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Social media is no longer a simple channel for marketing your products and services it is now very much a recognised and legitmate communication channel for businesses to connect with their customers. John Cameron, General Manager of Trimble Field Service Management explores how and why field service companies should be using social media as part of their customer service strategies...

Over the past few years, the rise of social media platforms has provided consumers with more power than ever and many now take to the mass audiences of Facebook and Twitter to share their opinions on a company’s product or customer service performance. Indeed, the Institute of Customer Service report that there are 38 million active social media profiles in the UK and 1 in 5 social media users have admitted to using a social media channel to communicate with or comment on an organisation.

The increase in online communication has helped to fuel a rise in expectations for service excellence, with consumers increasingly expecting their field service provider to listen to and engage with them immediately over social media or risk damaging their brand reputation.

 

For organisations operating a field service operation, customer service is widely recognised as being the number one business priority with a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability. In order to meet customer expectations, the need for businesses to include social media as part of their customer service strategies is therefore becoming increasingly essential. Organisations are justified in approaching their social media strategy with some caution, however. Numerous high-profile cases have shown that the public nature of social media can bring risks to corporate reputation, if not managed appropriately and consistently as part of a coherent communications strategy.

The strategic importance of social media

A study recently commissioned by Trimble found that 51% of field service organisations think social media is an effective tool for helping them to manage customer relationships. However, its function is still misunderstood by a number of field service organisations whilst others aren’t as convinced of the potential upside of an online communications program.

The study revealed that 28% of organisations did not know if social media could be an effective tool for helping them to manage customer relationships whilst 21% regarded it to be ineffective. A major reason behind the conflict in opinion lies in how exactly field service organisations leverage social media as part of an online customer service strategy, as there are more effective ways than others to use it for business success.

Using social media for success

The Institute of Customer Service confirms that social media presents a great opportunity for organisations to listen to and engage with their customers on a one-to-one level, but organisations must ensure that they can manage and measure customer interactions seamlessly across a multitude of channels, as customers now expect to be able to communicate with field service organisations through a variety of social media sites of their choosing.

Whilst some organisations are doing a good job at leveraging social media; others are underestimating it and applying the old school approach of ‘marketing at’ customers instead of engaging in conversations that will enhance relationships with them. In order to influence how an organisation is seen by its customers in the social sphere, it must participate in conversations.

Leveraging customer feedback via social media is also key to a successful online customer service strategy. The Trimble study revealed that 42% of field service organisations use the feedback they receive on social media to improve operations and customer service strategies. An Aberdeen Group report similarly found that 56% of top performing field service organisations are more likely to proactively capture feedback from customers regarding their performance as compared to peers. However, the research also found that nearly 15% of field service organisations don’t know what percentage of requests originate in the social sphere as they aren’t monitoring or engaging in support conversations on social media.

 

By not capturing customer feedback, organisations are missing out on the chance to obtain data on the volume, key topics or general sentiment of the content generated by their customers, which could then be leveraged internally to improve relationships with them through enhancing product quality and developing new offerings to meet their needs and expectations.

Social media and the new skills age

The landscape of customer service has shifted in recent years from a transactional economy to a relationship economy where value lies in one-to-one interactions. According to Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service, “A ‘personalised service for many’ and a dialogue approach, as opposed to the traditional monologue, is now desired. This power shift has come about, partly due to customers wanting to be more engaged in the customer experience but also because of technology and the rise of social media.”

Indeed, the open platform for communication that social media provides has empowered consumers more than they have ever been to share their customer experience with a field service provider. We are ultimately living in an age where customer service is incredibly important and there has been a big shift within the industry of employing service technicians based on their people skills, over their technical skills.

 

Trimble’s survey found that 35% of field service organisations believe social media use amongst consumers has influenced the need to train, or hire, field technicians with the desirable attributes to deliver a service which meets customers’ expectations.

