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Field Service News is currently working in partnership with software provider mplsystems on a research project which looks to establish a clear picture of what software is being used in the field service industry, what is working well and what needs are not being met by the providers in the industry...

The survey itself looks at four key areas of field service software; scheduling, integration & interaction, reporting and looking forward. Already we are seeing some interesting trends appearing five of which we explore below…

1. A large amount of companies are still using some manual processes:

In fact just under half (49%) of the companies that have responded to date are still using manual systems to manage the dispatch of their field service engineers. With the benefits of using some form of scheduling automation well documented this number is perhaps surprisingly large.

However, when we look at the biggest concerns around implementing a new technology at least one reason is clear. Cost of implementation is the highest barrier for companies looking to develop their service management solution with 46% of companies citing this as a predominant concern when implementing a new technology.

When we consider that just over half  (51%) of respondent companies identified optimised scheduling as one of the three most critical areas for investment it would certainly appear that it is a case of when not if these companies will be moving away from manual scheduling solutions.

2.Ratio levels of technicians to dispatchers remain relatively low:

Not surprisingly given the amount of companies that are still using manual systems the ratios of dispatchers to engineers is generally quite low with 77% of companies having a maximum of 15 engineers per dispatcher.

With dynamic/optimised scheduling being claimed by some vendors to be able to handle more than 40 engineers per dispatcher it would appear that there is quite a dramatic opportunity for improving the overall productivity of service divisions.

This is further evidenced when we look at the ratios of those companies using an optimised scheduling system. 44% of these companies operate with a minimum of 16 field service staff per dispatcher with 22% working with between 26 and 40 field service staff per dispatcher.

These figures could be important for companies looking to move their business towards a profit centre, particularly when we consider that in many instances labour costs are greater than any other in a business, so having more of your workforce placed within positions that can directly impact upon revenues could be an essential step to making the transition.

3. Most companies though are pleased with the current systems

Despite the failings listed above it appears that most companies are currently satisfied with their existing scheduling solution with 45% of companies ranking their system as either Good or Excellent compared to 20% who identified their current solution was either poor or very poor.

Of the issues that were cited when we asked “What is you biggest issue with your current scheduling system?” interestingly ‘a lack of visibility’ was one of the most often highlighted problems for many companies. Again have a clear transparent visibility into the location and activities of a mobile workforce is absolutely key to being able to improve the efficiency of the field service unit.

Other common responses included incorrect estimations on time allocated to jobs, lack of flexibility and also integration problems with wider systems.

4. Companies still have to work with multiple systems to accommodate the full customer life cycle

In fact integration issues are magnified by the fact that the vast majority of companies have to work with more than one system to provide them with a full solution to cover the entire life cycle of their customers. 81% of the companies responding to our survey so far are working with multiple systems, with 20% of companies using 4 or more systems as part of their solution.

With visibility and transparency being key issues field service companies need to tackle to improve their efficiencies, it is a simple premise that the fewer different systems they can utilise will be beneficial.

Based on the current findings, it would appear that companies either need to look towards consolidating their existing systems by migrating to one of the many new generation systems such as that offered by mplsystems, which can offer an end to end solution or look to establish better integration with their existing systems via development of or investment in API’s etc.

5. Over a third of companies find integrating systems a problem

This issue is further highlighted when we asked, “Would you say you have an integrated end-to-end service management technology solution?”  With 38% of the companies responding stating “They have a number of different systems across different divisions making communication between departments tricky.”

With this figure rising to 44% of companies when we look at those without any form of automated scheduling, it would seem that many companies in the industry face a decision in how they can enhance their current field service operations, and serious considerations need to be made, with a forward looking approach that ensures the investment in technology compliments any planned changes to business culture and strategy.

 

 

mplsystems has announced a new, integrated field service management solution that directly address what they perceive as the three main barriers to field service efficiency: combining disparate IT systems; enabling the scheduling of reactive jobs alongside planned tasks; and solving ongoing issues relating to lack of visibility of activities in the field.

