocative approach.”
“We had people that were facing challenges asking ‘what do I have to do in this condition?’ And some guru in the world would answer their problem - which was great because the first time around as it adds enormous value, but then there was a slightly negative impact on the business because there was little checking to see if what was being added was repetition, had it already been covered before?”
Indeed, this is often the problem with implementing knowledge bases, as Thomas had previously alluded to - it can become a challenge to stop the tail wagging the dog if left unchecked with multiple articles covering the same ground. However, for Guruswamy and Schlumberger the issue went deeper than just one of inefficiency.
As the bar keeps rising with automation it is even more important that the quality of people remains high – because when the automated solutions fail that is when the engineer must bring resolution" - Vasu Guruswamy, Former VP Global Service, Schlumberger
“For us the quality of people that we engage who are facing the customer is absolutely vital. And so as the bar keeps rising with automation it is even more important that the quality of people remains high – because when the automated solutions fail that is when the engineer must bring resolution. They need to know the customer and they need to know what the problem is – and then find the resolution.”
“There is no point in having 200 field service engineers running around with 180 of them being inefficient – and that is the biggest challenge that many companies face,” he concluded.
Again it was an excellent point for consideration.
“It is a fair assumption to say that for most companies when an engineer is ultimately sent out, when the truck rolls, that this is the end result in a chain of events that have led to diagnostics and remote or self-repair having failed?” Oldland asked the group.
“Is the engineer is now expected to have an additional level of knowledge and experience to provide the expert resolution that couldn’t be delivered via any other means?” He added.
“For us we are looking at automation to get better efficiency for the engineers that we’ve got,” replied Robin Bryant, Service Director of JCB Scot.
“But in our industry we are dealing with companies that may have one machine or they may have ten machines and when they have an issue they may be doubting if they buy any more. So when the engineer comes out and makes a good impression, turns it around, fixes it and is positive about the product it can have a huge impact on whether that next purchase is our equipment or a competitors.”
“We’ve always had some guys around the depot that are really good at that stuff and they are great guys, but then there are those that aren’t so good in that part of the role and so we are looking at how we get training out to the team to bring everyone up to that upper level. Ultimately, the engineer can have a hugely positive impact with the customer but they can also potentially have an equally negative impact as well, so for us automation is as much as about brining service standards to a consistently high level as it is about the efficiency gains we see from it.” He added.
“For us also, we have a very prominent parent brand in JCB and they set high standards in our service delivery expectations that are a reflection of the importance of their brand. They set us targets in terms of where they want us to be in terms of service level, the quality of our engineers and the amount of training that we have to do, but they are also incredibly supportive at the same time.”
Again Bryant’s comments were echoed across the group, reflecting the general acceptance of the importance of the role the field service engineer plays within an organisations ability to retain business from their clients.
Dr Wilhelm Nehring, CEO thyssenkrupp Elevator, UK and Eire summarised the group’s discussions so far neatly saying “Of course, one of the nice thing about this group is that we are all from different industries and from companies of different sizes, but one thing for us in our industry is that we cannot allow our clients to maintain or repair a lift – it is a matter of health and safety.”
“For us we have constant contact with our clients through our engineers, and I very much like the phrase Darren [Thomas] used earlier of ‘brand ambassadors’. This is exactly what our engineers are for us. To a certain degree I think the role of the service engineer has become more important, I would also agree with Steve’s [Smith] point that it has always been an important role, but the competitive market out there has made the role of the service engineer more visible and so things like training and teaching your staff to be that brand ambassador have become vital.”
“It’s a different thing to do, to engage with the client. You need to be able to have the technical skills to actually fix the lift - but you also need to interact with the client. What else does the client want? What else does the client need?”
“For us at thyssenkrupp, our engineers are the most important asset that we have – so when we get feedback from clients about how brilliant or impressive our engineers are, this is our lifeblood. This is what we do – so it is incredibly important to us.”
“Coming back to how we enable that, we invested heavily in what we call ‘International Technical Service Centres’ because we also undertake third party maintenance on other companies assets. We have 1.2 million units under maintenance – and about a third of them are other makes and brands so we need to enable our people to maintain these other units as well.”
For us Automation, IoT - all this digitalisation that we’re talking about is not something to replace engineers, or even to have less engineers - it is for us to enable our engineers to do the job better than they could before" - Wilhelm Nehring, CEO, thysenkrupp Elevators
“If you then come into the client experience, so lifts as a commodity, a lot of people don’t care toomuch about the lift as long as it goes up and down, most people don’t think about a lift until it breaks down,” he adds
“So one thing that we have done is to invest heavily in IoT. In part, this is to be ahead of the game, but it’s fiercely competitive because the developments in IoT are so fast. For example, twelve months ago I thought wow; we are so far ahead of the game, then this year I feel already that the world is changing so fast that we really need to be on our toes to stay ahead.”