Demand for staff who have desirable attitudes and attributes for customer service will therefore increase. In particular, there will be a stronger focus on the importance of being empathetic and emotionally intelligent alongside being methodical and patient to deal with the wide variety of customer service relationships and interactions.

For more key findings, expert third party opinion and real-life business experiences on how field service organisations are leveraging social media as part of their customer service strategies download our latest report here: http://ow.ly/TcCO9

 

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Field service is one of those sectors most likely to be affected by a European Court of Justice ruling on what constitutes “working time” for mobile employees.

The ECJ has ruled that time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time. Previously some organisations, including those engaged in field service, have not regarded this element of travelling time as work.

The court says the ruling, which has caused some controversy among European Union member states, has been enforced to protect the health and safety of mobile workers as set out in the EU's working time directive, which stipulates that they cannot work more than 48 hours in a week unless they opt out. Member states will be required to ensure national legislation on working time complies with the ruling. Workers are required to sign a waiver in order  to opt out.

Mobile workforce management software developer Auto Time is one company advising that service organisations may now find themselves in breach of EU working time regulations unless they review operations. Christian Berenger, Operations Director at Auto Time says: “The new ruling could leave contractors, already under pressure to deliver their services cost-effectively, confronted by increased labour costs and facing a tough battle to operate profitably within tight margins. To minimise compliance risk, employers need to put systems in place that will enable them to gain total transparency of their workforce, track their movements and plan staff workloads to coincide with their daily commute to minimise costs.”

The ruling by the European Court of Justice deeming time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers should be regarded as work means businesses now more than ever should be carefully considering the deployment of their workforce, agrees Marina Stedman, director at ClickSoftware.

“Thousands of employers may be in breach of employment law, requiring them to implement workforce management strategies that take this ruling into account. Businesses not already doing so should be looking at software that manages all time related services with one single platform, to ensure when staff are dispatched to a task, this is being factored in. Having this in place, businesses will be able to proactively design rosters that consider the capacity of staffing shifts days and weeks in advance.”

Christian Berenger adds: “The role of technology in supporting organisations to comply with the new ECJ ruling surrounding mobile workers should not be underestimated. With HR teams under increased pressure to keep up with changing employment regulations, employers must evaluate their business practices or risk falling foul of the law. By gaining instant visibility of their remote workers and streamlining compliance tasks, workforce management systems. can not only meet their legal obligations but optimise their workforce for future bottom line growth.”

 

Real-time data access allows managers to track the whereabouts and task status of their workforce, calculate the ‘actual hours’ worked and respond to operational issues with better informed decisions as they happen, he points out and recommends empowering staff to manage their hours, via a secure web portal using their smartphone or tablet. ”

There’s likely to be an impact on schedule optimization, too, thinks Bereneger. “Scheduling functions provide managers with the ability to optimise staff shifts by allocating job tasks to dovetail with their daily commute, ensuring assignments at the start and end of the day are located near employees' homes to minimise travel time.

 

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As we continue to bring you a selection of features from The Service Manager Handbook (2015 edition) published by Advanced Field Service we now turn our attention to one of the core tools for building future success, namely the implementation of Analytics and intelligence

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Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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In today’s challenging business environment, there is little margin for error. Service managers need an even greater and fully in-depth understanding of their business to improve business planning, helping them make better-informed decisions, to ultimately keep ahead of the competition whilst attracting new customers and retaining their existing customers.

Instant access to management information

The benefits of replacing hand-crafted reports and spreadsheets with more interactive, integrated and intuitive tools are well documented.