The systems key functionality includes a unified service desk portal, automatic and dynamic planning and scheduling of service activities, as well as mobile communications for field personnel through dedicated apps for all leading smart phones and tablets.

The solution is particularly easy-to-use, supporting a unique combination of automated scheduling with dynamic drag-and-drop capabilities to enable planners to optimise schedules and manage their reactive tasks in real-time. When integrated with a comprehensive service desk portal and updates via mobile apps, organisations will be able to unlock significant productivity and efficiency savings with a true, real-time view of all current maintenance activities across the business.

 

 

 

Bridging the disconnect

“Until now field service management systems have always suffered from a disconnect between the service desk, planning and what’s actually going on in the field. The result is that it has proved virtually impossible for service management firms to react quickly to customer emergency jobs and change requests as the planning function is burdened by overly complex scheduling tools that make it difficult to schedule such reactive jobs in real-time. Our new service management solution directly address this challenge,” commented Paul White, CEO at mplsystems.

“And despite the great advances in smart phone technology, the reality for most service organisations is still that their field workforce is largely invisible. That’s a real concern given that the top complaint from service maintenance customers is that technicians, when on site, can’t resolve issues. By integrating our service desk portal with both automated scheduling and field updates via mobile apps, we can make sure that field service organisations have both the real-time information dynamic planning tools they need to solve this problem.”

The new solution differs with traditional service scheduling tools that are often over-complex with endless menus, options, parameters and screens.

Instead the mplsystems solution features a simplified interface with three core drag-and-drop presentation options that enable schedule optimisation: a dynamic map view that streamlines the scheduling and allocation of tasks, a field service engineer’s calendar view showing all jobs and locations, and a complete list of jobs that can be filtered using a range of parameters.

These three views can be toggled separately or displayed concurrently on a single screen. When the service desk receives a call, all service desk staff need to do is just drag and drop the task onto the appropriate field engineer’s schedule. This action updates diaries and transfers all relevant task information to the engineer’s mobile Android, iOS or Windows Mobile device.

mplsystems vs maximo?

Statutory Support Services, a specialist building services maintenance group, chose the new mplsystems solution to gain a single view of all its field activities.

“With mplsystems we’ve been able to automate around 50 percent of the manual scheduling tasks that we had to do with our previous system, and we’re already seeing improvements in terms of our KPIs and SLAs. Our schedulers are no longer overloaded with endless menus, options, parameters and screens. Instead they get to look at just three simple views – a dynamic map that streamlines the drag-and-drop scheduling and allocation of tasks, a field service engineer’s calendar view, and a complete list of jobs that can be filtered using a range of parameters,” explained Adam Clarke, Statutory Support Services UK Limited’s Managing Director.

“The sheer simplicity of the system means that our staff simply need to drag-and-drop a task onto the appropriate field engineer’s schedule. This action updates diaries and transfers all relevant task information to the engineer’s mobile device. With the time saved, we can focus our helpdesk staff on the kind of added value tasks that other service companies simply don’t have the time to do.

“Thanks to increased SLA adherence and the ability of our new mplsystems implementation to respond effectively to reactive jobs and dynamic schedule optimisation, we’re expecting the mplsystems field service management solution to pay for itself within just six months,” he added. “When you factor in costs such as licencing and hardware costs for field mobile systems, we’re estimating that our cloud-based mplsystems technology solution will work out at around five times less expensive than our legacy enterprise Maximo-based scheduling system.”

mplsystems’ new end-to-end solution can be delivered either on premise or in the cloud, and provides field service organisations with a true real-time view of all their current maintenance and support activities across their entire operation. A full suite of field service management software allows businesses to create and customise exactly the level of functionality they need around their existing IT investments.

 

 

 

Robert Woodhead is an award winning Construction Company operating across the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. Growing steadily since its inception in 1946, Robert Woodhead have developed an impressive customer portfolio and now deliver multi million pound contracts  to some of the largest public and commercial organisations in the UK.

