Nick Frank and Dag Gronevik of Si2 Partners joined Kris Oldland for our latest podcast where the talk was all about KPIs, in this excerpt we look at whether KPIs should be under constant review...
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Nov 23, 2016 • Features • Management • KPIs • management • Nicki Frank • Dag Gronevik • feld service management • Si2 partners
Nick Frank and Dag Gronevik of Si2 Partners joined Kris Oldland for our latest podcast where the talk was all about KPIs, in this excerpt we look at whether KPIs should be under constant review...
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Want to know more? Check out our Podcast with Nick and Dag on this topic here
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KO: Why are KPIs so important to driving a business forwards?
DG: First of al I think KPIs have one fundamental role and that is to drive behaviour. One of the risks with KPIs, as many people have realised is that they are interpreted and perceived as a controlling measure. But if you look at it from a driving the business perspective it really is all about driving behaviour.
To be able to link that behaviour you are looking at with strategy, budget,what the competition is doing, what customers are expecting... It’s quite a tricky cookie to crack but if you do it right, it is very powerful. One of the things people tend to forget is that we say Key Performance Indicators, there is the word Key in there, so people mix Key Performance Indicators, with performance indicators and it becomes a bit of a soup of KPIs. We should be really targeted on the ‘key’ word.
KO: It is a bit of a hackneyed phrase now but ‘what you can’t measure you can’t manage’ comes to mind. Is it really that simple, that we need to be measuring these things so we can improve?
NF: Actually that’s an old Peter Drucker phrase, but also I think it is quite often mis-quoted. Because he was also of the opinion that yes, you need the measures to gauge and give feedback on performance but actually there are things, part of performance that you can’t measure when your dealing with a person. In fact one of the key roles of a manager is to be able to provide this feedback to their people that can’t be measured or quantified.
[quote float="left"]The really big challenge that we are dealing with here is people and how people react. I think a lot of managers forget this because many managers equate measures with control.[/quote]The really big challenge that we are dealing with here is people and how people react. I think a lot of managers forget this because many managers equate measures with control. They want to control their business, they want to control their people, they want to prove to their bosses that they really know what they are doing.
So they measure everything and they tend to look at what has happened rather than predict what is going to happen and I think this is a mistake that many people make, they have too many and they are always looking backwards.
KO: It’s that rear view mirror approach - i.e. you can’t drive a car forwards competently, if your constantly checking the rear view mirror.
You’ve both mentioned influencing behaviour and influencing people, but KPIs are essentially all about cold, hard numbers, and that is a very rational and logical way of looking at what is not always a logical and rational issue, because people are different and not so easily quantified.
Is that the big challenge in terms of getting the right KPIs - in that we can’t just base our decisions on percentages all of the time?
DG: I think you have certain measure that are unavoidable, especially financial ones, that are measuring trends which are very important to keep there year-on-year, but you might also have KPIs that you might only keep for one year.
For example, a short term project or program or a local project that you want to monitor and give more visibility to. I think that is also an area where you can keep KPIs. But I think it is important to keep that perspective of the long term measure that you can actually see trends, because if you can manage that well, then you also have control of your business.
KO: So are KPIs something that should be under constant review?
DG: I think that you will alays have a core set of KPIs as I mentioned but other than that yes I think so. You have an agenda that you review every year, you have an operational plan and as a support to that operational plan you need good measures to track progress.
Also they [KPIs] allow you to communicate to the organisation, if you are behind - what could be the reasons? Then you have activities supporting all these measures and KPIs so you can actually address the issues quite quickly and effectively.
KO: What is interesting here is the fluidity you describe, that whilst of course you have your solid KPIs at the heart of the business, in addition to that there is this layer of shifting metrics that are adaptable to where the business is at any given time. For me that is something that can be often overlooked, it’s almost like KPIs are carved into stone tablets some times.
On a similar subject let’s talk about the different KPIs that you would set for the team compared to those you would set for management...
NF: I think as a manager you want to be in control of the business, you want to problem solve and you need a level of detail and that’s part of your job - to be able to drill down from high level metrics to the operational metrics in order to do that and in order to answer the questions from your own management.
That’s very different from what you need to do with your people and what you need to do to drive your people. I’ve found if your talking to field service engineers their eyes just glaze over if you start talking in too much detail.
They are just really interested in what they can impact.
[quote float="right"]Managers are one set of stakeholders, but the people who work in your team, who work at the coal face, they have another set of needs and it’s important to recognise that they are different and to actually find the measures that motivate them and they can do something about[/quote] Therefore, it’s actually very important to separate out the two. It comes back to what Dag was saying at the beginning, there is a reason we do this it.
It’s to drive the business forward and be more effective in terms of our processes but also mainly our people.
Managers are one set of stakeholders, but the people who work in your team, who work at the coal face, they have another set of needs and it’s important to recognise that they are different and to actually find the measures that motivate them and they can do something about - so that if they take an action they can actually see that they are impacting how the business is working.
You really should think of them as two different sets of stakeholders therefore you should separate out the different sets of KPIs.