As well as removing the unnecessary heavy wastage of man hours, and delaying what is often critical business decisions that can impact your opportunities to not only grow but also identify areas of weakness within your business that could potentially lead to loss of clients, easier access to your data improves control of your business with the following key insights:

• Intelligence to recognise emerging trends: Today’s business environment is faster paces nad more dynamic than ever before, whilst in the past reputations could be built on doing what you do and doing it well, today standing still can lead to dangerously dramatic decline in business, particularly from a service point. Since the economic crash in 2008 service has risen to become the key differentiator between businesses and with modern consumers (both B2B and B2C) well equipped to air any grievances in public via social media the pitfalls of failing service can be catastrophic for a business. As technology continues to push the boundaries of what is possible, it is imperative that service orientated companies embrace this to stay ahead of the competition and deliver service excellence at all times.
• The ability to identify and seize new opportunities or ward off threats: Of course embracing technology doesn’t just mean delivering better standards of service to customers. New emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things can help businesses move from a traditional break-fix reactive approach to a more efficient and cost effective preventative maintenance approach. Through remote monitoring optimum performances can delivered across the install base ultimately leading to less service calls in the long term.
• Power to understand key areas delivering profit (and loss): As the old adage goes you can only manage what you measure. Field service companies are perhaps uniquely positioned to be able to gather more information about their customers than any other industry as they have the benefit of ‘eyes and ears’ on site with your customers. The flow of this information from business unit to business unit allows for far greater insight of where new potential revenue streams may lie, as well as profit leakage may be occurring.
• Fast, informed decision-making based on accurate and live information: The rise in prevalence of dashboard analytics now make it possible for field service managers and their colleagues in other business areas such as procurement and sales to see trends based on the data collected easily and instantly, empowering them to make critical business decisions, and to get them right.
• Unprecedented insight into the most/least profitable areas of your business: In terms of data collection, processing and analysis we are truly living in a golden age. Businesses that harness the power of the data they have access to not only have superior understanding of their own businesses but also of their customers and most crucially of their customers pain points.

Your back-end service management solution should be able to do all the work of collating real-time information automatically across your jobs.

It should also make easy work of presenting it in the formats that are most useful to your management team, providing full visibility of contract profitability and equipping decision-makers with instant access to vital information on the business, including your profit forecasts.

Easy-to-understand analytics

As a matter of course, your data should be regularly analysed in a multitude of ways and in varying degrees of complexity, from viewing a daily high-level graphical KPI dashboard, down to examining detailed monthly reports.

Not surprisingly, analytical dashboards are fast becoming the service manager’s reporting tool of choice. They offer true anytime/anywhere reporting, via a browser or mobile device, in a way that makes it easy to instantly grasp the significance of the information.

If you have this dashboard facility in your service management solution, you’ll be able to drill down to the original data source to analyse all your core data including: customer status; financials; performance and productivity of engineers, with hours worked and number of visits; stock and supplier KPIs; calls by equipment, site and efficiency; costing of jobs and engineers; call response times.

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Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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As we continue to bring you extracts from The Service Manager Handbook, published by Advanced Field Service here we look at three quick tips to help you manage your service P&L whilst keeping your field workers happy and motivated…

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

Mine your data to plan for the future

Today’s customers are flexing their buying muscles and exerting pressure on suppliers to fulfil ever more challenging SLAs. To stand a chance of meeting rising customer expectations, while maintaining profit levels, you need full visibility over your contracts and tighter control over your SLA management.

Setting realistic budgets and timescales

Having access to historical information on the actual cost of similar projects, contracts and large installations helps to ensure that future bid costs and resource requirements are accurately assessed and a realistic price proposed.

You want to win the contract but not at a cost that could break you!

There are many factors that will determine the price of the project to the client, but the cost and resources that are needed to deliver the contract are not always fully considered at the bid stage. Without formal systems in place, many service organisations find it difficult and time-consuming to compile this historical information.

 

As a result, bids are based on gut feel and best guess, running the risk of perpetuating profit-killing mistakes. With an accurate budget in place – covering all your materials, labour and subcontractor costs – managers will be able to track actuals against estimates and use this information for future planning.

Optimising parts management - Don’t tie up your cash 

If your organisation stores parts, you will be all too aware of the dangers of stockpiling when cash flow is so important. Rather than relying on best guess, automating the forecasting process to predict usage will avoid the pitfall of holding more parts than are required.