“For us Automation, IoT - all this digitalisation that we’re talking about is not something to replace engineers, or even to have less engineers - it is for us to enable our engineers to do the job better than they could before. Today our engineers, before they arrive on site know already why the lift is not working so they can make sure they have the knowledge and parts to hand to drive that first time fix.”
“Then as we move to the second phase and we talk about the IoT and Machine learning, and we now have over 110,000 units connected to the system, which allows us to enter this predictive phase which means that with all the data we have from these installations, we can define patterns, build clusters with similar installations, similar components, similar locations, like a hospital for example – so we can then go to our clients and say ‘this part is likely to fail within between seven and seven and a half years.’”
“It’s no longer a conversation based around a gut feeling from our engineers on site, we are now able to have that conversation backed up with solid data and insight that allows us to fix it before if fails. In theory we want to move to completley pre-emptive maintenance.”
What is interesting across the discussion is that whilst the reasons may be varied as are the industries represented in our small but highly knowledgeable group, the central theme remains the same.
What is interesting across the discussion is that whilst the reasons may be varied as are the industries represented in our small but highly knowledgeable group, the central theme remains the same.
For some like Scot JCB it is a tool to ensure the highest standards delivered by their engineers become a consistent norm across their workforce, for others like thyssenkrupp it is at the heart of revolutionary change both within their organisation and indeed in their wider industry.
For Waters, automation offers an opportunity to reduce costly truck rolls whilst improving mean-time- to-repair through knowledge bases and remote diagnostics, something Schlumberger have also embraced in the past.
However, as Nehring expressed automation doesn’t necessarily mean fewer field service engineers, it means field service engineers better placed to do their job.
So as we move into a world of outcome based contracts and a world of remote diagnostics - the field service call becomes increasingly important.
As Guruswamy alluded to - what is the point of having a large field service workforce if only 10% of them are truly experts?
Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, automation and digital transformation have raised the stakes even further for the field service engineer.
By the time a truck roll is scheduled, the issue should be either fully diagnosed so a first time fix is now expected by the client or the issue has proven to be more complex in which case the field service engineer is now being seen as your organisations leading expert, the top guy sent to not only save the day, but also to potentially save your organisations reputation and retain your customer’s business.
Today’s engineer it seems not only needs to be a ‘true expert’ as Guruswamy discussed, but also a friendly face, your ‘brand ambassador’ with softer people-skills in his locker as well.
Has the importance of the role of the field service engineer grown in an age of digital transformation and automation?
The consensus from our Think Tank is absolutely, the field service engineer has become one of the most critical roles within an organisation - and recruiting and retaining good field service talent has become more important than ever before.
There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service which is available for Field Service News subscribers.
If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription and we will send you a copy of this white paper along instantly.Click here to apply for your subscription now! (by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain english version is available from our main subscriptions page here)
This inaugural session of the FSN Think Tank was sponsored by:
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Nov 23, 2017 • Features • Management • management • Nick Frank • Recruitment • Richard Cowley • Dag Gronevik • Si2 partners • Talent Acquisition
Nick Frank, Managing partner at Si2 Partners, looks at the trials and tribulations of sourcing the talent to drive your field service organisation forward and asks why are we not doing this better?
Nick Frank, Managing partner at Si2 Partners, looks at the trials and tribulations of sourcing the talent to drive your field service organisation forward and asks why are we not doing this better?
Delivering on business objectives demands that we really understand and acquire those capabilities that help us differentiate from competition. Indeed, the same is true for us as professionals as we look for own next steps in our career. Yet matching needs with people is still recognised as one of the biggest challenges for employers and employees alike.
The reality is that for business in general and in the area of service business specifically, finding people who can deliver (experience, knowledge, qualifications & competencies), are highly motivated (right career move, location, salary, benefits & company) and fit (industry, company values, team they will be working with) is a major management headache. The impact of getting this process wrong can be a costly, time consuming, an emotionally draining exercise and frankly devastating on objectives.
Why is it like this?
Successful companies ideally manage their talent acquisition through a balance of succession planning, external hiring, or interim positions. This journey is complex and fraught with organisational, political and external challenges to deliver a robust and effective talent management framework. In this age when data, analytics and connectivity technologies threaten to disrupt many industries, the pressure to introduce new capabilities has never been stronger. Increasingly, service leaders are frustrated that to find talent whether it’d be sourced internally or externally is taking too long and with minimal choice.
If you have ever tried to search for service people using these types of recruitment tools you will discover that it is very difficult to pinpoint the type of positions and qualifications you require to fill your vacancies.
Interestingly though, if you have ever tried to search for service people using these types of recruitment tools you will discover that it is very difficult to pinpoint the type of positions and qualifications you require to fill your vacancies.
