As the service sector looks to reduce site visits in line with current social distancing measures Aquant suggests a solution to maintaining continuity during the pandemic lies in (Artificial Intelligence) AI, remote technology and better data collection.

The service industry does what it does best when in the field, repairing or maintaining equipment. But the medical community is urging us to #StayHome while we fight the pandemic. Service pros can’t unilaterally stay home, but there are ways to reduce the number of site visits needed, while still solving customer issues. And even as the pandemic declines, we are likely to see some social distancing remain, and a rollout of more rigorous health and safety policies that slow a full return to business as usual.

THE BEST WAY TO MANAGE fIELD SERVICE CONTINUITY

Service leaders are accelerating longer-term transformation plans that include self-service solutions, AI tools, more remote diagnostics, better data collection for predictive maintenance, and other changes that limit the number of visits technicians must make to work sites. While some solutions can be deployed more quickly than others, there are ways for service organizations of all sizes to immediately resolve issues faster.

Problem Solving & Planning With AI

1. Increase First Contact Resolution

Resolve less complex issues on the first call. Al tools can enable customer support agents to triage problems during initial contact. To do so, empower agents with the assistance of a robust triage tool that understands every customer and their equipment, and is able to make intelligent service recommendations.

That smart system gives your customer support team the ability to walk through dynamically generated, intelligent checklists with customers. Unlike decision trees, these checklists are created by using smart algorithms that are validated and improved by expert employees and continue to learn and evolve over time.

The more information the agent can prompt the customer to provide, the more accurate the suggested solutions, and the shorter the job duration. For example, the more time spent on remote triage upfront, the better prepared a technician will be on arrival — bringing the appropriate parts or tools. In addition, it provides opportunities for customers to undertake simple solutions themselves when possible.

2. Offer Self-Service Solutions

In addition to providing customer-facing agents access to a diagnostic solution, consider adding a self-service tool to your website for customers to access directly. Direct customers to use the resource to diagnose, and in some cases resolve, simple issues remotely without the need to dispatch a field technician. The most important aspect is that self-service tools are intuitive and:

• Includes an easy-to-use UI
• Asks questions in plainly worded language
• Can understand customer intent regardless of word choice they use to describe a problem
• Recommends the most likely fix that’s possible to achieve remotely.

The addition of self-service tools will immediately mitigate some of the travel problems associated with COVID-19, while also laying the foundation for a longer-term strategy that reduces the burden on an over-scheduled workforce.

3. Use the Right Parts the First Time

Most service organizations face two big parts problems:

The first is a lack of parts or rather a lack of the right parts. If a technician goes into a job without enough context about the issue or is a more junior member of the workforce, there’s a good chance the first visit will simply be a diagnostic one, and then they’ll need to return at a later date with the correct part or parts to complete the job. No technician wants to make multiple visits right now.

The second problem is often harder to detect. That’s the challenge that goes by many names including shotgunning, swap ‘til you drop, or troubleshooting with parts. It’s far more costly when field technicians cycle through more parts than required for a job. It’s also a drain on resources when inexperienced technicians, without the right guidance, struggle by swapping out parts until the issue is resolved. Instead of trial and error, choose AI tools that tap into organizational data, analyze that data, and provide techs on-site with the most efficient path to resolution — decreasing the time it takes to complete a job while also lowering service costs.

4. Analyze Hidden Data to Transition to a More Predictive Service Model

We’ve talked to service leaders across the country, and a common thread is that they are preparing for the post-pandemic, new normal. Future-looking service organizations are driving towards more planned and predictive models which will allow for more strategic workforce planning, fewer site visits, and more steady streams of revenue. And they know that to get there, they need better ways to wrangle historical data along with the ability to monitor and react to IoT and machine outputs effectively.

Start Planning for the Future What’s next for your service organization? Learn how AI-powered Intelligent Triage reduces repeat visits, increases first contact resolution, and creates a better customer experience.

Further Reading: 

• Read more about remote technology in service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/remote
• Read the latest news about Covid-19 and service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/covid
• To find out more about Aquant click here.

In a recent edition of the Field Service Podcast, Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland was joined by Field Nation CEO, Mynul Khan as the two discussed how field service organisations are turning to the gig economy and other third-party labour pools to balance their workforce needs. 

The original interview was part of an interview for a documentary that Field Service News have produced in partnership with Field Nation looking at how field service organisations can harness the power of the 'blended workforce' in this manner.