Your systems should give you the power to analyse your parts history, so you can recognise trends and fluctuations to ensure that levels fall within the desired optimum range and can anticipate demand at peak times. This will reduce the amount of cash held in unnecessary high numbers of parts, and reduce the overheads of managing your inventory, while ensuring that your engineers achieve maximum productivity by having the right parts at the right time.

Managing parts ‘on-the-move’

Your systems should also enable you to keep track of your van stock levels and usage, as well as automatically re-ordering and replenishing when nearing a minimum level.

A good service management solution can help to effectively manage your inventory of parts, enabling you to carry the right levels to meet customer demand, without restricting cash flow. Good planning will also help avoid overstocks by scheduling parts to arrive when you need them, and ensuring you are able to optimise fluctuations in demand and effectively manage

Monitoring and managing performance

KPIs are a vital tool for service organisations to effectively track, monitor and evaluate performance to achieve sustainable growth. It is vital to identify which KPIs align to your business success. Standard service management metrics include: [unordered_list style="bullet"]

• First-time fix rates
• SLA adherence
• Engineer productivity
• Job costing
• Call rates
• Net profit margin
• Stock value
• Customer satisfaction/retention

Without proactively monitoring KPIs, service businesses are vulnerable to problems that can seriously undermine both performance and profitability. For example, failure to regularly monitor sales margins could mean that a costly recurring mistake is discovered only at year-end.

Sharing achievements

All too often, key performance information is only available to managers and directors, with staff review periods that are too infrequent to proactively affect the outcome of future jobs.

 

Also, this information may only be available through a central source, which can lead to a feeling of ‘them and us’. Relevant information should be available to all members of the team. Simple, clear and targeted information – not complicated reports – will help them to take ownership of their utilisation, performance and deliverables.

Using systems that can provide this vital information in real-time, such as mobile or web-based reporting, allows field engineers to see if they are on track to deliver within the schedule allocated. If not, the issue can be raised at the earliest opportunity, the causes assessed and appropriate action taken.

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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As we continue our serialisation of the 40-page eBook The Service Manager Handbook published by Advanced Field Services we now look at what obstacles you must overcome and what plans you must put in place if you are to achieve service excellence.

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

It’s a given that the customer is your number one priority. Typically, service is affected by a combination of factors that result in the customer not getting what they want, when they want it.

However, there are crucial failures we see in many companies that can hamper them from even beginning to build a coherent strategy for achieving service excellence. These can of course vary from company to company but some of the most regular culprits in blocking a customer service strategy from ever becoming more than a tick box exercise include:

• A lack of integrated, real-time communication between the field engineer and the customer service representative - your engineers are the gateway to your customers, they are the ones who can make or break even the largest of commercial relationships. As such,  give them both the tools and the training in order to not only just do their job but to do it brilliantly to ensure your customers remain loyal with you for the long term
• Poor visibility of current stock levels across multiple systems and manual entry – you can have the best engineers in the world, they can be experts in their field and fantastic customer service folks as well. However, if they can’t access the right part for the right job, right away, even they are going to struggle to keep your customers happy as they see their downtime escalating due to your company's inefficiencies.
• Time-consuming manual processes hindered by unnecessary paperwork make it difficult to respond with agility to customer requirements. Nobody likes red-tape, your customers hate it, your engineers loathe it – they just want to get on and fix things, and in today’s age of mobile computing, endless paper work is simply unnecessary and a waste of your engineers' valuable time.
  • At the same time your engineers should also have all of the tools they need at their fingertips both to do their jobs as effectively as possible but also to keep your customers informed throughout any repair.
  • Field service engineers without the ability to quickly see and advise customers in advance that a part may be delayed, or without the ability to order a part quickly and easily themselves whilst on site are likely to face an uphill struggle in today's business environment.