One of the main stumbling blocks is that service is such a wide generic term that it identifies 1000’s of unsuitable candidates.
Using company job titles seems a good idea, but often although these might make sense to people within the business, they bear little relevance to the outside world. The result is that recruiters are forced to search for candidates with vague, irrelevant job titles which are difficult to match on the main social media platforms available today.
Alternative approaches such as on-line job boards have other challenges. Frequently job descriptions are not clear and easily understood. Recruiters do not know which talent match the ‘Service’ brief and are often overwhelmed with the volume of response, because many candidates apply based on their belief they work in the ‘Service’ industry, yet often are completely unsuitable for the job.
In summary, companies often end up waiting up from 9- 12 months to successfully fill Service Leadership positions!
What can we do about it?
With above in mind, it is possible to reduce the time it takes to hire good service people by more than 50%, through following three very simple rules:
1.Job descriptions:
Organisations are good at producing job descriptions that suit their internal HR processes, but these are often not easy to translate into the terminology used in the wider world. Don’t fall into this trap! Make sure the job description you develop meets both the internal company needs and for the recruiter is geared to the language of social networks.
2.Work with people who know Service:
Working with professionals who deeply understand your business environment and needs, will be far more effective in terms of time and quality.
Working with professionals who deeply understand your business environment and needs, will be far more effective in terms of time and quality.
3.Be involved:
Make sure that you are fully aware of the type of people being searched, so that you can ensure it is focused on the right experiences. Close teamwork between client and recruiter has been shown to significantly reduce the time it takes to identify great candidates.
By following these three simple guidelines, you will not only find people faster, you will find better qualified talent that will enrich your organisation as well as significantly reducing your recruitment costs. They also can be applied to those professionals looking to develop their career paths.
These guidelines have been developed over many years participating in the hiring process of service professionals across many parts of the world.
Whilst conceptually, fairly straightforward, they are not so easy to follow and execute. With technical and service business talent at a premium and the adoption of on-line search through social networks is transforming the recruitment process.
Good definition thorough understanding the service “space” and feedback throughout the recruitment process have become critical to successfully finding the nuggets of gold in the ocean of working humanity.
For more information on recruiting Great Service People, contact Dag Gronevik, Richard Cowley or Nick Frank on how to ‘Build your Service Capability’ at info@si2partners.com or call +44 208 144 6452.
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Nov 21, 2017 • Features • Management • Astro • FSN ThinkTank • Keith Wilkinson • Waters Inc • ClickSoftware • Darren Thomas • Steve Smith
In September this year Field Service News and ClickSoftware teamed up to launch the FSN Think Tank Sessions. The idea was simple to bring together a selection of senior field service professionals from different industries and and different company...
In September this year Field Service News and ClickSoftware teamed up to launch the FSN Think Tank Sessions. The idea was simple to bring together a selection of senior field service professionals from different industries and and different company sizes and give them the opportunity to discuss the pain points, the challenges and their vision of the future of service and see where the similarities lay.
Across the following few months there will be a series of articles that will help share the insights discussed at this inaugural Think Tank Session beginning with this opening series in which we discuss whether the importance of the Field Service Engineer's role is growing or diminishing in importance in a world of automation and digitisation...
There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service which is available for Field Service News subscribers.
If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription and we will send you a copy of this white paper along instantly. Click here to apply for your subscription now! (by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain english version is available from our main subscriptions page here)
One of the most interesting things about the field service sector is that whilst as a discipline it sits across a huge variety of wide and highly disparate industries there remains overwhelmingly the same fundamental challenges, pain points and goals for every organisation operating a field service division.
Whether you operate in the print/copy market or heavy manufacturing, whether your engineers and technicians fix vending machines or jumbo jet engines, you will invariably find more common ground with other service leaders from different industries to your own than you will find differences.
In many ways the same is true whether you have 10 engineers in your territory or 10,000.
Yes, some of the challenges of running a larger field service operation are more complicated, as are some of the tools you may use to do so - but the fundamental elements of what is great service and its growing role within industry remains in organisations of all sizes.
Given the focus of companies across all industries on Digital Transformation has the importance of field service calls become even more important in terms of Customer Satisfaction and Customer Experience - as increasingly, the field service visit is now the sole (or at least most frequent) face-to-face interaction between an organisation and their customer base?
Has the role of the field service engineer become more important in this age of automation where digital customer interaction touch points are now heavily outweighing personal face to face human interactions?
Opening the conversation on this topic Steve Smith, CTO with Astro Communications, explained that for him and the team at Astro, the importance of great service and the field engineers role in delivering a good customer experience is something that has always just been part and parcel of the job.
“I’m not sure it’s more important, I think it is has always been important, especially if you’re in a customer service business,” he began.
“The only thing we have to compete against anybody else is our standard of customer service.”