However, the full interview contained a lot of additional insight from a man that has been a pioneer in bringing the technology that underpins the blended workforce to our sector. As such, we asked Mynul if we could publish the full interview on the Field Service Podcast. The above is an excerpt from this episode. 

You can find the full podcast and our entire back catalogue here

The New Requirements of Field Service Management

There have been many crucial developments within the field service sector within the last few years. One of the most important of these, from Mynul Khan is sitting is how many field service organisations are now pushing their service offerings out to a wider reach of geographic areas. 

"These are different types of service offerings, which require different types of skill sets," reflected Khan. 

"This translates to having a different type of workforce that can provide the type of service needed that is more on demand, that is more agile and more nimble. Companies that are under pressure from industry to expand in different geographies and with different types of services are therefore having to adopt this more on-demand workforce model.

In parallel, we are also seeing that product based companies, so the OEMs or retailers, are also pushing more services and more solutions. The reason for this is fairly obvious - there is not much margin in selling hardware. So we are seeing large OEMs, VARs, and retailers developing their own service and solutions arm." 

"There is an increasing trend to go beyond the traditional layers of service-centric revenue and to move towards a more servitized, or outcome focused approach within modern service offerings..."

Indeed, this is something that we are seeing more and more of as the trend continues.

Those companies now who don't explore the routes to developing their own field service operations to deliver such offerings, which deliver not only high margin revenue but also recurring revenue, are in danger of missing the boat and getting left behind. 

Of course, this is just one mega-trend within a rapidly changing landscape of field service management.

There is an increasing trend to go beyond the traditional layers of service-centric revenue and to move towards a more servitized, or outcome focused approach within modern service offerings. At the same time automation is changing the way we think about field service, just as it is changing many other industry sectors. 

The role of technology within this change, is an important one that cannot be understated. 

"Technology and automation is playing an absolutely pivotal role," Khan comments. 

"Another mega trend that has emerged is that all hardware is becoming IoT enabled hardware. This connectivity means that we can remote monitor and remotely trouble shoot the problem that the device is having. On top of this we are also seeing the rise of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms which are being used in preventative maintenance.

"All of this is coming together to really drive the cost of service down for field service companies and enables faster repair time and ore uptime for the customer. Even for a company like Field Nation, we are deploying mMachine Learning algorithms for better matching of workers to the service ticket," Khan added.  

Want to know more? Check out our full documentary on the 'Rise of the Blended Workforce.'

If you are a Field Service News subscriber the link below will take you straight to the documentary.

If not, the link will take you to our subscriptions page so you can join 30,000 of your field service management peers and subscribe now and get access this documentary and all of our other premium content!

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Louise Robertson from Localz outlines some of the challenges the mobile workforce face during the pandemic and ways of negating its impact.

Covid-19 means we are living in an extraordinary time; we are hyper-aware of who we are interacting with on a day-to-day basis. This is further heightened by the need to reduce the number of people we connect within the real world. Human movement has been restricted to assist with #flattenthecurve.

Essential services must continue to function and mobile workers need to keep the infrastructure working. Roadside assistance, plumbers fixing broken heating and boilers, electricians restoring power, utility personnel performing essential maintenance, healthcare workers attending to in-home patients, and deliveries of everyday essentials.

Confinement is rapidly altering consumer expectations, activities, and motivations, this will impact the customer perception of different brands in different ways. (Day 3 and I am crawling the walls of my home office) Keep in mind you have an opportunity to excel (or fail) because customer expectations are high now with so much emotion and uncertainty.

The delivery of service and products has changed 

Everyone is brainstorming isolated customer scenarios to build a customer-centric approach in the face of Covid19. Consider:

Changes to customer needs and journeys

There is no longer ‘business as usual.’ Customer awareness, concern, and reaction to the virus is rapidly shifting expectations and needs. Growing government restrictions will impact customer demands.

Be proactive now with information for customers

Over-communicate with customers and employees who are concerned and demanding information. Use agile, personalised daily communications to keep teams updated, protected and positive.

Put the isolated customer at the centre of your plan. Address how you can help customers keep themselves safe in this pandemic and address their concerns and fears. Conveying what your brand is doing to ensure a safe service or shopping experience in physical locations can earn trust (and business).