However, whilst problems like the above can grow to become significant issues for some organisations, the good news is that the technology is in place to help support your business, allowing you to avoid such issues and firmly become part of your clients' on-going business operations.

Here are six steps we believe are crucial to field service management in today's market…

Keep the lines of communication open

Whether you operate in the B2B or consumer/domestic markets, you’ll need to consistently meet basic criteria, such as responding within a set timeframe or appointment window.

A field service solution helps you to deploy your engineers with maximum efficiency and equip them to do a proficient job.

Technology gives you the option to send the engineer’s estimated time of arrival – and alerts on any unexpected hold-ups – by SMS or email to the customer. They are more likely to tolerate a delay if they know the reasons why, along with the new ETA.

Capture live data onsite

The information your engineers enter remotely through their mobile devices should automatically feedback to your control centre and back-office reporting and billing systems.

Customers can be sent up-to-date compliance certification within minutes of job completion. Sending an invoice promptly while the job is still fresh in the customer’s mind will also avoid queries and delays further down the line. While not strictly speaking a customer service issue, having fast efficient billing processes reinforces your image as a professional service provider and helps speed up payments and improve cash flow.

Collect and analyse customer feedback

Without bombarding customers with survey requests, you can collect their feedback using standard forms on the engineer’s mobile device or schedule a survey to be emailed to them after the job is complete.

You’re showing you value their views and it’s an opportunity to capture valuable insight into your customers’ thinking and identify possible opportunities to upsell the contract and services, where appropriate.

Create a unified, shared view of the customer

A customer relationship management (CRM) solution, integrated with your service management software, will capture and share information across your whole business, giving managers access to critical information at all times while managing your sales pipeline and opportunities.

You’ll gather intelligence on your customers during the course of doing business with them. This will enable you to offer better service while providing your teams with organisational knowledge, information and the expertise to make complementary sales where appropriate.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control…”

Timely, consistent service delivery is essential. If anything impedes this, capturing data on the spot with time-stamped photos will protect you from becoming open to penalties and demands for refunds.

Improve service with self-service through a web-based customer portal

Many service organisations now approach many of their major clients as strategic partners, working in collaboration with them to build a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership.

A customer portal gives authorised representatives in the customer’s organisation the ability to create jobs, view their service history, access contract agreements and run interactive reports on their KPIs.

This type of self-service access will ensure your clients are kept firmly in the loop, cementing your status as a preferred service partner without adding to the workload of your service administrators. In fact, you free your call-handling and back-office staff to focus on the queries, issues and exceptions that genuinely need their skills and experience.

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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As European service continues to modernise, service executives gather to envision the future and share successes in Amsterdam this October. On the heels of its American counterpart, Field Service Europe promises a collaborative look at the greatest issues and opportunities specific to European service operations in 2015 and beyond.

 Service, powered by developments in technology and technician training, is being redefined as a profit centre for companies as well as a key differentiator in markets where competitors may otherwise offer similar products and value propositions.

This year, Field Service USA 2015 saw a robust turnout of executives from diverse industries, with discussion focusing on the role of technology in relation to technicians, and how both will continue to evolve symbiotically towards ever-greater efficiency and a preventative maintenance paradigm. Now, as European heads of service prepare to meet in Amsterdam this October for their counterpart conference, Field Service Europe, the discussion will continue along similar lines with an added focus on emulating the ability of American operations to transform into profit centres.

In 2014, 7% more American companies than European companies reported that their service operations were profit centres

Bringing a value driving approach to European service will demand a restructuring of how companies envision their operations. As opposed to a historical approach to service, espousing a “get in, and get out” mentality that emphasises speed in response to malfunctioning products, new technology is increasingly supporting a preventative maintenance approach, and thus freeing up time for service calls that emphasise relationship building and preventative maintenance to minimise the possibility of downtime.