To help meet their rigorous customer service targets, Robert Woodhead decided to develop its service management offering as ‘Woodhead One’ – a specialist operation that delivers responsive repairs and maintenance. As part of the business strategy and to support the expanding repairs and maintenance business, the company knew it would have to optimise its customer contact and scheduling activities if it was to successfully balance excellent customer service with high quality operational performance.

Previously using manual spreadsheets and paper based job allocation, the business wanted a solution that would manage the end-to-end field service operation. To successfully achieve these project goals, Robert Woodhead selected mplsystems to design and deliver a seamless end-to-end field service management solution that would include the helpdesk, scheduling and mobile field service. The solution would need to integrate with existing systems and enhance business processes.

In response to customer demand and to alleviate the volume of service requests going through the helpdesk, mplsystems designed a customised self-service portal that allowed clients to log and track jobs themselves. The portal gave customers full visibility of their service requests and meant they could access the portal at any time without having to call or email the help desk.

Once the request has been made, the helpdesk were able to view real time information on the location and status of mobile field workers and to fully optimise job allocation and instantly send a notification update to the field worker via mplsystems customised mobile app technology.

This solution simplifies the service management process whilst improving efficiencies for both Woodhead One staff and their valued customers. Since implementing the solution Woodhead One have experienced significant business growth and 100% increase in reactive job requests in just two years. The portal now manages more than 75% of these reactive service requests, allowing Woodhead One to reduce their outbound call costs, increase service response times and reduce the admin load on the service helpdesk.

Customers no longer have to call or email the service desk to request a job, they are able to access the portal 24/7 and have full visibility of their request from initiation to completion. Clients can also now effectively measure their job requests through instant reporting from the portal and have full visibility of billing to fully understand associated costs, meaning they too can optimise their business operations.

Stephen Gribby, Repairs and Maintenance Director, Woodhead One commented 

“The team at Woodhead One see our solution from mplsystems as a true differentiator and a feature that is now helping us win new business. We are continuously reviewing our service delivery efforts and the next stage of the project is to encompass our payments system into the portal to achieve a more unified approach across the business”

To find out more you can read the full case study here

 

 

The field service industry continues to evolve at pace. New technologies are constantly emerging which have the potential to change the industry as we know it.

At the same time we are seeing a huge cultural shift with many seeking to realign their service division from cost centre to profit centre. To help us keep up with these changes Field Service News has put together a panel of five field service industry experts and asked them each to share their insight on the industry today. Second in the firing line is Paul White, CEO mplsystems

 

What is the biggest driver for change in field service today?

It’s all about customer expectations, today’s smart phone empowered customers expect immediate service when they want it - or they’ll switch. Delivering field service is no longer just about dispatching resources. Instead the focus is on delivering end-to-end customer service targets and reacting to changes in real time. However the reality for most organisations is still a proliferation of disconnected systems and processes that make it impossible to monitor and deliver true end-to-end service. Systems integration simply won’t fix this for most organisations, it will just result in inevitable manual data fill and mistakes – and an inability to deliver the reactivity and service that customers demand.

 

Which technology has had the biggest impact on the field service industry in the last 5 years?

The ability to deploy affordable field service apps on standard mobile consumer smart phones and tablets rather than expensive dedicated devices has had the biggest impact, enabling an entirely new generation of connected field service solutions. You can now equip field staff to support customer engagement activities, track on-site attendance and feed back into HR, monitor time in the field for improved financial management, as well as provide specialist telematics services - all via flexible smart phone apps. However, these will still require integration to avoid the kind of piecemeal approach that inevitably leads to efficiencies, with vital customer data getting stuck in individual departments.

 

What is the most important consideration when moving from cost centres to profit centres?

Turning field service from a cost centre into a profit centre demands an end-to-end approach that’s reactive to customer requests and strengthens loyalty by driving out errors. This then empowers those people who spend most time with your customers – your field service staff – to identify and action the right cross sell and upsell opportunities with your loyal customers. An engineer fixing the lighting, for example, may notice that an air conditioning system also needs work – so it’s important that they have the sales mechanisms in place to immediately recommend and action repairs.