“For us I think on that front it’s all about the diversity of people we employ which has been an important factor. We even taken people from a hospitality background and then teach them the technical side of the business, putting them through training or apprenticeship. We have also taken on ex-military people as they have the right mind-set, although again not necessarily a technical background per se, but we find that they have the personal organisational skills, the self-management skills that are important for a technician.”
It is an interesting opening point and one that is increasingly being echoed in a number of different service organisations. There are far more skills to being a good field service engineer than just the technical - and often it is easier to train the technical skills than it is to train softer skills such as communications and organisational skills.
“Ultimately, it really does stand out when you have good customer service,” Smith continues.
“For example, the MD of one of our own clients, TGI Fridays, always says that when you get great customer service, you feel it’ and that sums up our ethos as well. I think that for us, that approach has always been important, but perhaps with increasing competition more of a spotlight is being placed on service as a differentiator today.”
For Darren Thomas, Head of Service in Northern Europe for Waters Corporation, the growing levels of automation and remote maintenance driven by the fundamental economics of field service means that the importance of the field service engineer has indeed increased dramatically.
“It’s costs a lot to send an engineer to repair a broken system so we are investing a lot in what we are calling an ‘Expert Centre,” he explains.
The idea is one that many organisations have also adopted, a central destination where customers can discuss the issue at hand and go through some diagnostic tests with an expert which in an ideal world could help the customer get back up and running faster, whilst avoiding the need for an expensive truck roll for Waters. One nice element of the Waters’ approach is that many of their experts split their time between the expert centre and out in the field - so the field and repair skills of the expert centre staff are kept as high as possible.
If one of our engineers comes across an issue that they haven’t faced before they are then tasked with writing up the resolution to that problem - which is then made available to all of our engineers and the Expert Centre, further helping us identify issues quickly - Darren Thomas, Waters
“The negative feedback that we get from our customers when they contact the knowledge centre is that we ask them to carry out a lot of tests before we can dispatch an engineer and that can be frustrating when we are asking an experienced person have you done x,y and z?” Thomas explains.
“However, the point is that for our organisation it is the primary interaction that is important. So if a customer calls the Expert Centre then we can affect a good diagnostic or even a remote fix - so we are investing in tools to do that where possible. We are currently implementing a global initiative which we are calling ‘Knowledge Centre Support’, where we are pooling all of the first-time- fix reports - whether it be via an engineer in China , Europe or the USA.”
“Essentially, if one of our engineers comes across an issue that they haven’t faced before they are then tasked with writing up the resolution to that problem - which is then made available to all of our engineers and the Expert Centre, further helping us identify issues quickly.”
“We really are dedicating ourselves to that first-time-fix via remote support.” He adds.
At first glance, this may appear to be driving less importance to the field service engineer role, yet whilst it may potentially reduce the number of service calls Waters needs to make, the flip side of the same coin is that when an engineer is actually dispatched it means that all other routes have been exhausted. In which case by the time the engineer arrives on site the issue has become even more important in the eyes of the customer.
It is therefore vital the Field Service Engineer is able to deliver in this scenario.
This is something that Thomas firmly agrees with.
“At the end of the day once the engineer is sent out to our clients he or she then becomes the ambassador for our company. They become really important in terms of ensuring the customer is fully satisfied,” he comments.
“I think their role is absolutely evolving in that sense.” He adds.
It is an interesting point for discussion and Keith Wilkinson, VP of Sales for ClickSoftware picks it up and carries the point further.
“We are all consumers of services whether it be from your bank, utilities providers , telco or media provider – we are all seeing this rise in automation and self-service, so you could look at it and ask – ultimately is that human touch point still important?”
“But what inevitably happens is that automation, that self-service aspect will ultimately go wrong at some point and when it does go wrong we then we have that one brief moment of truth where the engineer is sent out into the home or work place to not only just solve a problem, but also to make an impression on the customer.”
“The customer will likely have tried some levels of self-service or even to self-fix the device because they just want to get it back operational again so they can get on with their own job – so now the engineer has all their trust and faith in your company riding on their shoulders.”
“So that engineer, from a digitisation perspective, needs to have all the tools, all the knowledge and information possible at his disposal so he can be empowered - so he can become that brand ambassador. I think those scenarios it can make a huge impact on whether or not, when the time comes to renew that specific contract you actually do so or whether you think ‘I had an important issue that wasn’t really resolved effectively’ in which case your advocacy of renewing that service may be less assured.”
Want to know more? There is also an exclusive Briefing Report from this session entitled Disruption, Development and Diversity in Field Service available for Field Service News subscribers. If you are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription and we will send you a copy of this white paper along instantly. Click here to apply for your subscription now!
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Nov 17, 2017 • Features • Management
Alex Alexander, founder of Alexander Consulting discusses one of the most important yet challenging transitions field service companies must make...