In fact, in the near future many service operations are hoping to achieve a goal of zero downtime structured around schedules of preventative visits and communicative machinery that can call in to be repaired before component failure. The greater the ability to surprise and delight customers with a heightened standard of service, the more the door is left open for technicians to adopt a consultative role, identifying complementary services for customers.

 

This relationship building element is being recognised as a key piece of collateral when it comes to not just making more sales to customers, but actually identifying and unlocking value around solutions that are applicable to their wants and needs.

Training technicians to serve as scouts for sales will play a role in unlocking the revenue generating value of service for European companies. Going forward, defining the trainings that will be necessary to ensure that technicians can meet these new requirements will be a process heavily influenced by the relative levels of technology supporting these workers in the field. With a greater emphasis on mobile support and remote diagnostics, it becomes considerably more feasible for a new breed of customer facing technicians to thrive in the field while delivering the same, or higher quality service that customers expect.

Exploring the changing role of the technician as it is influenced by technology

As machines become more communicative, and mobile and remote diagnostic technology provides more support in the field, the role of the technician is set to change in response. In many operations, a bifurcation of the role may occur, wherein less experienced technicians trained for the “soft skills” of interpersonal communication and relationship building are remotely supported by a class of master technicians, well versed in the higher level systems and communicative components of more advanced machines.

In others, a consolidation of roles is expected to occur. This means that technicians will be expected to support both a customer facing set of skills, and a high level mastery of technical systems. In both scenarios, a premium will be set on communication ability, which has historically been viewed as a less essential component of technician training. This change is reflective of the new focus being espoused by service operations at large; surprising and delighting the customer.

The nature of the European market, with its distinct blend of cultural preferences, places unique challenges in front of service executives

Defining Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in Europe, where cultural differences can vary greatly on a nation-by-nation, or even regional basis, presents significant nuance compared to servicing primarily domestic US markets. Within the scope of a reinvigorated customer focus, Field Service Europe’s agenda will connect the dots around how to create comprehensive picture of customer wants, and then address them in a preventative and proactive manner.

It may not be enough to create rigid tiers of service with the attitude that customers can select the one that most closely aligns with their needs. European service executives have an opportunity to use the technicians creating relationships on the ground, as well as the information being gathered constantly by smart, connected products, to more closely define the specific needs of their clients and then serve them on a more customized basis. Ultimately, the executives who are able to meet this level of customer satisfaction will win a massive advantage in the European and global service market.

 

 

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In this the latest feature from our serialisation of the The Service Manager Handbook published by Advanced Field Service we look at the most important part of any field service operation, the field service engineers...

You are also able to download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

Your reputation, spread by word of mouth or increasingly through social media and online reviews, is founded on the experience your customers have of your engineers.

Unfortunately, customers seem more likely to broadcast a negative experience than a positive one, especially in the consumer or domestic service sector. Some disgruntled customers have even taken to posting video blogs of their experience of poor service. A video goes viral; word spreads like wildfire; and your reputation is permanently damaged. So how can you develop a service team committed to building your reputation?

Free engineers to do what they do best

A happy engineer more often than not results in happy customers. What motivates them best is using their time in deploying their skills rather than in endless form-filling. Consider ways to free your service team from the routine dross that saps their time and motivation, and empower them to be more productive and efficient.

Talk to your workforce

Holding regular face-to-face meetings between management and the workforce on the status of the business and sharing any development plans will all help build a team ethos, visibly improving productivity and enabling individuals to see the bigger picture. Whereas they might see the introduction of a new process or technology as a threat; you know it’s essential to the viability of the business.

Make your engineers your eyes and ears

With their close, on-the-ground contact with your customer base, even the most junior engineer can be a source of intelligence, such as feedback on how your customers regard your products and services: are they generally happy or are there murmurings about changing their supplier or service provider? Your field team is also a valuable channel for communicating your vision of quality and also for publicising forthcoming product updates or new services.