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Want to know more? Check out our Podcast with Nick and Dag on this topic here
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Nov 23, 2016 • Features • Management • Contractors • Maagement • MArne MArtin • Workforce • servicepower
Marne Martin, CEO ServicePower explains the benefits of an integrated dedicated and freelance workforce and why scheduling them shouldn’t be a chore...
Marne Martin, CEO ServicePower explains the benefits of an integrated dedicated and freelance workforce and why scheduling them shouldn’t be a chore...
Service is going through an exciting change as businesses are finding more productive ways to satisfy the needs of their customers, while also improving their bottom line. We aren’t talking about “just” overflow or managing seasonality, we are talking about executing on a strategy that can fundamentally change how and the speed at which you provide service to your customers. As business moves forward, more and more companies have come to realise the benefits of a labour model that can really harness both productivity and customer experience advances.
In the past, technology, work flows and field service management techniques weren’t particularly reliable at managing a labour model that wasn’t either a dedicated workforce or a freelance workforce.
The capabilities of software that can handle the complexities of using both a dedicated and extended workforce are here. Having done this now effectively for more than a decade for many of the best known enterprises, here is our advice on such “hybrid” labor models, ensuring the highest productivity and customer satisfaction levels.
Let’s consider the reasons many organisations deploy a labour model utilising both a dedicated and extended workforce.
Availability
Customers want service now. An extended workforce enables expectations to be met when demand is high, and also buffers cost when demand is low. Using a mix of labour resources with appropriate credentialing and training expands your capabilities at a lower cost while also getting service to your customers sooner.
Cycle time management
Using cycle time calculations from business intelligence applications, businesses may distribute work to the mobile resources with the lowest cost or most desired cycle time metrics, both of which may fluctuate between employed and contracted resources, given current conditions, to meet customer demand. Cost can also be factored into this understanding that time is money.
Quality control
Organisations which deliver field based services may manage job distribution based upon quality of service metrics. Maximise your customer experience by ranking well liked technicians higher so that if they have capacity, they get the job.
Seasonality
Being able to simultaneously search and book employed or contracted mobile workers enables you to manage your workforce consistently, while also meeting KPIs during demand fluctuation.
Catastrophic events
Catastrophes are happening at a higher rate than ever before. It’s critical in those catastrophic situations for feet to hit the ground immediately to provide care and services, for instance to insurance policy holders. If you are a business that handles catastrophes, if you don’t have an extended workforce and also one that is tied into your core technology solutions, you should.
Extraordinary territories
The cost of expanding the reach of service where there isn’t significant and steady job density is high. To decrease costs and improve productivity,it’s best to schedule and route mobile workers to jobs in the closest proximity to each other, to the mobile worker’s start and stop locations, and within the areas they know best. If jobs are infrequent, the cost of credentialing and training a freelancer may well be more efficient.
Infrequent or out of the ordinary jobs
The same can be said for ‘out of the ordinary’ jobs. Consider smart home system installation or customer product education visits commonly associated with outcome based services. Both type of job requires special skills. Do you employ uniquely skilled individuals and wait for work to come in, or contract a scalable workforce able to provide these services as needed? Clearly the latter is the best choice for many businesses.
Cost control
Similar to quality or cycle time control, using business intel to derive job cost by labour channel enables organisations to evaluate the least costly mobile worker for a job, depending on skills, travel, and salary for instance. The least costly resource may be a contractor rather than an employee.
We suspect one or more of these scenarios apply to your business.
Intelligent, integrated dispatching
Mobile workforce management software traditionally, especially within the field service industry, meant scheduling. There are several flavours of scheduling, however folding contractors into the mix requires more than attempting to plug them into those existing scheduling solutions.
Utilising an aggregated dispatching software platform provides those same jobs sources with the ability to send their work alongside other aggregated work, improving operational efficiencies and reducing costs, for every member of the service delivery chain.
Adding an integrated platform with a robust, intelligent and real time scheduling algorithm to intelligently and quickly determine the best routing scenarios, while also having the ability to ‘reoptimise’ the schedule, moving the jobs in time as well as between employees and contractors based on real time conditions, is a major plus.
Scheduling mobile workers to meet customer demand is far less complex when you have a partner that understands the needs of your business and technology that supports an integrated dedicated and extended workforce.
ServicePower Unity takes that one step farther by providing our entire mobile workforce management platform via a SaaS deployment, for one low cost. We’ve taken the ability to dispatch any field resource and made it simple to deploy and easy to pay for whether your labour force are dedicated or freelancers
Scheduling mobile workers to meet customer demand is far less complex when you have a partner that understands the needs of your business and technology that supports an integrated dedicated and extended workforce.
ServicePower processes more than three million job interactions a day with proven ability to drive customer experience whether your technicians are your employees or freelancers. Let us help you to make it easier for your teams to evolve your workforce strategy and customer experience.
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Nov 18, 2016 • video • Features • Management • Jan Van Veen • management
Service focussed consultant Jan Van Veen begins a new series focussing on the importance of managing momentum amongst service organisations...
Service focussed consultant Jan Van Veen begins a new series focussing on the importance of managing momentum amongst service organisations...