 

Who is Paul White? 

Paul White joined mplsystems as Chief Executive Officer in May 2005. Paul has spent the last 20 years working in and around the Field Service and Contact Centre industry and is one of the industry pioneers in the creation of affordable service management and CRM and Customer Service contact centre solutions. Prior to joining mplsystems Paul was the founding CEO of BT Contact Central, which, over 4 years, grew into a global business across UK, Europe and Asia Pacific. Whilst at BT, Paul was responsible for designing some of the largest CRM and Customer Service solutions in Europe and had major roles in systems architecture, product management and sales.

 

To read this full panel debate and much more download a free digital copy of our quarterly magazine. Click here to register.

 

 

 

 

Infographic showing the key benefits of a truly end-to-end field service software solution based on exclusive research conducted by mplsystems and existing client case studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delivering high quality service is clearly essential for any successful Field Service Management provider. That’s why it’s so important for service-based organisations across the facilities management, property management, maintenance and cleaning sectors to avoid the common pitfalls that can lead field service operations to fail in delivering service excellence.

Typical issues here can include a lack of integration between service desks, planning/dispatch operations and field staff; poor visibility of customer data, updates, stock and asset information; the breakdown of customer feedback and audit trails in the field; as well as the introduction of vulnerable manual processes and unnecessary administration costs. It’s this inability to join the dots that can make it increasingly difficult for service providers to achieve efficiency savings and remain competitive.

Recent mplsystems research identified mobile field service team visibility as a critical element for helping to address these issues. At a time when increasing field workforce productivity is proving a key challenge, we found that almost 40 percent of service management operations admitted to having no visibility of their mobile workforce at all. For larger field service teams, gaining insight over field service teams is even more difficult, with the dispatch function becoming critical – and a potential bottleneck to performance.

What’s needed is an approach that works to resolve this service disconnect – one where messages are always shared with field-based staff, where updates are accessible across end-to-end processes, where performance monitoring extends across all activities, and where interactions aren’t lost as they pass through multiple departments and systems.

That’s why at mplsystems we have built an end-to-end field service management solution that can provide organisations with a true real-time of all their current maintenance and support activities across their entire operation. Key functionality includes a unified service desk portal; the automatic and dynamic planning and scheduling of service activities within defined SLA adherence guidelines; supporting mobile personnel through dedicated apps for in-field data collection and route optimisation; as well as comprehensive analytics and SLA reporting.

By directly linking service desk and field operations, organisations of any size can effectively automate key processes such as parts and asset management, optimise their scheduling and even deploy customer self-service portals so that clients can carry out their own bookings and changes. And because this service is now available on a Cloud-enabled pay-per-usage basis, it can prove particularly cost effective for all workforce sizes, from just 15 to over 500 mobile staff.

When Balfour Beatty Workplace combined its multiple UK service centres into a single major mplsystems-powered National Operations Centre it deployed just this type of flexible helpdesk solution, helping the TFM operator to manage bookings and plan jobs across its multiple accounts. For Balfour Beatty Workplace the results have been impressive; initial savings of over £500,000 in terms of efficiency savings and penalty reductions have been realised. In addition there has been an 18 percent improvement in response rates, non value-added calls have been cut by 2,000 a month and the company has seen a 28 percent improvement in planned maintenance performance SLAs.

Before deploying its mplsystems field service management solution, Gamestec – the UK’s largest gaming and amusement machine operator – needed separate contact centre technology, CRM and handheld devices to maintain communications with its engineers. By implementing an mplsystems solution, Gamestec has seen an 88% reduction in ongoing IT costs, with increased efficiency across the organisation in terms of how service and field staff are deployed.

Metric Group, the leading provider of car park payment terminals, also uses an mplsystems solution to support its field service engineers. The solution gives Metric Group a single view of all its engineering resources, allowing the company to optimise service schedules, increase field service productivity, improve response times for customer and dramatically simplify reporting.