 

 

Encourage ‘self-monitoring’

Some service companies are using modern technology such as GPS tracking to weed out the worst instances of misconduct among their engineers. Others are adopting a more complementary method where their engineers choose their priorities and self-monitor their performance, an enlightened approach that can pay dividends.

Information: the vital tool in your engineers’ kit

As previously mentioned, engineers need the right tools for the job: their physical toolkit and information about the product, such as parts, diagrams, nature of the problem and known workarounds, as well as information about the customer, including their service history, plus, of course, essentials such as their contact details and location.

Be sure your engineers are fully aware of any recurring issues, such as a problem with a particular product, so that they can handle the situation with all due sensitivity. As previously mentioned, engineers need the right tools for the job: their physical toolkit and information about the product, such as parts, diagrams, nature of the problem and known workarounds, as well as information about the customer, including their service history, plus, of course, essentials such as their contact details and location.

 

Be sure your engineers are fully aware of any recurring issues, such as a problem with a particular product, so that they can handle the situation with all due sensitivity.

Mobilise your team

Information should also travel in the reverse direction: from the engineer back to base. Using their mobile device, engineers can send the customer’s sign-off back to the call control centre, along with any photographs or other supporting evidence, and details such as time to arrive on site and time to complete the job.

This information can be sent immediately to the contract manager to provide an instant report. A mobile solution is also a useful way to record exceptions to your usual high standards. In some cases, your engineer may be prevented from getting to the root of the problem. Was the equipment inaccessible due to a physical obstruction or the machine being unavailable for servicing?

A photo will provide supporting evidence should there be a query from the customer at a later date.

Room to grow

To maximise staff retention, it makes sense to create a rewarding work environment. A clear and defined development strategy and regular career mentoring are likely to encourage employees to stay. Pairing experienced engineers with new engineers will also speed up the learning curve and give individuals the opportunity to advance.

And those negative social media comments…?

Hopefully, the above tips will help to secure your reputation but if you do receive negative feedback online, you need to address it. If you respond courteously to comments – without being a pushover for compensation – you’ll be seen as a responsive, market-aware company.

Move the debate out of the public arena and offline as quickly as possible. You need to be vigilant but you can’t watch all social media channels all of the time. There are social media monitoring tools, such as Hootsuite, that will trawl the web for mentions of your company.

But once again, encourage your staff to report back on any negative social media they come across. Conversely, thanking customers for sharing a positive experience of your service is also well worth doing if you have the resources.

 

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Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

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The next event of the Service Community will be the held on the 30th September 2015 from 12.30 to 17.00. We are very lucky to be hosted by the Aston Business School, where Professor Tim Baines, Director of the Aston Centre for Servitization Research and Practice leads one of the largest UK teams looking to support UK manufacturing be more successful through service based business models.

This special event is themed on a current key industry issue:

‘Using Big Data to achieve successful customer Outcomes’

Dr Andreas Schroeder from the Aston Business School will provide a perspective based on leading edge research as to how to overcome the challenges of leveraging the big data opportunity to deliver successful  customer outcomes.

We will then hear from industry speakers as to the hands on challenges their companies have faced in using data to create competitive advantage.

• Andrew Harrison will be talking about the how Rolls Royce Aerospace use the data they collect from their engines to deliver new services and reduce costs
• Jeremy Harpham from Pitney Bowes will present the role data is playing as this household brand transforms itself into a leading global e-commerce provider
• Marc Noble will tell us about the role data has played in  Inca Digital’s journey to service excellence

The format will be very informal to encourage as much dialogue as possible, and if there is time we will have a Panel Q&A.

To register your interest and reserve a place – please send your contact details to TheServiceCommunity@gmail.com

Please tell your colleagues about the event, which is free of charge.

For details of our last event in April where  35 professionals met at Fujitsu, Stevenage, see this link.