Tip! For a free report detailing insights in how your organisation compares to others in managing momentum take part in Jan's survey - further information and links to participate are included at the end of this feature!
The common predict-command-control type of management practices create resistance to change. Most new management and leadership techniques try to overcome this resistance.
Summary
Most companies struggle to adapt to new requirements and opportunities. They see:
- Ongoing performance issues, without adequate and sustainable interventions
- Failing execution of strategies and change programmes
- Too little innovation beyond incremental improvements
- No preparations for (potentially) disruptive change
They fall behind their competition and risk dropping out as we have seen with Tandem, Wang, Nokia, Motorola, Kodak, Polaroid and many others.
The main reason is that these organisations do not adequately adapt to new requirements and opportunities. At the same time, companies which do manage to adapt continuously thrive from the changes and will be the winners of the next decade.
The problem
People by nature are quite strong in adapting and driving change, if there are good reasons to do so and not too many obstacles. That is why human kind is one of the most successful species on our planet, fostering rapid changes in our world.
However, the willingness and ability to drive change is quite easily blocked. Let’s have a look into a little psychology. Roughly we can distinguish three different parts of our brains:
- The reptilian brain, which drives an automated survival mode when triggered by threat. The result is to fight or flight.
- The limbic brain, which subconsciously adjusts behaviour based on experience, values and emotions.
- The neocortex where we consciously think about many things, including problems, creative solutions, strategies and actions to take. We need this part of the brain to identify challenges and issues, find adequate and sustainable solutions, implement them even if the outcome is not sure yet and collaborate with others.
The issue is that the reptilian brain is twofold:
- When triggered, it is extremely dominant and blocks the rest of the brain. In survival mode, there is no reasoning or creativity.
- It is extremely easy to trigger the reptilian brain. Not only by life-threatening issues, but also by anticipating social or emotional discomfort. This is why our mothers taught us to count to ten and inhale before reacting in a way we might regret later.
Common management practices too often trigger the reptilian brain to become dominant. A few examples:
- Performance management systems focus on forcing performance of people instead of on learning and developing (organisational) capabilities to perform:
- Not meeting objectives is considered as a (personal) failure.
- Peers and managers tend to react with disapproval after setbacks
- There is no dialogue on how to achieve stretched targets
- Many change initiatives emphasize problems and failures, rather than the great things we can achieve and feel proud about. Threat becomes dominant instead of the rewards of making changes.
- Often, there is too much emphasis on the big gap, without a clear picture of the doable next steps to close the gap.
- The lack of planned contingency and margin in plans to achieve stretched objectives can causing panic when setbacks occur.
- Inconsistent decisions and messages, increasing uncertainty and unpredictability.
It is quite easy to recognize the reptilian brains at work. Typical signs are for example:
- Externalising issues in performance or progress
- Blaming others
- Window dressing, lack of transparency of challenges and issues
- Sceptism and negativism
Momentum for Sustainable Success – In brief
Wouldn’t it be great if we could simply prevent resistance against change? Everyone would be passionate and eager to jointly perform, to make things happen, to adapt to changing requirements and new opportunities, to learn and to develop. Continuous and timely adaptation and change would be part of our DNA. This is Momentum for Sustainable Success.
This is exactly what the successful organisations have in place. They apply new perspectives and practices which drive momentum to continuously adapt and drive change – that is to drive sustainable success. This momentum is their foundation for an adaptable, learning and growing organisation which has the capabilities to continuously perform, execute and prepare for future success.
Our ongoing research “Momentum for Sustainable Success” defines these perspectives and practices and provides practical tools which help organisations and leaders to build and maintain momentum.
Momentum Perspectives
Everyone in the organisation truly believes that:
- People by nature will perform and drive change
- Building capabilities to work smarter will drive performance
- Future success is beyond current business as usual
These perspectives serve as guiding principles every day for all decisions, actions, attitudes and messages. Other articles elaborate on the different elements and provide examples. Below, I describe these briefly:
Momentum Practices
Modern "sense & respond" type of management practices are applied at all levels and entities of the organisation. This includes:
- Having a clear and compelling picture of the aspirations, the required changes needed and the steps to get there.
- Having a continuous dialogue in which results and progress are reviewed and priorities, strategies and actions are adjusted.
- Outside-In learning and preparing for the future, especially beyond business as usual.
Practical take-aways
Every business leader can start increasing momentum for sustainable success today.
- Make sure you have a clear and shared vision of the future state which is compelling for all stakeholders.
- Establish a practical road-map consisting of doable next-steps.
- Change the dialogue and dynamics around targets and objectives. Move it from “monitoring and reviewing” to “strategizing and learning together”.
On top of this, I would recommend you to:
- Assess the momentum in your organisation through our web-based survey. Until the end of 2016 this is free of charge, as the survey is also part of our research programme.
- Check out upcoming articles, which will be elaborating on the Momentum-Framework and practical approaches and tools.
Our research: Momentum for Sustainable Success
Our research further defines a pragmatic and complete Momentum-Framework consisting of management practices, perspectives and practical tools. These will help you step increase and maintain momentum for sustainable success, strengthen your competitive position and leave others wondering how you did it.