 

“Transforming Field Service - Key trends and common pitfalls: how can new technology combat your field service issues?” is a brand new white paper published by mplsystems which provides an excellent review of the key considerations Field Service Managers should be aware of when assessing their own operational systems and processes.

Written from a refreshingly impartial viewpoint this detailed white paper provides a clear picture of the issues currently facing Field Service Managers in todays service industries whilst giving solid, intelligent guidance on the technologies that are currently available to circumvent those issues as well as advice on what questions you should be asking of potential providers when reviewing possible solutions.

Drawing on research from a number of different sources including Aberdeen, The Service Council, Gartner as well as exclusive research commissioned by mplsystems themselves the white paper presents a considered and balanced viewpoint on the industry today.

The white paper begins with perhaps the most important question any Field Service Manager should be asking – Why do some organisations fail to deliver? As the white paper explains the picture of the European service standards are not quite as rosy as one may expect.

Indeed although field service technology has moved forward in giant leaps across the last decade, the stark reality is that still the vast majority of organisations are failing to dramatically improve their service standards.

According to mplsystems there are three key underlying factors that are preventing improvement; these are disparate systems, reliance on overly complex scheduling and large ERP systems and finally a lack of visibility in the field. However, there is a huge array of technology based solutions to overcome these problems and this white paper explores many of these systems, whilst providing honest commentary on why the technology may or may not be the right fit for your own company.

The technology trends covered within the white paper are:

 

• Mobile field service
• Scheduling and optimisation
• Parts locator and boot stock management
• Analytics
• Real-time monitoring
• Sales and marketing in field service
• Off the shelf versus customised
• Self service and web portals
• End to end KPI’s
• The rise of cloud

Each of the above sections of the white paper contains an overview of the relative trends which combines a strong understanding of the technology, yet manages to present the information in clear, jargon-free language. Making this 8 page document simultaneously meaningful, yet easily read. The content is logical, well thought out and certainly provides the reader with valuable insight that is required when facing a combination of constantly emerging technologies and numerous suppliers offering what on the surface at least can appear to be very similar products.

I am pleased to recommend this white paper as a highly valuable resource and would strongly suggest downloading it.

To register for your copy of this excellent white paper, simply click here to complete the 10 second registration form.

Find out more about mplsystems in our online directory. Click here to go to the mplsystems directory page.

Specialist building services maintenance group Statutory Support Services (UK) (SSS) has selected mplsystems’ cloud based end-to-end service management solution as part of an overhaul of their current system. Their existing solution, the previous generation of the Maximo system was replaced after the group found it to be overly complex for their needs.

The system that replaces it, mplsystems’ iMobile offers both dynamic drag-and-drop and automated scheduling of SSS’s field engineers, while a comprehensive service desk portal and integrated mobile apps for their field personnel should see significant improvements in both productivity and efficiency. As the system provides a true, real-time view of all current maintenance activities across the group, the results should also be tangible from day one.

Within their sector, SSS work with a number of leading organisations including Hill Woodhouse, Lambert and Smith Hampton.

Adam Clarke, Managing Director at SSS commented

“We previously worked with a legacy Maximo scheduling system that proved both over-complex and inflexible, so we were keen to move towards a more comprehensive, end-to-end service management solution that would allow us to deliver more dynamic and efficient scheduling, especially for reactive job requests”

“We looked at a number of alternatives, but only mplsystems - with its cloud-based iMobile solution - could give us the end-to-end solution and the visibility we needed across our entire maintenance services operation.”

Clarke further expanded on this by adding:

“Now with our new mplsystems solution in place we’re able to manage our entire field service operation using a dedicated service desk portal, giving us real-time visibility of all our activities and providing much greater integration of our employees in the field,”

“We have also been able to incorporate additional functionality that, for example, allows our field engineers to quote immediately for any further work that customers might need – improving our responsiveness and unlocking potential new business opportunities.” He concluded.