And for more background on this unique community of like minded people, see this link

 

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Today’s world of industry is evolving at a faster pace than ever before. Agility is key to surviving and thriving in this modern era and agility in service can be the difference between you and your competitors writes Tom Bowe of IFS.

At IFS we talk a lot about business agility, because we believe organisations that are able to respond rapidly to internal and external environmental changes without losing momentum or vision will be game-changers in their field. Why is being adaptable and flexible so important in today’s business world? The world is changing at an exponential rate. The youngest generation of the workforce is further removed from those leaving the workforce than ever before.

Then, of course, you have the learning lessons of those businesses that failed to respond effectively to the rapidly changing technological landscape. Nokia failed to recognise evolving customer demands in the smartphone market and ultimately were destroyed by Apple and Android’s fast paced R&D and delivery cycles. They were the world’s dominant mobile-phone maker but by the time Microsoft bought them in 2013, they claimed just three percent of the global smartphone market. The New Yorker put it aptly, stating; “Nokia’s failure resulted at least in part from an institutional reluctance to transition into a new era.”

Agility is something that will not only allow your business to survive and keep up with an ever evolving market, but it will also give your organisation a competitive edge, particularly in the service sector. This flexibility must be driven internally with a scalable approach. The buy-in must be company-wide, and one place to start is with your processes and systems. The implementation and application of ERP software is most often considered traditional, rigid development, but that is not necessarily the case. ERP software from IFS is built with an architecture that lets you pick and choose what you need for your business. It is optimised to be the best option for service organisations, it is user-friendly, and developmentally adaptable and scalable.

 

Imagine having this flexibility and usability across your organisation, driving your service as a profit centre. An integrated service management platform gives you the consistency, reliability and speed to react in real-time to real-world events. It is an enabler for agility. An integrated solution is provided all on the same platform, so changes to business processes and workflows don’t need to be implemented across multiple systems. This means that processes and workflows are applied seamlessly across the organisation, ensuring efficiency, productivity and accuracy of information. Implementations of multiple systems take time, are tied to prohibitive costs, and are fraught with risk. With one fully integrated system rather than multiple systems connected together, you as an organisation benefit from speed of change, ease of change, reduced costs, and less risk.

Having a fully integrated system gives your organisation true visibility into not only operations, but the field as well. From call intake to financials, the entire process is documented, tracked, and easily accessed at any point during the entire service life-cycle. This gives an organisation visibility of day-to-day activity, and business intelligence needed to forecast accurately for the future. Imagine a flexible system that automatically applies certain determined processes to specific workflows, that identifies parts needed for specific jobs and then instructs technicians on what procedures need to take place during certain projects.

An agile system provides automation and optimisation, coupled with complete configurability and usability, allowing you to operate on a level that continually ensures success. Business agility is particularly important when it comes to service. Customer demands are at an all-time high, thanks to social media and the instant gratification culture created by having things available, immediately, at our fingertips. Service organisations must meet, or better yet, exceed, these expectations.

 

Agility in service not only drives speed-to-market, but also speed-to-delivery, which creates a competitive edge. So what can you do to achieve this agility when it comes to your software solutions and business processes? Evaluate the challenges and failings you have in relation to your current systems and delivery. Consider replacing your current back end system with something that will give you flexibility as your organisation grows internally and externally.

Often with larger, monolithic systems, internal change is static or too complicated to be effective. IFS Applications 9 is able to provide a business edge when it comes to visibility with perhaps the industry’s first user-configurable role-specific interfaces in IFS Lobby, enhanced usability within existing mobile service management tools and strategic customer relationship management (CRM) embedded directly in the applications for real-time visibility and control over the customer lifecycle.

Change the game by approaching the market with a system that will give you the visibility and flexibility needed to truly operate in the fast changing service industry. By making this fundamental change to integrated service management, you will be more prepared for external change, including trends like IoT, share economy, drones, and more. With a foundation based on agility, your organisation is guaranteed to adapt, no matter the situation.

 

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