• Advance identification of the mobile worker sent to the consumer: photo, name, vehicle registration number, relevant licence credentials, and even body temperature readings.
• Pre-arrival information, job details, accurate ETAs, and tracking maps that update in real-time. The customer can be prepared to socially distance themselves.
• Real-time two-way communications between the mobile worker and the consumer enabling contactless property access and sharing of last-minute details.
• The issuing of unique one-time PINs enables deliveries and service appointments to be authorised, approved and completed in a contactless manner as there is no need for any physical contact or signing on a device.
• For product deliveries ‘to the doorstep’, customers can advise a safe place, can track precise arrival, and can be notified of delivery completion - helping to reduce concerns about goods being left outdoors.

Communication in action

You can proactively collect feedback from customers in real-time to monitor how your field team is coping.

How your brand responds to questions like this will vary wildly based on your category. Reviewing the tone of your marketing and communications plans at this time is important. You have to pull planned communications which are out of sync with the crisis. (Cruise offers and restaurant experiences)

Gartner says, "Listen to your customers": CX and customer insight leaders are in a better position than others in the organization to understand how customer needs and expectations are swiftly changing.

Real-Time Feedback

Attitudes and perceptions will change very rapidly, so it will be essential to establish real-time feedback monitoring and reporting. People who were not taking the virus seriously a week ago are doing so today. Simply put, month-old data on customer attitudes and perceptions of your service may as well be decade-old data. Have full visibility of your mobile workers to keep abreast of changes that may occur day-to-day in the coming weeks and months.

Where your brand depends on real-world delivery of products and services plan...

• How you will serve customers if those are curtailed?
• Will you need to implement testing or provide masks to customers?
• How will you deal with customers who exhibit symptoms? Must your employees in every location understand and interact with local health officials?
• How can you use communications to support people who are quarantined?
• Can you shift to contactless digital delivery of field services?
  
  

Answers to these questions are not easy since they involve issues of product, logistics, inventory, supply chain, and operations. These questions are not only relevant for brands in the most immediately affected categories, like health products and travel. These questions can and will impact your customers and your brands in the coming months.

Resources are shifting as companies change their focus from solving broken touchpoints to addressing distinct and urgent customer needs and flexing to address severe operational, manufacturing, or logistics issues. Under normal conditions, CX leaders fight to secure and keep resources, but in the coming months, their ability to use customer insight to inform urgent decisions and support shifts in priorities will be more important than maintaining a steady course.

“In this extraordinary period of time, it has never been more important to address the fears of consumers who are literally locked in and worried about everyone they interact with. Reassuring them with frequent communication so they know exactly who to expect, the steps you’ve taken to keep them safe, precisely when you’ll arrive and enabling them to communicate their precise instructions for access is not just important, it’s vital. Without this, you may well find you’re locked out.”

(Tim Andrew, Co-Founder, CEO Localz)

NB This article was inspired by an article from Augie Ray of Gartner which you can read here. 

Take a look at these videos to see how Localz is helping during the pandemic in terms of communication, feedback and team visibility.

FLS - FAST LEAN SMART, UK Managing Director, Jeremy Squire shares his experience on the tools needed to overcome increasing last mile challenges...

Key to the success of your last mile service delivery is planning appointments (when applicable) and Engineer routes that are both achievable and efficient. Not all methods for this are equal and in this article we explore the alternative methods used by scheduling technologies and why you need a real-time appointment optimiser, even if you prefer to fix the jobs to Engineers on the day of service delivery.

With the right systems to support you, the appointment booking is opportunity to guide your customer to the most cost effective time slot for an Engineer with the right skills and parts.

Every Field Service software solution includes appointment booking and often describe this as ‘optimised’.  Look closely at how this is achieved, the majority are far from optimal and result in unachievable appointments, heavy involvement by Planners and Managers, and cause some Engineers to work excessive hours whilst others are under utilised. 

Which of these are familiar to your way of working? The good, the bad, the ugly…or the best!

The Ugly – ‘patch’ method

Engineers are assigned exclusive postcode patches and new appointments can be offered until the maximum daily limit is reached. There is often a long wait for an appointment, even though neighbouring Engineers have availability, and you can typically only offer full day timeslots. Before the day of service begins, the scheduling system or a Planner will put each diary in a good order for travel according to maps, or the Engineers do it themselves.

The Bad – ‘basic’ white space scheduler 

With this method engineers work within a maximum travel radius from a start point and there is overlap between coverage areas. Each engineer has a route optimised utilising a driving time calculation with speeds according to road type. Timeslot options for a new appointment are calculated by the system finding ‘white space’ in the existing diary of suitable engineers and presenting best (lowest cost) choices based on deviation from current route – the job is then inserted into the chosen place in the diary.