Alex Alexander, founder of Alexander Consulting discusses one of the most important yet challenging transitions field service companies must make...
Alexander: What does it take to transition from free to fee?
Research Respondent: Kevlar vests and iron underwear.
Transitioning from free to fee has a nice ring to it, but how in the world do you do it without alienating your customers, de-motivating your sales force, and creating havoc in your organisation? What is the correct strategy for your organisation to start getting paid for the services you have been giving away?
By reading this article you will learn that your task is more difficult compared to those who have little history providing services because you have trained your customers and your salespeople that services are free, and since they are free they can’t be worth much! You’ll discover the need to be prepared for the inevitable pushback to this change and what you must do to be ready to deal with it. You’ll learn the five strategies for making this transition from free to fee and which strategy is most viable in most situations.
NOTE: Many readers of Field Service News have already made this difficult but vital transition. If that describes you and you are short of time, move on. However, this is also a chance to help your field service colleagues learn from your experiences. If you have lessons learned or tips to ease the pain, please pass them on by commenting.
The Five Strategies in Transitioning from Free to Fee
Strategy One: Don’t Do It!
Just kidding. But when you realise all the potential grief you may get for leading this change, you may wish you hadn’t started. More seriously, unless you are willing to rigorously do the steps outlined a little later, you may want to wait.
Ponder Point: If it is worth doing, it takes effort—lots of effort.
If there is any question at all in moving from free to fee, I suggest that you do a quick readiness review that looks at your customer issues, competitive position, internal capabilities, and executive priorities. There is no sense attempting this transition unless there is enough rational reason and emotional impetus to justify this effort.
In leading workshops on building profitable services organisations over the last decade, one of the first exercises that I ask the executive participants to do is to complete a high-level, free-to-fee readiness review of their organisation. It is a simple but powerful task that can be executed in less than 30 minutes. As the name implies, the readiness review helps determine how ready an organisation is to make this transition. It helps executives determine the factors in place today that will either help or hinder the future goal of selling services. The focus is on the biggest, most important factors that will impact this transition.
Figure 1 provides an example of an executive’s readiness review from one of my workshops. On the positive side, there were several helping factors in place that ideally could be leveraged to make the transition from free to fee successful.
Having a large installed base meant lots of prospects for selling services. Customers who buy high-priced, complex products are more likely to spend money on services such as an insurance policy to improve uptime. Strong consultants and technical support personnel probably have a level of customer trust already established, hence if they recommend to customers that they buy services, the customer is likely to do so.
Customers who buy high-priced, complex products are more likely to spend money on services such as an insurance policy to improve uptime
On the hindering side, there were some significant factors to consider. The organisation in this example had been giving services away forever, and customers expected it. The organisation had a strong product culture, and as I’ve already emphasised, this is a big deal when trying to introduce change. Furthermore, sellers that don’t want to sell services, don’t know how to sell services, and have no negative consequences if they don’t sell services are strong deterrents to getting customers to pay for services.
In this case, the services executive learned that his task of transitioning from free to fee was a huge challenge, and after completing the readiness review, one that he doubted could be accomplished at all. After some consultation with me and his workshop peers, he decided that he needed to approach his boss with his assessment that the move from free to fee was not doable at this time. However, he was first going to get some fact-based information to back-up his thinking and make a stronger business case. This 30-minute readiness review may have saved him months of toil and frustration.
How realistic is making the move from free to fee in your organisation today?
GIST: If the possibilities of success are small, wait for things to change—they always do.
Strategy Two: Flip the Switch
Ponder Point: If it seems easy, it probably won’t work.
If you feel that free to fee can work in your organisation, first consider flipping the switch.
This strategy is based on picking a date in the future and letting everyone know that from that day forward, all services have fees attached to them. The positive side is that it is simple, it is fair from the standpoint of treating everyone the same, and if successful, it will quickly add a new revenue stream.
However, this is a difficult strategy to implement and manage. Within minutes of the announcement, the phones will start to ring as sellers call sales management, sales management calls your executives, and the execs call you (the services troublemaker, as you are beginning to be called), all saying the same thing: “Yes, we understand the need to charge for services, and as a rule I totally support it, but in this case, it is not a good idea, because ‘blah, blah, blah.’” The “blah, blah, blah” includes “we will lose a big pending sale because of our higher price,” “the competition gives it away, and this will give them a wedge inside the company,” or “the customer’s policy is not to pay for any services,” and similar-sounding reasons.
If you are initially able to fend off your people internally who are trying to twist your arm, the salespeople will collude and plot with customers, and soon the customers will start calling you, either pleading or threatening, or both. If you don’t meet their demands, they will call senior management and senior management will cave. Therefore, the rule of everyone paying for all services very quickly becomes the exception as more and more customers are waived from having to pay. You spend all your time in defensive mode, making it hard for you to get the real work done.