You are invited to join by conducting a web-based survey. It takes approximately 15 minutes. Your input will remain confidential and will be reported in an aggregated form only.
In return you will receive in early 2017:
- Insights in how other companies manage their momentum for sustainable success.
- Insights in how your organisation compares to others in managing momentum.
- Insights into the new Momentum Framework for sustainable success.
Please start the survey here.
Read about the research here.
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Nov 10, 2016 • Features • Management • Brexit • management • Nick Frank
Service Executives across the world should see Brexit as an opportunity for increasing their influence on companies growth plans writes Nick Frank, Managing Partner, Si2 Partners...
Service Executives across the world should see Brexit as an opportunity for increasing their influence on companies growth plans writes Nick Frank, Managing Partner, Si2 Partners...
We believe Service Executives across the world should see Brexit as an opportunity for increasing their influence on companies growth plans.
Most economic commentators believe that the medium term growth prospects for the UK and even the global economy have been severely dented, but these strengthening headwinds should also act as a wake up call for industry.
The more visionary businesses have redoubled their efforts to innovate and many are introducing Service Thinking into their growth plans. While digitization of products enables new ways of thinking and captured the imagination of many, there is nothing like the threat of hardship to accelerate change!
This is why the recent launch a UK National Strategy for Engineering Services by Chris White MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing group is both timely and needed.
Although a UK initiative, it is is very relevant to all globally developed economies.
Chris White recognizes that: “The developing trend of ‘servitised manufacturing’ is a specific example of UK innovation that has allowed early adopters to develop successful differentiated offerings in the global market.”
He goes on to describe a sense of urgency, which is very relevant to today’s situation!
The developing trend of ‘servitised manufacturing’ is a specific example of UK innovation that has allowed early adopters to develop successful differentiated offerings in the global market...
Policy makers recognise that within the context of a countries industrial strategy, many of the world’s leading companies have developed new service orientated business models in order to prosper.
Dave Benbow, Global Head of Engineering at Rolls-Royce PLC explains: “We have consistently delivered shareholder value through being market leaders in engineering services: ensuring that our engines are designed, manufactured and supported in-service to deliver power for our customer whenever required throughout their lifetime.”
But sustaining this success requires a back to back business philosophy with their supply base.
The fact of the matter is that mind-set change is not happening fast enough and needs to be accelerated!
To address this, a central theme to the National Strategy is the creation of an Industry Council to inspire UK companies to innovate new ways of delivering value through services.
The goal is to add 1.9% or £31.6bn to the UK economy. To put this in context this is more value added than the UK’s globally recognised legal industry. Industry leading companies will challenge their supply chain to reduce costs by 20% and increase asset availability by 20%: A 20/20 vision which they know has to be delivered to remain competitive.
As Managing Director at the global industrial services group Babcock recognises: “In numerous engineering and technology domains, we have found that by taking responsibility for ‘outputs’ – asset performance – we have been able to give our customers more value than the simple delivery of discrete products or programmes.”
This requires a massive shift in thinking, almost a re-invention of how we look at manufacturing and engineering. The new council will work in partnership with academia to develop skills and capability, from both a technology and business perspective.
It will interact with government to not only influence cross-industry thinking, but to flex it’s economic muscle to drive mind-set change in how the massive infrastructure projects such as the HS2 rail link will be engineered and delivered. It was after all Margret Thatcher in the 80’s who drove the Ministry of Defence to start the procurement of Outcome based availability contracts that has led to the UK’s commercial and academic leadership in this particular industry niche.
The strength of this approach is that the core team which includes Si2 Partners, is industry led.
The message for service organisations all round the world is that your role in value creation is being recognised.
Indeed as when driving fundamental transformation, the importance of Industry, Academia and Government working together to effect sustainable change cannot be underestimated.
The message for service organisations all round the world is that your role in value creation is being recognised.
Indeed the major global industrial players are beginning to push the service orientated, outcome based business models deeper into their supply chains. To accelerate change, executives can seize the opportunity of economic uncertainty to show how services are one of the strategies that organisation can deploy to sustain long-term business growth.
You can download the UK National Strategy for Engineering services and the supporting market data that underpins the strategy at http://si2partners.com/uk-national-strategy-engineeringservices-now-available-download/.
If you would like to be involved in the next phase of this initiative, then you can sign up for more information from Cranfield’s Through-life Engineering Services Centre who have been a key player in facilitating this National approach.
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Nov 09, 2016 • Features • Management • Aly Pinder • management
No man is an island, so don’t leave your field service technicians isolated if you want to ensure you keep delivering field service excellence writes Aly Pinder...
No man is an island, so don’t leave your field service technicians isolated if you want to ensure you keep delivering field service excellence writes Aly Pinder...
The nature of the field service team is an oxymoron. Field service workers often work independently in remote areas with minimal contact with the “home” office or other technicians during their day.
Often times, the only contact the technician has with others is with dispatch to schedule the next call.
Technicians often are no more of a team than your salesforce. Both are independent workers who must deliver on a combined effort. This type of structure will begin to show its cracks field service as we all prepare for the aging and retiring field workforce.
