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Poor service has become a commonplace scourge within the UK with service issues costing consumers nearly £15 billion a year research shows…

In fact over two thirds of UK customers (69%) have been frustrated by poor customer service, almost a half (46%) have demanded to speak to a supervisor and just over a third (34%) have stopped using the brand altogether.

These results are part of the findings from a global report by ClickSoftware, which was designed to assess what were the key frustrations faced by consumers.

Against a backdrop of recent ongoing billing problems with energy companies, over half (52%) of UK residents found utilities companies to be the most frustrating to deal with. It was found that spending over an hour trying to resolve an issue such as billing problem or a loss of power was a regular occurrence. In fact the average time people waited for a resolution was an incredible 4.3 hours.

Communication service providers were second on the list of poor service providers with over a quarter (29%) of consumers irritated at the amount of time they wasted with them. These were followed by Central Government (18%) and banking (15%), in third and fourth place respectively.

The economic impact of this sloppy service is not just restricted to the guilty parties however. UK workers are having to take time off to attend to matters during their working hours to resolve issues. The study revealed a total loss of nearly £15 billion a year, and an individual loss of almost £500 per person.

Then there is the emotional cost. Even the famously reserved British demeanour has it’s limits and over one in 10 (13%) of Brits have been driven so mad by bad service they have admitted to losing their cool and yelling at a service representative.

Meanwhile others have gone to extreme lengths to get better or quicker service, including lying (9%), crying to the service representative (real or fake tears) (4%) or even begging (3%).

Robert Williams, Vice President of UK & Ireland of ClickSoftware reflected on the findings commenting:

“This is a timely reminder for businesses that customer service is still one of the biggest factors in attracting and retaining customers,”

 

“Bad customer service is costing business up to a third of their revenue, and the knock on effect is that people are having to take precious holiday time just to deal with things that could and should be sorted much more easily.”

Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst at the Aberdeen Group and Field Service News columnist also commented:

“Ultimately, satisfied customers help drive retention and profitability for service organisations. Our research found those that reached a 90%+ customer satisfaction rate achieved an annual 6.1% growth in service revenue, 3.7% growth in overall revenue, and an 89% level of customer retention”

Meanwhile a separate research project, conducted by the CCA on behalf of Customer Engagement Optimisation specialists KANA indicated that the majority of UK organisations are dramatically underestimating the link between customer service and revenue.

 The survey of UK Contact Centre Association (CCA) members included respondents from a wide and diverse blend of varying industry verticals including financial services, retail and local government. Perhaps the most striking finding of this research was that less than half (40%) of those in senior management believed that customer service was key to driving revenue. In fact a fifth of respondents felt there was little or even no focus on customer service at a senior level.

 

Other findings of the survey also showed a distinct lack of appreciation of the link between customer service and the bottom line. Again well under half (41%) paid significant attention to the level the revenue they lost as a result of poor customer service. Incredibly, one in ten companies do not measure the financial implications of poor customer service at all.

The research also highlights what call centre agents perceive as key barriers to providing a better service: outdated systems, lack of investment, agent skills gaps and a lack of understanding or support at a senior level.

Unfortunately, the contact centre is often seen as an operational expense and nothing more,” says Steven Thurlow, head of worldwide product strategy for KANA. “Often, senior management will review functional aspects, such as speed of handling times and resolution times. This approach is unlikely to drive further investment and instead maintains a focus on efficiency above all else. Fast service and good customer experiences are not always the same thing.”

However, whilst it seems that Customer Service in the UK is suffering from poor standards whilst being woefully overlooked as a key factor in ensuring and growing revenue streams, yet further study has revealed clear evidence that there is an intrinsic link between customer satisfaction and business success.

In fact research conducted by Trimble Field Service Management highlighted that 71% of field service organisations use customer satisfaction as the main metric to measure the performance of their business. A recent industry report based around research commissioned by Trimble highlighted that there was a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability.

 

So are we facing a true disconnect between the impact customer service can have on field service businesses and the attention it gets within senior management? Are these frustrations related solely to the call centre or are they reflected in the levels of service delivered on the doorstep also?

We’re currently running a short survey ourselves which aims to assess the survey standards of companies in the field. If you want to find out how your standards compare to your competitors then take two minutes to complete the survey to receive a free copy of the benchmark report based on the results when published.

Also thanks to our sponsor on this project TomTom Telematics there is also a prize draw with three £50 Amazon vouchers available.