Periodically, every few hours or overnight, you run the scheduler which will move jobs between the engineers for better routes and efficiency.

The comparison appointment costs given by this method are inaccurate because they do not consider the overall schedule so you end up ignoring them and just offer up any of the available slots, even if this was 2 hours driving one day or 10 minutes the next. Diaries may appear full which causes a long lead time to attend appointments, but running the scheduler later reveals availability was there all along – too late!

The Good – ‘enhanced’ white space scheduler

The ‘enhanced’ is based on the same principles as the ‘basic’ but smarter. Routes are more accurate using travel times with actual average speeds for each road segment according to the time of day. It is still just looking for white space in the diary but, after the appointment is booked, it will re-optimise this and nearby routes, moving jobs between engineers, ready for the next appointment request. 

Whilst this is more accurate than the ‘basic’ method, the comparison of appointment costs is still incorrect for the same reason. Also, an appointment that is calculated unavailable might actually be available if the ‘real-time’ method was used.

The Best – ‘real-time’ appointment optimiser

This method is truly best-of-breed. The schedule is always optimised with time of day traffic based travel speeds. For an appointment request, the system performs a real-time optimisation for each time slot requested, incorporating all relevant Engineers and jobs. It advises the difference in cost for adding this job into the fully optimised schedule for each available time slot.

To be practical in a customer service environment this must be achieved in seconds, even for high volumes, which is why there are few vendors able to offer this.

This is the only method that enables your customer service team (or self-service portal) to correctly offer and guide customers to pick the most cost effective time slot choices – resulting in mileage reduction and time for more jobs.

The real-time optimisation will also reveal time slots are available when all other methods would say the diary is full - reducing the average time to attend an appointment.

With this approach, you always know the planned schedule is accurate ready for last mile delivery - your Engineers will be happy with the plan and you are less likely to have challenges during the day of service or let customers down. Planners can be reassigned to customer service roles and  Managers can instead focus on quality of service.

The benefits of a ‘real-time’ appointment optimiser for your last mile service delivery are clear and we at FLS are so confident that we offer to facilitate you to prove this in live operation before commitment.

Customer proof

As Richard Wilson, IT Director HomeServe Boiler Installations comments, “We wanted a more dynamic tool, one that could continuously optimise, looking at every appointment and every field worker collectively and scheduling everything in the most optimal way.”

And the results - “FLS has enabled us to get to our appointments 25% quicker than we were. It’s really highlighted how efficient your scheduling can be when intelligent software does it for you. We see FLS as a growth facilitator. The efficiency gains are such that we’re now in a position to scale up”

Field service organizations are under constant pressure to do more with less. As customer expectations for competitively-priced, high-quality services continues to grow, companies are looking for innovative ways to complete more work without taking on additional overheads. Mynul Khan, CEO, Field Nation discusses...

In his previous article for Field Service News, Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director, Service Management, IFS introduced the concept of the experience economy, now he outlines why digital transformation is the key to driving it forwards...

Here's a scary statistic. The average person clicks, taps or swipes a mobile device 2,617 times a day.  It shows just how much time we now spend interacting with the online world. Banking, booking holidays, shopping, socialising and so on, we increasingly live our lives through a screen. And with every interaction, we expect a particular level of service in return.

With digital technologies continuing to advance rapidly, along with consumers' understanding of the possibilities they enable, people demand an immediate and seamless experience whenever and however they make contact. These expectations, which are already prevalent in the home, have now evolved in the workplace. This has major implications for the planning and delivery of service, and specifically how companies look to drive customer loyalty (and ultimately retention) via a superior experience.

Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have a significant role to play here. AI isn't strictly new of course. But what is new is the way it influences today's experience economy by affecting outcomes, driving engagement and in many cases scaling the human.

Superior engagement

A comprehensive customer contact strategy is essential for any service organisation. Traditionally, this has focused on voice or email; now it includes an entire omnichannel capability with multiple media touchpoints. As you'd expect, this evolution is being driven by younger age groups. 26 per cent of millennials use social media and 29 per cent use texts and messaging apps to reach out for service, while three-quarters of all people over 44 years of age prefer using more traditional means such as emails or phone calls.

For example, if you want to book an appointment for someone to come and service your boiler, you can organise it without having to speak to anyone, online. A chatbot replaces the 'real' person. This is more convenient for you, more cost-effective and efficient for the organisation you're talking to - but it also raises your expectations.