As technicians leave the business, their individual knowledge, expertise, and customer relationships will fade away.
Can your organisation afford to lose this wealth of knowledge capital?
So what can you do about this? A three-legged stool approach is needed.
First off, you need to do everything you can to keep your good and great technicians on your team for as long as possible. So whether you incentivise them to stick around longer in the field or provide them the flexibility to become remote support experts – keeping your expert technicians as long as you can should be your #1 goal.
[quote float="left"]Mentorship programs will continue to play a bigger role in service as we all prepare for the wave of millennials coming into the workforce over the coming years...[/quote] Secondly, you need to ensure you capture all of that great knowledge from your experts prior to their impending departure. Invest in the tools and technologies necessary to capture, store, and disseminate best practices from the field team to others in real-time.
And finally, you need to build a bridge between your expert workers and the next wave of technicians.
As seen in Aberdeen Group’s recent Field Service 2016: Strengthen the Team, Bond with Your Customers report (June 2016), the Best-in-Class were able to achieve these three goals by implementing a few best practices listed below:
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Measure your field technician’s engagement frequently. Knowing what drives your technicians is integral to ensuring you can keep them around for the long haul. The wrong incentives lead to the wrong behaviours or worse yet a premature exit from the team.
Engagement was historically something for HR teams to measure office workers or for the marketing team to gather from customers. But more and more Best-in-Class service organisations are beginning to monitor and measure their field service team’s engagement AND acting on what they gather. If you don’t know there is a problem, you won’t be able to address it.
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Establish mentors and coaches to pass along knowledge. Top performing service organisations identify top field technicians and ensure they can help mold the next crop of workers. Under performing organisations don’t even know who their top technicians are and thus don’t know they should both keep those employees and give them ways to help the entire team learn how to excel at service.
Mentorship programs will continue to play a bigger role in service as we all prepare for the wave of millennials coming into the workforce over the coming years (NOTE – the millennial wave has already begun).[/unordered_list]
Create a culture of continuous improvement
And as old dogs leave the business, it is even more integral that a culture of continuous improvement pervade to ensure your field team delivers more and more value to customers during every interaction.
The field team does not have to be built on individuals who work alone.
Connecting the team to knowledge, best practices, and continued learning is integral in 2016. Don’t leave your field workers on an island by themselves, a team is needed to excel at delivering service value to customers.
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Nov 07, 2016 • Features • Management • management • Blumberg Advisory Group • selling service
Michael Blumberg, President of Blumberg Advisory Group explores the nuances of marketing services and how to get it right...
Michael Blumberg, President of Blumberg Advisory Group explores the nuances of marketing services and how to get it right...
Want to know more? 20% discount for Field Service News readers on Michael Blumberg’s latest online course on marketing service more @ http://fs-ne.ws/pv2m305UvI5 claim your discount with the code “FSN1”
Service executives often struggle to grow their businesses when they try to apply product-marketing concepts to service marketing.
The 4 P’s marketing mix is one such concept that works great for products but not for services. It is based on the theory that the success of a company’s marketing program is based on how well the company manages strategies and tactics related to product (i.e., design, form/factor, etc.), price, promotion (e.g., sales, advertising, etc.), and place (i.e., distribution).
The problem is that these 4 P’s do not always apply to services. Service products are intangible and difficult to describe, so they can be challenging to promote. Another problem is that place has a fuzzy connotation in service marketing because there are multiple entities involved in service distribution.
The perception a customer has about a service provider is what influences their decision to work with that service provider.
In order to achieve results, service executives instead need to master three fundamental or strategic concepts about service marketing. First, perception is just as important as reality. The perception a customer has about a service provider is what influences their decision to work with that service provider.
Customers need to trust that their service provider has the capability to deliver service before it is actually delivered.
Second, customers pay more for services over the lifetime of a product than they do when purchasing the product itself. In fact, they may pay as much as 8-10 times more for services than what they originally pay for the product.
Clearly the dollars can add up. Finally, there is a relationship between “value in use” and time. Value in use is the cost to your customer in absence of the service. Some services are mission critical. If they are not performed in a timely manner, the customer may lose money by not having the service available. Seeing this connection allows service marketers to effectively price their services and articulate the value of what they provide.
By mastering these strategic concepts service providers will begin to observe a shift in the way they think about service marketing. In fact, only by changing their mindset can they hope to become more effective in implementing strategies that lead to higher revenues, greater profits, and increased market share. Service providers who go through such an evolution understand that the Successful Service Marketing™ mix is actually based not on 4 but on 7 key principles.
These principles are:
PORTFOLIO:
Often described in terms of a service-level commitment, such as 24/7with a four-hour response time. The more distinctions a service provider can make to define their service portfolio, the more likely they will be to fulfill the needs of prospective customers.
PROVIDER:
Tangible elements of the service infrastructure, such as a call center, self-service portals, enterprise systems and service technology that make it possible to deliver on the promise of the service portfolio.
PROCESS:
The steps customers must take to request the service, and the tasks that occur to deliver the service. For example, performing front-end call screening and diagnostics before dispatching a field technician.