GIST: Just don’t do it. You will be hated, non-productive, and not much fun to be around.
Strategy Three: Grandfather Existing Customers
Ponder Point: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not for long.
Under this strategy, all old customers are “grandfathered” and will continue to get services for free, however, all new customers are tagged to pay. The strength of this is that you don’t rock the boat with the installed base, and new customers don’t have a past history to compare what was and what is. Sold correctly, many new customers will pay, providing you with new revenue. The problem here, of course, is that customers talk, and new customers who find out about their second-class status will not be happy. They will see this approach as unfair and view themselves as victims. They will complain, and if they do it long enough and loud enough, they will probably get services for free as well. It will take a percentage of management time to deal with a problem that never goes away. Once again, you will be seen as “not a team player” and a “troublemaker.”
GIST: Don’t attempt this strategy either.
Strategy Four: Launch in New Markets
This strategy is a variation of Strategy Three, where all old customers are grandfathered in. However, if you are opening up new geographies or new market segments, this strategy can work, as customers in these spaces probably will be less likely to be in contact with your old customers. Plus, you can make the case with some credibility that their situation is different and justifies that you charge for services. This approach is more feasible than Strategy Two or Strategy Three, but it is still a challenge to manage.
Again, in most cases I do not recommend it, but it can work adequately in some situations.
Strategy Five: Productise the Old and Sell the New
Ponder Point: People will fight to keep what they have, so don’t try to take away something they feel they deserve.
The problem with the strategies outlined above is that they trigger a powerful, negative psychological response—no one likes to have things taken away from them or not be treated the same as others. Think of your reaction to small personal takeaways, such as when your bank starts charging you for checks that used to be free, or your airline makes you pay for blankets.
Hence, this is the strategy I recommend almost always: Productise the old and sell the new. The beauty of this is that it takes nothing away from your customers or your sellers.
Think of your reaction to small personal takeaways, such as when your bank starts charging you for checks that used to be free, or your airline makes you pay for blankets.
- Productise the old. Here the focus is to standardise the types of services that have been given away in the past to minimise the cost of these services and create a comparison that will make the new, fee-based, value-added services seem very desirable. For example, when hoping to land a deal, in the past, sales may have given away assessments that had no definition of time or quality. In other words, sales would have had a pre-sales specialist do the assessment or maybe they would even do the assessment themselves. It was based upon the availability of qualified people and the internal persuasion skills of the seller. Depending on the situation, it may have lasted anywhere from two days to five days at the customer’s site. The quality of the assessment was totally dependent on the person performing it. In this situation, the goal of delivering an assessment may have been accomplished, but it was probably done in a haphazard, non-standardised manner—one that was not repeatable and one of questionable quality.
So, the recommended shift is from an ill-defined, get-it-done-when-we-can, at-the-quality-level-of-whomever-we-can-get-to-do-it, on-average five-day assessment, to a one-day virtual assessment covering the 10 most important areas, delivered in a standardised, professional document, conducted by a qualified, trained professional. This new service and the other productised services (e.g., Quick Start installation for a software product, online core training for a product implementation) are developed by services and marketing but are categorised as a cost of sales and owned by the sales function.
- Sell the new. Building a high-value portfolio of services offerings that customers want and will pay for and one you will make good money on takes considerable effort. Plus, correctly defining, packaging, and pricing these services may take skills not currently available in your organisation. However, if you want to successfully make the transition, find the time and the talent.
GIST: This is a lot of work and will take a few months of effort to accomplish. However, this approach is far superior to the other strategies, as it gives more to the customer and to sales without taking anything away.
Author’s Note
Old pros: Please share your transitioning from free to fee lessons learned. Thank you.
Endnotes
This article was adapted from Seriously Selling Services: How to Build a Profitable Services Business in Any Industry, by James “Alex” Alexander, and can be purchased from Amazon.com or the Alexander Consulting website.
About the Author
James “Alex” Alexander is founder of Alexander Consulting, a management consultancy that helps product companies build brilliant service businesses. Contact him at 239-671-0740, alex@alexanderstrategists.com, or visit www.alexanderstrategists.com. Sign-up for Alex’s monthly newsletter, Alexander Insights, here.
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Nov 13, 2017 • Features • Management • Ashley Weller • Jan Van Veen • Mars Drinks • moreMomentum • Case Studies • case study
As part of his ongoing research what makes successful companies tick, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, has begun a series of interviews with proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead...
As part of his ongoing research what makes successful companies tick, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, has begun a series of interviews with proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.
This time around he talks to Ashley Weller, UK Service Director, Mars Drinks...