Click here to complete the survey and enter the prize draw now.

Our third research project of the year is looking at basic field service standards. Kris Oldland, Editor of Field Service News explains why this is our focus. To enter the survey and enter the prize draw to win one of three £50 Amazon vouchers click here.

If you were to strip field service management down to it’s very most basic components the aims are essentially as simple as get the field service engineer to the right address at the time you’ve committed to, ensure that that field service engineer is the right man (or woman) for the job, and then make sure they have the tools to complete the job and the necessary administration as quickly as possible.

It’s as simple as that right?

As we all know whilst these may be the basic aims of service companies across the globe, the reality is that even achieving these simple tasks can prove challenging. Even if you think you have everything in hand, the odds are that someone somewhere is doing it more efficiently, with lower overheads and much greater productivity margins.

One of the great things about field service is that fundamentally people sit at the heart of our industry on both the customer and business side. Companies live and die by the quality of the service they deliver and there is no greater opportunity to entrench the customer relationship than through face-to-face interaction.

This gives field service companies a huge opportunity when it comes to cementing relationships, establishing on-going business and even seeking out new sales opportunities within an organisation.

However, all of these benefits can just as quickly become risks if your service standards fall below expectations. In today’s world information on you and your competitors is both quick and easy to find and everyone has an instant and far reaching voice via social media.

 

If your service standards fall below the expected norms your disgruntled customers can see how your competitors compare just as quickly as they can warn any prospective customers of then bad experience they’ve just had with you.

Getting it wrong today can be an incredibly costly mistake.

However, if we return to the three aims mentioned at the beginning, these core tenets of basic service standards, then there really is very little excuse in 2014 for not getting them right.

Field Service Management Software has become an increasingly competitive niche, which has resulted in constant product improvements against a backdrop of competitive pricing. Especially since the emergence of SaaS systems with easily managed monthly subscription models, highly sophisticated software solutions that can incorporate scheduling, job management, mobile apps and much more and now readily available even to the smallest of companies.

So surely most companies are getting these basics right?

We wanted to a put a definite answer on this and so we have put together a brief survey to find out what tools companies are using to get their engineers to the right jobs on time, what are the common challenges and how useful do the engineers themselves find the tools they are provided with as well.

The survey itself will take you less than two minutes to complete and is open to all field service professionals.

Everybody that responds will also receive a copy of an exclusive white paper  based on the survey results as well as being entered into a prize draw to win one of three £50 Amazon vouchers provided kindly by TomTom Telematics, our sponsor on this research project

Not bad for two minutes of your time eh?

Enter the survey now by clicking this link

In the final part of this series looking at the findings of our exclusive research report into field service software we look at what conclusions can be drawn from the research and analyse what can be expected of modern field service software.  

Missed the earlier parts of this series? You can read the first part of this series which looked at scheduling and integration and interaction here and the second part looking at management reporting here , and the third part looking at the future of field service software here

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report which includes even further analysis then you are able to download it for free by clicking this link.

Conclusion

When we look at the findings of this research as a whole there are a number of conclusions that can be drawn. When it comes to scheduling solutions there is still a large section of the industry not utilising any scheduling software, which ultimately leads to poorer levels of efficiency in the management of the mobile workforce.

This is of course in turn leads to fewer members of the overall workforce being in customer facing roles that could potentially generate revenue.

Based on the improvements in dispatcher to engineer ratios that scheduling software is proven to deliver, for those companies still operating on a manual basis, investing in some form of scheduling is no longer a nice to have but a necessity if they are to remain competitive.

Just a fifth of companies are able to exploit their field engineers’ trusted adviser status by giving them the tools to sell directly. This represents a major opportunity for companies with the means to invest in such systems to capitalise on their competitor’s hesitancy and gain a commercial advantage. Yet despite this opportunity currently few companies place investing in mobile hardware and software near the top of their priorities, with both categories sitting midway on the priority lists of the majority of organisations.

Perhaps the biggest trend this research has unveiled is that cost has become less of a concern for companies looking to implement new technologies, with issues with legacy systems now being the most common concern. [quote float="left"] Many elements that not so long ago were new, premium solutions such as navigation software have now become standard.

 

This could well be a direct result of the influence of the Cloud. The SaaS business model has now meant that service management software is an affordable option for smaller companies, however, integration has been a early documented issue with some Cloud based solutions.