PERFORMANCE:
Evidence that the service provider can deliver on your promise, such as KPIs, customer satisfaction results and customer testimonials.
PERCEPTION:
The ability to win business and retain satisfied customers is based on the service provider’s ability to influence the perception that current and prospective customers have of them. This goes beyond simply promotion through advertising, branding, and communications. It gets to the essence of who are service provider is, what they stand for, and how they portray themselves in the market.
PLACE:
Services distribution channels can be complex. Quite often, consumers can purchase service from one place, order or request it from another place, and have it delivered to them at a third place (e.g., onsite, depot, remote, etc.). Sometimes it’s the same company delivering this service. Other times it’s not. Regardless, the service marketing mix must deal with these complexities.
PRICE:
Of course, there is always the issue of price. The important thing to remember is that price is a function of value in use and perception that consumers have of their service provider (i.e., expertise, experience, capability).
There are just a few more concepts that service providers need to learn if they are going to win at service marketing. First, they have to know their market. Service providers obtain this knowledge through market research. If they know who buys, what they buy, and why they buy then they can sell more service to customers, to more customers, and get them to buy more often.
Market research also provides the insight needed to communicate effectively with current and prospective customers. It helps determine what messages, what images, what ideas will resonate with them and make them want to buy. Marketing is about taking a need and converting it into a want. You may need a watch to tell time but you want a Rolex because of the status and prestige associated with owning one. So when you have really good market research of who buys, what they buy and why they buy, you can construct your message in such a way that you turn a need to a want.
Many companies price their services on the basis of either cost-plus or competitive pricing strategies
A third type of pricing strategy is called value-in-use pricing. It involves measuring the economic value or loss to the customer of not having the service available in a timely manner. This can be significant. For example, a manufacturing facility may lose millions of dollars every hour its machines are down. Therefore, it may be willing to a pay premium for faster service.
Market research can help determine whether a service provider should pursue a cost-plus, competitive, or value in use pricing strategy.
The final aspect to winning service marketing is called invisible selling. This is based on the premise that companies win service business not by pushing their offers onto prospects, but by pulling customers towards them. One way is through indirect marketing as opposed to direct selling. Indirect marketing includes publishing articles or white papers that demonstrate that the service provider understands the problems companies in their market are experiencing and that they have solutions. Other forms of indirect marketing involve using social media and public speaking opportunities to influence others to seek out the service providers’ expertise.
When companies put all the elements of a Successful Service Marketing™ program together, when they fully understand the strategic concepts of service marketing, when they effectively apply the seven principles of service marketing, when they learn how to optimally price their services, and when they use market research effectively, they achieve phenomenal results. Their service-marketing program becomes successful, their sales take off, and their profits skyrocket.
Want to know more? 20% discount for Field Service News readers on Michael Blumberg’s latest online course on marketing service more @ http://fs-ne.ws/pv2m305UvI5 claim your discount with the code “FSN1”
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Nov 03, 2016 • Features • Management • millennial • EU vs US • Events • IoT
In his role co-ordinating Field Service Conferences on both sides of the Atlantic Jonathan Massoud , Divisional Director , WBR is quite uniquely placed to see the differences between how things are done differently on both sides of the pond. Here he...
In his role co-ordinating Field Service Conferences on both sides of the Atlantic Jonathan Massoud , Divisional Director , WBR is quite uniquely placed to see the differences between how things are done differently on both sides of the pond. Here he gives us his view on why things , fundamentally aren’t actually too different at all....
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2016 has proven to be a groundbreaking year for Field Service.
Manufacturers have continued to implement features from industry 4.0 on their business activities as services like cloud computing, and the internet of things (IoT) have revolutionized how companies manage their workforce in the field. In making certain service processes easier, like troubleshooting or diagnosing a repair – service teams have gotten closer to the customer than ever before.
The success of these programs also play a huge part in managing customer satisfaction and retention which are key revenue drivers for many companies. Especially since customers often choose a product based on the level of service they receive instead of less distinguishable aspects of the products themselves.
In response to a vocal, growing consumer base, manufacturers have started to design innovative product and service solutions that address customer needs. With that said, it’s hard to address specific customer concerns as the level and degree of service has to be of a high, consistent quality across the board. European executives are focusing on many of the same initiatives as their North American counterparts – starting the create service oriented, customer facing products and services that augment revenue.
However, their challenges can be a bit different as they work with logistical and cultural issues.
In Europe, it’s already difficult to move parts, people and services across countries quickly and efficiently, it’s even harder to do so while understanding nuanced cultural differences. Even so, there is tremendous opportunity for revenue growth within companies that take the time to prioritise service.
Over the past several years, we’ve actually seen success with the positive relationship between customer satisfaction profitability. The more your customers enjoy and trust the service your provide – the more willing they are to continually buy your products in the future (and also share their positive experience with their peers).
Can smarter service drive revenue and customer satisfaction?
Going beyond 2016, proactive and predictive service will have a large impact on increasing customer satisfaction.
With benefits like an increased first time fix rate, fewer technician visits & truck rolls customers will have higher satisfaction (which results in lower general operating costs for the manufacturer). These will ultimately come to head with the introduction of an enhanced remote monitoring platform.