Mars Drinks is one of the world’s biggest and most successful vending machine companies and a part of Mars Incorporated. It operates globally, supplying and maintaining machines in workplaces such as offices and manufacturing sites in North America, Europe and a growing business in China and Japan. Although the sector is in decline in the UK, Mars Drinks is beating the market trends by knowing their customers and playing to their strengths, and has now been keeping us all going with our favourite hot drinks for 45 years.
Ashley Weller took over as UK Service Director in 2015, with 20 years experience in the service industry, a degree in History of Art and a passionate but empathetic leadership style.
He came in as the business was starting to see intense competition from coffee shop chains embedded in offices as well as on the high street. Ashley took the visionary decision to challenge his people to elevate their role, transforming themselves into Brand Ambassadors and adding even more value to great customer relationships.
Now, the staff are energised, their customer satisfaction is way up and the company is supplying a much wider range of products than ever before.
The challenges facing Mars Drinks UK Customer Service
Apart from the general food industry trend to coffee shops, the UK Service Department also had its own challenges for Ashley.
After many years, the service engineers had become somewhat disengaged with the role they were playing within the company, and although they were highly engaged with their regular clients and maintained great relationships there, their role was solely to fix broken machines.
Furthermore, the company had been focusing its investment on sales and marketing, leaving the service department, with its good customer feedback, to continue operating with minimal investment. There was a feeling that that their impact wasn’t as valued as other departments and that the great work they’d been doing wasn’t getting the recognition it should.
The Strategy
Ashley wanted to bring the Service division back into the fold of the company and use the engineers’ knowledge and excellent client relationships as a USP to build more business. To do this, in a 3-year plan, he created a supportive, safe environment free from blame that enabled the engineers to be the drivers of that change, supporting them all the way along their journey to become Brand Ambassadors.
The service leadership team would be vital to the process, being the first to experience the new environment, supporting it from day one and learning first-hand how the new dialogue would work, so they could pass on their experiences to the teams.
Here we will show how Mars Drinks demonstrated each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its plan, creating Momentum for long-term sustainable success in its UK Service division. The strategy shows that Momentum can start anywhere when the 4 Winning Habits are employed. They soon spread to other departments when they see the positive impact.
Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind
The main aim was to build the engineers up to be brand ambassadors, strengthening their strong client relationships even more but in a way that added value. Up to that point, the engineers were the customers’ white knights, fixing problems but not always recognised for the full value they could bring to the company.
The engineers feared they were being asked to sell and that this might harm their existing, genuine relationships, but in fact found customers love it when they talk to them and tell them about new products, and also then provide more feedback. It’s a win/win when the customer feels valued and provides information that improves the business.
The level of success achieved can only be maintained by ensuring new people can work in this type of environment so the onboarding process is very thorough.
Now, it’s very important that new joiners are brought into the service culture so it can continue. The level of success achieved can only be maintained by ensuring new people can work in this type of environment so the onboarding process is very thorough.
Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas
The team began by recognising they had to remove the fear of failure for suggesting or trying ideas and then include the engineers in the solution planning process. The message was “You want to be part of business and the business wants you”. It takes years to earn this level of trust however.
Ashley started by playing a video which the engineers had made about their work at a company conference. Suddenly, the engineers were given a stage – people around the company started talking about service and the engineers felt pride that the business was noticing them and their contribution.
The next step was to ask them their opinions. Throughout the 3-year plan, it was anticipated that there would be mistakes and course corrections needed, so the engineers were encouraged to say what was working and what wasn’t. The senior management team also bought in to the process and gave their support.
The engineers had great relationships with their clients, but how could they add more value to the customer and the company?
Of course, there were early adopters and laggards. With support and attention from the company comes accountability, meaning some couldn’t hide any more. Strong people managers helped staff on that journey and some became exemplars for the new role. The proof is in the practice: “people need to see it delivered to understand that this is now the norm.”
Personal objectives are an effective way to include people, and in Mars Drinks they waterfall down from higher company goals, helping people to see why they matter. People aren’t only measured on targets, but also on trying new ideas, adding value and learning from other colleagues or learning from failure. Of course, this also means you can’t give bad reviews if an experiment fails.
Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment
Engineers saw things on a day to day basis that they wanted to improve and many, it turns out, had already started working on small improvement projects in their own time. These hadn’t been shared due to a fear of failure. Once more trust had been established, implementing some of these ideas across the UK saved thousands of pounds and many hundreds of working hours. Now, the engineers are keen to make more suggestions and so far, 30% have been implemented.
Another approach was to get the engineers to compare working methods between teams and analyse the differences. As a result, standardising some processes has led to improved machine reliability. They also moved from 30 to 90-day reliability targets and started seeing new trends in the data about certain parts that then enabled new processes and product improvements.
The company is supporting the engineers in their new role, including training them to spot opportunities for new machines on site. Customers are more likely to engage with them as they have a high level of trust, and the conversion rates for leads originating this way is higher than from the sales team.