A clear advantage of establishing a single view of all field activities is that it will enable SSS to make healthy savings by optimising schedules for both planned preventive maintenance and also reactive service requests. Thanks to increased SLA adherence, the ability to respond effectively to reactive jobs and dynamic schedule optimisation, SSS expects its new mplsystems field service management solution to pay for itself within just six months.

Where mplsystems’ new end-to-end solution contrasts with traditional service scheduling tools is that some solutions are often deemed to be perhaps to complex with multiple menus, options, parameters and screens, for the needs of the dispatchers of field service managers implementing and using them on a daily basis.

The mplsystems solution therefore has a more simplified, and modern look and feel. It features three core drag-and-drop presentation options that enable schedule optimisation: a dynamic map view that streamlines the scheduling and allocation of tasks, a field service engineer’s calendar view showing all jobs and locations, and a complete list of jobs that can be filtered using a range of parameters.

These three views can be toggled separately or displayed concurrently on a single screen. When the service desk receives a call, helpdesk staff simply drag and drop the task onto the appropriate field engineer’s schedule. This action updates diaries and transfers all relevant task information to the engineer’s mobile Android, iOS or Windows Mobile device.

Paul White, Field Service News columnist and CEO of mplsystems’ commented

“We’re delighted that Statutory Support Services has chosen our cloud-based iMobile solution as a platform for their truly integrated service management solution,”

“Combining our portal, cloud IT platform, automated and dynamic drag-and-drop scheduling and comprehensive mobile field service integration, our end-to-end solution is set to unlock the significant efficiency and productivity savings that come from a truly joined-up approach to field service management.”

With iMobile, mplsystems has brought a powerful suite of cloud-based end-to-end field service management solutions to the market with a wide and impressive range of functionality companies like SSS need to support their range of operations. Key functionality includes a unified service desk portal; the automatic and dynamic planning and scheduling of service activities within defined SLA adherence guidelines; supporting mobile personnel through dedicated apps for in-field data collection and route optimisation; as well as comprehensive analytics and SLA reporting.

Find out more about mplsystems and there end-to-end solution including optimised scheduling. Find case studies, videos and other resources in our online directory by clicking here

 

 

For field service organisations looking to augment their end-to-end service management offering, there’s a range of innovative technologies that can make a real difference. We’ve already seen technologies such as cloud, mobile, social media and self-service start to extend the capabilities of field operation, however one that has had less focus until now is the increasing use of web chat.

Field service operations have traditionally struggled to unite two key elements – the technical expertise of their field-based engineers with the availability of their service desks. Not surprisingly, engineers are always busy – either travelling to a customer location or already engaged onsite.

Now with multi-way web chat, however, it is possible to bring field engineers and the service desk together. Service agents can now bring other experts from any department into their customer conversations, and – through mobiles and customer service apps – bring in field-based engineers from any location.

Web chat is one of the most rapidly growing channels – particularly among younger customers. As well as providing an additional channel for customers to check for updates and advice from the service desk, chat is now set to play an increasingly important role within field service management.

Examples of how chat can be put to work include helping field staff to exchange best practice, and also connecting customers directly to field staff to speed resolution.

Chat can enable direct communications between field staff, allowing them to use mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets to create conversation threads to share knowledge on recent issues and exchange resolution tips.

Chat can also be put to use as part of an integrated customer service approach. When clients are speaking to a service desk agent and need further assistance, the agent can quickly open up a 3-way chat session with the appropriate expert field service engineer. Often client issues can be resolved in this way without the field service professional actually needing to visit the client site.

For organisations looking to add chat to their service management portfolio, it’s important to look for solutions that can extend the value of their existing systems approach. Key functionality should include the ability for service centre agents to conduct multiple chats, chat conferencing, as well as the ability to integrate with knowledge bases and FAQs.

While chat can be deployed on a standalone basis, it delivers optimum value as part of broader multi-channel universal queue approach – ideally accessible from the service desk via a streamlined service agent desktop. Implemented correctly, chat increases choice for customers, and opens up the opportunity to link directly with service experts who can resolve client requests quickly and cost-effectively.