However, larger challenges like customer push-back and huge start-up costs serve as a red flag for manufacturers. With the general adaptation of industry 4.0 and the IoT – European government will use their high tech strategies to incentivise innovation to create smarter services, smarter factories and smarter products which lead to happier customers.
How do you monitor quality control across European boarders? To ensure a consistent level of service in Europe, many companies have started to provide tiered levels of service based on the specific needs and expectation of their customers. This gives manufacturers the ability to have flexible service on an as needed basis.
However, this presents an interesting problem for European companies as customer expectations drastically differ from country to country.
An Italian customer might be willing to wait five days for a part, while a Finnish customer would be ready to fill out a complaint form after five hours.
Ensuring that service remains consistently great in each country is an important focus point for service executives.
Who is the technician of the future?
Technicians are the public face of your brand, the person who has the most face time with customers and therefore the biggest opportunity to make a difference. A common term used for field technicians is “trusted advisor” and because of this status, they’re often a big driver in customer satisfaction.
So how can service companies make their technicians more effective? What does the ideal technician of the future look like?
Tomorrow’s technician needs to be customer-ready.
Often-times, the technical skills that make someone a superior engineer don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand with customer-facing soft skills (handling a distraught customer for example).
Lastly, tomorrow’s technician needs to be ready for next generation technology. They must be armed with tools containing the latest communication-ready advanced diagnostic capabilities, open to the idea of wearables and augmented reality, and ready to work on machines equipped with IoT technology.
What are the services that customers really value?
Managing the shift to on-demand service solutions Significant changes in customer behaviour have affected the makeup of the service industry over the past few years.
Rather than buying a particular product or piece of equipment, customers are looking for business outcomes and solutions. There’s been a significant shift towards value proposition in service: how do you create value from the things you’ve done in the past?
What do customers truly value and are they willing to pay for it? With the increased usage of on-demand solutions – customer expectations have grown to a new level.
However, for those pro-active companies that are actively seeking to meet these demands by embracing not only the latest technology to help drive their service efficiency and customer engagement levels, but are also embracing the notion of service as a fundamental business driver, there is a wealth of profitable and loyal business to be won out there in this new enterprise landscape of the early twenty first century.
The big question is are you as an organisation ready to take such a service oriented approach.
Having been part of our field service conferences both in the US and in Europe I’ve spoken with a lot of service directors from both sides of the fence - those who are running at full steam towards a more advanced services model and those who are perhaps lingering towards the back a bit more waiting to see how things pan out for those early adopters.
Whilst there is no shame in a cautious approach it is also important not to be the last company to adapt in your sector - no matter how large you are as you might find yourself facing your very own ‘Kodak moment’.
Getting ideas and insight from your peers is a great way of benchmarking what is actually happening in the industry compared to the hyperbole that can surround any given technology or business trend and I guess it’s that one on one peer interaction, that sense of community that has been a fundamental part of why our conferences continue to grow on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Oct 30, 2016 • Features • Management • Jim Baston • Service and Sales
Field Service consultant and author Jim Baston begins a new series in which he has kindly agreed to serialise his industry focussed book Beyond Great Service for Field Service News readers. Here in the first part of this new exclusive series he...
Field Service consultant and author Jim Baston begins a new series in which he has kindly agreed to serialise his industry focussed book Beyond Great Service for Field Service News readers. Here in the first part of this new exclusive series he introduces the series...
Welcome to the first in a series of articles based on my book, Beyond GREAT SERVICE – The Technician’s Role in Proactive Business Growth.
Beyond GREAT SERVICE is written for those who are responsible for field service operations and who believe that the technician’s role is more than maintaining, troubleshooting and repairing equipment. It is for those business leaders who recognise that the proactive effort of technicians to identify and recommend products and services to their customers is a valuable service.
We will see how his perception of the role of the field service team changes and how that change allows him to clearly see the task ahead of him
In this series of articles, I will be following Charlie’s journey and draw on the lessons he has learned along the way. We will see how his perception of the role of the field service team changes and how that change allows him to clearly see the task ahead of him. I will end each article with a series of questions that I hope you will find helpful in analysing your own service business.
The themes that will be covered in these articles include:
- Recognizing the role of field service in business promotion as a service. Here we will examine what we are asking the field service team to do through their proactive efforts and why. Although the field service team’s efforts are often confused with selling, we will explore the importance of ensuring that everyone involved recognizes their efforts as a critical part of the service provided. This is an important concept to grasp, as it will guide the direction the initiative will take and provide inspiration for those involved.
- Understanding the critical factors that will determine success. Here we will consider those factors that will be critical to the success of the initiative. In my experience, some of these are “elephants in the room” (we know they exist but don’t want to acknowledge them) and others may not have been considered. Regardless, these are all factors that, if not addressed, will greatly limit the success of the initiative.
- Involving the customer. As Charlie develops the plan, he seeks feedback from key customers to get their reaction and input. We will examine the value of taking this step and provide suggestions on how it can be accomplished.