Our research earlier this year on SaaS and Field Service would also seem to support this hypothesis. To sum up, it appears that many elements are coming together to offer vast improvements to the software available in the field service industry. Also many elements that not so long ago were new, premium solutions such as navigation software have now become standard. Meanwhile we also see exciting technologies such as the Internet of Things and Big Data starting to encroach into service management software.

The future indeed seems bright indeed, but in the here and now there are still things that can be improved upon. Whether it be scheduling software or management reporting tools the results of this research indicate that on the whole there is room for improvement in the software being used today.

However, the research also identifies examples of excellence in the service management software as well. Integration is becoming more and more important, and end-to-end service management has become a reality.

Careful consideration is essential when selecting a software provider and an understanding of your own strategic aims is as important as understanding the options available to you. However, it seems that investing in a service management solution in 2014 is both more affordable and beneficial than ever before.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report featuring additional exclusive analysis then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

By registering for this white paper you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which you can read right here.

In this third part of this series looking at the findings of our exclusive research report into field service software we focus on the future of field service software. You can read the first part of this series which looked at scheduling and integration and interaction here and the second part looking at management reporting here 

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

Looking forward:

In the final section of the survey we asked respondents to identify what they thought were the most important technologies likely to appear in service management software, where they believe their organisation should focus their investment and finally what the barriers were to implementing new technologies.

Perhaps the most revealing result of the entire survey was in this final section, specifically surrounding “the biggest concern when implementing a new technology” Surprisingly  “Cost of implementation” is now only the second most common concern with “Legacy issues with former systems” becoming the industries greatest concern in 2014. The amount of companies that now cite this as their biggest concern when implementing a new technology has increased from just 22% in 2013 to 38% today.

This represents a potentially significant shift in the industry. In the last few years we have seen rapid developments in service management software, with key trends, such as the requirement for system wide integration as discussed earlier in this report, starting to emerge. The impact that the Software as a Service model has had on costs offers many companies the ability to invest in service management software, when in the not too distant past such an investment may have been beyond their reach.

Earlier this year in another research project conducted by Field Service News we saw that number increase to 38% of companies with a further 48% of companies stating they could possibly do so in the near future. However, the same report also highlighted that currently only 23% of companies have made the shift to a Cloud based environment for their service management software.

This would indicate that there is indeed a trend for companies to be migrating their service management software to Cloud based systems and it is an on-going process. If this is indeed the case then it would also explain why cost has become less of a concern whilst integration with existing legacy systems becomes a greater worry.

We also asked which emerging technologies would be likely to have an impact on field service software in the near future. The results whilst not surprising indicated how many in the industry seeing field service software evolve once again in the very near future. Over 45% of companies felt that Big Data, The Internet of Things and Connected Vehicles will all start appearing as options within field service management solutions within the next three years.

If each and all of these concepts live up to the massive hyperbole that surrounds them then it the way our industry operates will be fundamentally changed. At the same time 37% of companies also think that they wearable devices will become commonplace within the next three years also.

Whether this comes true is likely dependent on the success of Google's Glass product which offer the greatest promise, although the development of smart watches could potentially offer another wearable device that could be put to use in field service. Interestingly perhaps one of the technologies most established that could offer great benefits to certain field service verticals, namely 3D printing was only cited by 19% of companies as being likely to make an impact in field service.

However, this could be a reflection of the wide ranging industry verticals field service incorporates as much as a lack of faith in the technology. 3D printing will certainly be of more of a benefit to some industries (e.g. manufacturing) rather than others (e.g. retail). That said anecdotally there are are certainly those who have (an unfounded in most instances) lack of faith in 3D printing, we are reminded of echoes of the exaggerated fear of the security of the Cloud somewhat with 3D printing. It many ways the technology simply seems to much like science fiction to be fully trusted.

When we looked at the more immediate needs of the industry we saw some familiar patterns. Despite the questions we raised earlier in this report about the suitability of optimised scheduling for all companies, such systems appear to remain in demand amongst field service organisations.

Our final question in the survey was “In terms of investment, which of the following areas of technology do you think it the most critical for your company to remain competitive?” and we gave respondents 8 choices asking them to rank them in order of priority. The options were Route optimisation, optimised scheduling, integrated CRM, contact centre/help desk, mobile hardware, mobile software, logistics/spare parts management, and reporting/analytics tools.