This means responses must be faster, and there's no room for error. There's no time for long calls with operators or the patience to be passed from department to department. And gratification must be swift and successful, however you interact - whether via a web portal, email, virtual assistant, or even an instant messaging service like WhatsApp.

74 per cent of companies offer some form of self-service for customers - and the majority have implemented it specifically to improve customer experienceThis has implications for businesses looking to maintain positive customer relationships. An operation which has traditionally focused on contact centres, predominantly powered by phones (i.e. voice), must now deploy a comprehensive, omnichannel communications suite capable of serving a wide range of contact media, anytime and anywhere.

This can be problematic. Many companies can't afford to extend their contact centre facilities to multiple locations, or cater specifically to every market they're working in.

However, help is at hand with virtual contact centres which can make efficient use of distributed and varied workforces, automatically matching agents with requests and customers.  This also drives a more responsive, agile, and scalable workforce where agents can engage in multiple simultaneous conversations using multiple chat sessions and providing consistently high service levels.

The B2C world already does this pretty well. 74 per cent of companies offer some form of self-service for customers - and the majority have implemented it specifically to improve customer experience. B2B organisations need to follow suit. The rewards are big for those who do it well. Companies with effective omnichannel communications enjoy 28 positive customer experiences for every one negative experience, while companies without this experience just two positive experiences for every one negative*.

It's a no-brainer. Doing omnichannel well can create up to 14 times more positive customer experiences. Crucially, this also influences customer loyalty. To look at it another way, your business will potentially only lose one in 29 customers, as opposed to one in three!

Powering the experience

The driver here is digital transformation, enabling new levels of service provision. Customer interactions differ based on age, demographics and preferences. Digital supports them all. It's no longer just your customer services department talking to these customers, it's your equipment, IoT sensors, AI, chatbots and more: predicting behaviour, recommending actions, solving issues, intuitively.  The more it does this, the smarter it gets.

This technology is transformational and can bring huge benefits to your business. However, you need the right infrastructure in place to manage it.

So, what next?

To see examples of how IFS has helped customers drive digital transformation in their operations, and understand how omnichannel customer engagement can improve your customer’s experience, visit ifsworld.com.

*Forrester: The role of emotion in customer experience

Gas Smart Heating Ltd has rolled out a high tech mobile workforce system as part of a paperless management system.

A specialist in domestic heating and plumbing, Gas Smart Heating has equipped its field engineers with tablets running jobWatch, a 5 in 1 app supplied by BigChange. Incorporating vehicle tracking with real time job reporting via the tablets, the system provides Gas Smart Heating with a complete end to end business solution.  

Headquartered in Brighton, Gas Smart Heating provides reactive gas and plumbing maintenance including boiler and appliance installation. Formed just 5 years ago the company wanted to introduce the latest technology to underpin further expansion. The BigChange system has replaced existing software and paper-based systems, eliminating paperwork throughout the business.

“As we began to grow and recruit more engineers, we realised we needed a much more professional system in order to match larger service providers such as British Gas,” says Steven Cahalane, Director, Gas Smart Heating.  “We really needed a single system that would do everything and it was clear from the outset that BigChange offered something that fitted the bill exactly.”       

Gas Smart Heating use JobWatch to log incoming calls, schedule work with jobs sent electronically to the assigned engineers’ tablet.  With real-time data from the job, the office is always kept in the picture and can quickly resolve any issues - with invoices generally raised on the day of job completion.

“In implementing the BigChange system we wanted to get in early with the latest technology and as state-of-the-art software it gives us a crucial competitive edge in the market.  With JobWatch we are probably 25 percent more efficient; without it we need more office staff and I would be overwhelmed with administration tasks and paperwork.  In fact, without it we simply wouldn’t be able to compete,” comments Cahalane.

BigChange matches the functionality of systems costing hundreds of thousands of pounds used by national utility firms. This allows new independent players like Gas Smart Heating to enter the market and match the levels of service provided by the traditional suppliers.”      

Operationally, JobWatch has been implemented to provide information on appliances and job history information so engineers have visibility of previous faults and work done.  The system also manages stocks and parts purchasing so engineers no longer face delays on jobs waiting on parts.  

As part of JobWatch vans are fitted with satellite tracking.  Previously engineers were being called to check on their whereabouts but the system has eliminated that by providing email or text ETA alerts to keep the customer informed on the day.  Customers are also able to track engineers progress via a link they receive by Gas Smart heating.