- Differentiating based on the field service team’s efforts. If the proactive efforts of the field service team are indeed a service to the customer, shouldn’t we treat it as we would any other service that we provide? We will consider how we can differentiate our service business by promoting the efforts of our field service team to our customers. This is the opportunity for a service company to stand out from its competitors by truly working collaboratively with their customers.
- Measuring, monitoring and continuous improvement. Here we will look at what we can do to measure the effectiveness of our efforts and use that information to fine tune our service offering.
My hope is that these series of articles will be of value to service companies in all stages of engaging their field service teams in business development – from those who have not yet started, to those who have formal initiatives in place.
My goal is to provide a blue print that you can follow to help you achieve your goals faster and avoid some of the common pitfalls. For those already underway, my hope is that these articles will provide inspiration and ideas that will contribute to the effectiveness of your initiative...
The book, Beyond GREAT SERVICE – The Technician’s Role in Proactive Business Growth is available on my website at www.jimbaston.com. There you will also find a copy of my latest book, the Beyond GREAT SERVICE Planning Guide.
The Planning Guide is a step-by-step approach to planning and implementing a strategy to focus the entire field service organisation on identifying and recommending actions that their customers can take to be measurably better off. The Planning Guide is intended to help you to ensure that all aspects of your field service organisation – from technicians to supporting infrastructure - are aligned and focused on delivering a service which is “Beyond GREAT”.
An electronic copy of my book is available for download from www.amazon.com or www.amazon.ca. Just type in “Beyond GREAT SERVICE” in the search bar.
I value your feedback about my articles and insight into your own experiences in engaging your field service teams in business development. You can reach me by email at jim@jimbaston.com.
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Oct 28, 2016 • Features • Management • Events • Service Management Expo
It has now been three years since the Service Management Expo moved from Birmingham to London as it became part of UBM’s wider Protection and Management event, but has this transformation been positive or negative for the event that was once widely...
It has now been three years since the Service Management Expo moved from Birmingham to London as it became part of UBM’s wider Protection and Management event, but has this transformation been positive or negative for the event that was once widely believed to be Europe’s best show dedicated to the sector?
The first thing you realise when you arrive at UBM’s Protection and Management (P&M) Series, which takes up the entirety of the ExCel Conference and Exhibition Centre in London’s revitalised Dockland’s region, is that this is a collection of BIG shows.
The largest of the P&M events is IFSEC which serves the global Fire and Security industry and it alone take up the entire south side of ExCel’s mile long exhibition space. With delegates and exhibitors from across the globe it is a truly impressive event. However, there are other sizeable events at P&M too.
The Facilities Show, Safety and Health Expo and FIREX are all heavyweight shows in their own right, and in this context Service Management Expo (SME) can occasionally feel a little lost. It is probably no exaggeration that there are single stands within the IFSEC side of the event that are larger than the entirety of Service Management Expo, and whilst the colour of the carpet gives you a visual clue as to whether you are still in SME or have wandered off elsewhere, if you turn one way you’ll be surrounded by companies selling hi-vis clothing, turn another and it’s air conditioning units.
It is one of the perennial conundrums of the field service industry - that whilst as a horizontal industry it is essentially highly pervasive, it remains a niche sector, with a relatively small but passionate community at it’s heart.
And actually when we take a step away from the mega-shows that surround it, and put SME in it’s context alongside other field service orientated shows then it is in fact a huge event in terms of the numbers of people in attendance.
In fact, this year UBM announced an incredible 1,911 visitors attended Service Management Expo, which was an increase of 35% on those that attended from 2015.
There was also a truly international flavour to the attendees this year with visitors from each of the 5 major continents walking around the expo across the three days. In context such attendance figures arguably make SME the largest event dedicated to the field service industries in the world. So just what is it that is attracting these delegates to London?
Where SME excels, is in that it is primarily an expo rather than a conference, so it provides a perfect platform for field service execs to get a look at a number of different solutions and vendors, check out software demonstrations and get their hands on some rugged hardware in one place.
According to a spokesperson at UBM the delegates who attended showed particular interest in lone worker safety, IT and cyber security, CRM, system integration, IoT, and recruitment. However, from our experience talking to delegates on the Field Service News stand, for many it was also an opportunity to just have a look at what new developments and tools were available in the industry.
An event, where field service companies can send their field service managers or supervisors to go out and get an overview of what tools are available, quickly and conveniently.
This lack of high-end content would probably explain the relatively low percentage of senior executives amongst attendees, with UBM figures stating that 25% of those in attendance were director level. But SME’s greatest weakness is also it’s greatest strength. This isn’t an event all about top-tier conference sessions, or indeed one that senior directors will attend for networking with their peers. It is an event, where field service companies can send their field service managers or supervisors to go out and get an overview of what tools are available, quickly and conveniently.
In this regard SME remains an absolutely vital part of the field service calendar (the increase in attendance YoY is perhaps testament to this) and with no other Field Service Expo on the horizon, it will no doubt remain so.
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd, an independent publisher whose sole focus is on the field service sector. As such our entire resources are focused on helping drive the field service sector forwards and aiming to best serve our industry through honest, incisive and innovative media coverage of the global field service sector.
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