Discovery – Looking for new external trends, opportunities and threats
Everyone in the Service Department is now keenly involved in looking for new innovation opportunities that will benefit customers, but more than that, they are open to new ideas and ways of working, because very often they have been suggested by one of their own.
Weller comments; “If we kept the customer at the very heart of what we were trying to achieve, the person the engineers wanted to serve the best, then we’d always have a central pivot point to navigate by. That’s been critical”
Business Outcomes
As a result of the team’s work over several years, the new processes are now a living, breathing animal and are running smoothly under the control of the regional managers. The new brand ambassadors are a true USP for the company and are loved by their customers. The engineers are proud that they’ve achieved all this – it’s what their customers wanted.
Comparing 2016 to 2017, there’s been a 33% increase in new products added to machines and a 150% increase in leads for new machines compared to inbound or outbound sales, with higher conversion rates too.
Next Steps
Next, there is going to be a stronger focus on building discovery capabilities to enable the service team to connect more with customers and back with the business, putting them in control of demand, not the other way around.
Learning from other industries, technology such as Internet of Things and cashless payments generate rich streams of data to provide much deeper understanding and help predict requirements. The engineers will be highly involved too, being given the ability, for instance, to offer contract renewals on site within their trusted relationship.
The future is looking bright for the Mars Drinks Service team.
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Oct 16, 2017 • Features • Management • management • beyond great service • Jim Baston
As we continue our exclusive serialisation of Jim Baston’s excellent service industry focussed book Beyond Great Service, our protagonist Charlie has begun to edge closer to an epiphany in his quest to establish a perfect balance between service and...
As we continue our exclusive serialisation of Jim Baston’s excellent service industry focussed book Beyond Great Service, our protagonist Charlie has begun to edge closer to an epiphany in his quest to establish a perfect balance between service and sales...
If you're new to this series then you can catch up on the story so far by clicking here
Last time Charlie and Ken had uncovered the four hurdles that could sabotage their efforts of engaging their technicians in making proactive recommendations and thereby identified the factors critical to their success.
We join Charlie as he works to put his plan together to implement the strategy.
That evening after dinner, Charlie retrieved his journal and sat down in the study. It was a busy day and Charlie had very little time to reflect on the discussions he’d been having with Ken, although they never quite left his mind. Thoughts kept popping back into his head at odd times throughout the day.
Had they really found the answer to generating more sales revenue through their field service technicians AND improving the level of customer service?
Could management really expect to enhance the customer’s experience by being more proactive in approaching the customer via the techs to do more business with them?
Perhaps the reason many companies were not successfully differentiating their business through this proactive model was because they had not addressed all four of the hurdles.
It almost seemed too simplistic. After all, managers with a lot more experience in technical services than Charlie have considered this opportunity to engage the technicians.
If it was such a good approach, why weren’t more companies successfully applying this strategy?
Looking at the four hurdles on the page in the journal, Charlie began to feel more confident that he was on the right track. Perhaps the reason many companies were not successfully differentiating their business through this proactive model was because they had not addressed all four of the hurdles.
Maybe they simply sent their techs on training courses on how to sell.
Maybe they did not have the systems and processes in place to support the increase in business opportunities brought in from the field. Perhaps they did not reinforce the training or the strategy on a regular basis. Whatever the explanation, Charlie began to realise that if Novus was going to be successful, they would have a lot of work to do.
Charlie knew they needed an implementation plan if they were going to make this work. He jotted down a few steps that he felt would be important to get the strategy right.
He intended to share these with Ken, fine-tune them as necessary and then create a schedule to put them into action. Charlie wrote:
- Draft a plan to address the four hurdles.
- Reduce the strategy to a short summary that could be shared with the technicians and customers.
- Sound out the technicians to get their perspective and suggestions.
- Identify some customers to visit to discuss the plan to help hone the approach and the unique service proposition.
- Fine-tune the plan and put it into action.[/ordered_list]
Charlie then drew a chart on a blank page in the journal:
There were three columns and five rows. Across the top row, Charlie wrote Hurdle, Comments and Preliminary Action Plan. In each of the remaining four rows he put the four hurdles. When he finished a couple of hours later, the chart looked like the one laid out on the previous page.
Charlie looked at the table he had created and smiled. He knew that the hard part had just begun, but he felt good. He had the basic strategy in place, one that he felt would engage the techs and also be valued by Novus’ customers. The next step would be to review this with Ken and reduce the strategy to a simple statement. That would have to wait until another day.
Thinking about your business:
- Do you have a clear and concise plan to implement your proactive business approach with your technicians?
- Have you discussed the matter with your customers to get their input?
- What steps have you taken to fully engage your service team in the process?
- Next time we will touch base with Charlie as he explains the plan to the technicians.
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