Optimised Scheduling was ranked as the number one priority by 29% of companies, this was followed by Integrated CRM and contact centre/help desk software, which were the number one priority for 27% and 17% of companies respectively.With nearly three quarters (73%) of companies identifying one of these three areas as their key focus for investment it seems that these are clearly the biggest needs for the industry at large.

 

It is also interesting to note that whilst relatively few companies (7%) identified logistics/spare parts management systems as there number one priority, many companies identified it as either their second (27% of companies) or third (23% of companies) priority. This would indicate that whilst most companies do not see logistics/spare parts systems  as the most burning issue, they do acknowledge that it is an area that they should invest in should funds become available.

The one technology that has perhaps now had its day is route optimisation. This scored as the lowest priority for 56% of companies. There are many reasons route optimisation is now no longer a significant area for investment, whether this is because it is included in many service management software packages or that the technology has been around long enough to reach to near market saturation - the fact is that most companies will now have some sort of route/navigation software already even if it is simply Google Maps and a BYOD.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report featuring additional exclusive analysis then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

By registering for this white paper you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which you can read right here.

In this second part of this series looking at the findings of our exclusive research report into field service software we focus on management reporting. You can read the first part of this series which looked at scheduling and integration and interaction here.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report then you are able to download it by clicking here.

About the research:

Across April and May of this year (2014) Field Service News in partnership with mplsystems undertook a research project to assess the current usage of field service software.

The survey was split into four categories. Scheduling systems, integration and interaction, management reporting and future options. In total we spoke to over 120 field service companies of differing sizes and differing industries. These were predominantly UK based although there were respondents from all over the world including Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

Reporting:

It may be a cliché but the maxim “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” rings true in all industries and with technology now offering more measurement and analytics tools, with greater levels of sophistication than ever before management reporting is an important element of service management software.

In fact 78% of respondents stated that as a manger the ability to get clear and comprehensive management reports from their service management software was an important tool. Further to that, 63% of these went on to define management reporting as “Critical – I couldn’t do my job without it”

When we also factor in that a further 19% of respondents stated that management-reporting tools were “Helpful” it is clear that such tools are utilised by all but a very small minority  (less than 5%) of field service managers.

It may have been what we expected to find but the findings of the research absolutely confirm the fact beyond all doubt. Management reporting is an absolutely integral facet of Field Service Software.

However, whilst management reporting is clearly such vital piece of the field service management software whole, it appears that when it comes to functionality and performance, there remains plenty of room for improvement in the eyes of many field service managers responding to our survey.

In response to the question “Is the reporting functionality you get from your current system up to the task” almost two thirds of respondents stated that they found their current system merely “Acceptable”

So whilst the functionality of these tools is workable, they are still far from perfect. In fact whilst there are a reasonable amount of companies (21%) who identified their reporting functionality as “Excellent”” there is a similar amount of companies (20%) who state that the management reporting of their current system “Doesn’t meet their needs at all”

 There certainly a number of different considerations when purchasing a field service software solution , research is absolutely essential and taking the time to identify your own reporting needs both now but also in the future, before comparing this with the options available to you will potentially save both time and money for your organisation in the longer term.

 

Of course within field service perhaps one of the most important aspects of reporting is real time visibility into the actions of your mobile workforce.

In this area there is an interesting division between companies.

It seems that a large percentage of the companies in the industry (42%) are able to provide real time location and status of their field technicians to not only their dispatchers but also their help desk and customer service teams.

This is an improvement of 24% compared to 2012 figures. Such a dramatic rise is likely due to the fact that such a level of visibility is a powerful tool both in terms of managing efficiency as well as delivering excellent customer service and therefore a key area for investment.

Despite this fact, a surprisingly large number of companies (30%) still have no visibility at all into the activities of their mobile workforce. Whilst this figure has decreased by 9% since 2012 it remains a significant proportion of the industry.

Such a large number is somewhat worrying in that without any visibility there is little hope of these companies being able to improve the efficiency of their field service operations at all. It also means that the levels of customer service are potentially impacted as well.

This gap in implementation of technology could lead to a genuine division appearing in the industry. Those companies who are able to continue to deliver excellent service in today’s modern environment of demand twenty first century consumers, and those whose service standards remain stagnant and out-dated.

When it comes to competing on service, which has become a key battleground for businesses in recent years, there can only be one winner…

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

By registering for this white paper you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which you can read right here.

You can also now find the third part of this series looking at the future of field service software here