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New and extended business modules for customer experience management software include configurable self-help portals, enhanced field service technician mobility applications, real-time integration with Microsoft Dynamics AX, and dynamic field scheduling with optimisation 

Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI), the developer of customer experience management software solutions,announces new business modules for field service solution VServiceManagement™.

Modules include self-service supply chain portals, a multi device field technician app that includes Android and iOS apps for field service management, a routing and scheduling optimiser, and a robust Microsoft Dynamics AX API. These modules are integrated in the cloud version of the field service management software, and also are available for on-premise installations.

• MyServicePortal™ enables external partners and customers across the service supply chain to schedule, monitor, and manage their service experience via a secure, online portal. This self-help portal experience offers real-time configurable dashboards, appointment scheduling, service history, and parts orders. All service-related information is available via any device, at any time.  
• FieldCom™ is a highly configurable online/offline mobility application for field service organisations. Field technicians can access current assignments, view inventory levels, access knowledge articles, create parts orders, view their KPIs, and more while posting their labor, parts, and expenses. Additional functions such as signature capture, payment processing, and bar code scanning are also now available. Featuring online and offline capability, FieldCom supports iOS, Android, and Windows-based smartphones, tablets, and notebook devices.
• VSchedulerTMdelivers dynamic optimised field scheduling, mapping, and routing. Field technician scheduling can incorporate skills, service level agreements (SLAs), travel times, inventory availability, shift patterns, and more. When variables change, VScheduler suggests the most efficient and cost-effective route and schedule for each field tech, with auto-updating when variables change. Further, integration with leading GPS/telematics providers allows for geo-fencing and automated alerts throughout the scheduling process, enabling a pleasant (or satisfying)  customer experience.
• VSM-Connector™ offers real-time integration with Microsoft Dynamics AX, using direct web services. The Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD) integration enables companies to benefit from the native business logic and workflows of each system, yet share all service information that has financial implications – including entitlements, incurred costs, inventory, and invoicing – in real time.

 

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IFS's Tom Bowe takes a look at the feeling we've all had before where the day is spinning out of control and helps identify how we can stop it with field service technologies... 

You know what I mean. It’s 8 a.m. Two field techs have called in sick, three started late and four more are in training, your dispatchers are already biting their nails, and the schedule is looking more like scrambled eggs and less like the beautifully organised chart that 30 minutes ago was going to hit 100% of your SLAs.

Perhaps you have a legacy system that just can’t keep up with demand. Perhaps you use a ‘temporary’ Band-Aid application, or a hodge-podge of Excel and other manual systems. Whatever your predicament, there is a better way.

You’ve heard it before - the right technician, at the right place and right time, with the right tools. Right? This marketing buzz only means so much. What does an optimised schedule truly mean for your business?

For one, it means the situation I described above can be addressed without daily fire-fighting and crisis management. A schedule that continually and automatically re-optimises in real-time based on changes (expected and unexpected) that happen throughout the day, eliminates human error, frazzled dispatchers, missed SLA’s and so much more. Let’s take a deeper look.

 

The end game is to deliver the best service possible balanced between lowest cost and highest profit. Pretty simple, right? No, actually that is kind of hard. There is a cost and usually a revenue side of every factor that drives your service business. If you had unlimited resources you could probably keep all your customers happy all the time, right?

If you had engineers within a few minutes’ drive of all of your customers and they all had every part that could ever be used to service the equipment they repair, you could literally achieve the ultimate goal of 100% satisfaction because these techs would be there when equipment fails, and they would always have the right part. But that’s fantasyland, not to mention super-expensive.

What you need is an intelligent system to consider all the dimensions and constraints of your service operations and evaluate them in real-time to make sure you are making the best decision to achieve target service levels.

In other words achieving a level of customer satisfaction where customers return for additional product and service purchases, while you deliver that service at the highest profit and lowest cost possible. So what kinds of dimensions and constraints are we referring to?

The dimensions of field service scheduling usually include geography, capacity, traffic, work to be performed, rules about the work to be performed, parts, people and time. These constraints, and many more, each have an impact on your operating margin.   Let’s look at some examples.

Capacity is the number of resources available to handle the workload. This can include employees, contractors or service partners and needs to address emergency jobs, appointments, installations, repairs and PM work. Capacity costs money so shift rosters are carefully planned to provide adequate coverage. But parts come into play because they need to match up with the assigned resource. And so does travel times, traffic and proficiency.

 

The work itself is defined when the job is created. It could be an urgent job that requires immediate attention, or a lower priority PM service inserted into the schedule at the last possible moment given their proximity and availability.

Maybe a technician arrived on site and could not get access to the equipment, or the repair took half the time expected. Why not recognise that you now have additional capacity and dynamically adjust the schedule to increase productivity? Perhaps you can do one more job today or you can arrive 10 minutes early to the next one, but maybe there is a penalty clause. These are all factors in making the best decision.

Rules usually define who can do a given job. Do they have the skills, certifications or even travel visas. Are they qualified, available and how much do they cost? Are they close enough, can they get the parts needed, or is someone else closer and equally qualified?

All of these decisions are balanced against time. For instance, knowing where each resource is currently located, who is on time vs. running late, how far do they have to travel to their next job, and if that made sense at 8am in the morning, does the same set of circumstances apply at 9:05am? The same can be said about the value of each service call to your business.

The customer’s happiness is not static. There is a time period within which your response is adequate and after that satisfaction dwindles or costs rise depending on the SLA. And 1 hour appointment windows are better than 2, 3 or 4 hours. Even better if you tell the customer the tech’s estimated time of arrival (ETA).

Today, the best enterprise service management software solutions take all of these factors, and more, into consideration when providing an optimised end-to-end service delivery schedule. Optimised scheduling, as part of an intelligent mobile workforce management solution, means complete field visibility, on-time every time, anywhere.

It means less human error and better efficiency. It gives you back the control you might think you’ve lost…so you can get that cup of coffee at 8:15am instead of having to manage another blow-up crisis.

 

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A recent study by US firm Software Advice, a company  offering comparisons and research for dispatch software, identified a number of insights into how the levels of service provided by home services are impacted by dispatching technology with GPS-enabled capabilities.

We spoke with Justin Guinn, the field service market researcher at Software  Advice, who conducted the study and developed an in-depth report on the topic. We discussed how, when it comes to home service providers, common customer pain points can include lengthy arrival-time windows and waiting on late technicians. We dove into how GPS-enabled software offers a solution to these pain points by providing more effective scheduling, routing and dispatching.

Field Service News: Your new study shows the impact that scheduling has on customer  satisfaction. What did you uncover?

Justin Guinn: Our study uncovered that accurate, strategic scheduling is imperative for successful field service businesses. We found that after a service provider is an hour late to an appointment, two-thirds of consumers simply won’t do business with that company again. In such a competitive market, this sort of customer attrition can kill a business.

Fortunately for service providers, proper scheduling, routing, and dispatching software directs technicians along optimised daily routes so that they most effectively get from appointment to appointment in a timely manner.

FSN: Things can always come up in the field. Is there something that service  providers can do to retain those customers if they are running late?

JG: Interestingly, we found that 73 percent of consumers are more likely to rehire a provider if they receive a notification with an updated arrival time for the technician. Clearly customers expect punctuality, but this indicates they also just want to be kept in the know. We all greatly value our time, so this makes sense. This is why many field service software offerings feature automated text messaging capabilities that do just this.

FSN: So, technology can automatically help a business keep a loyal client base?

JG: Well, to maintain loyal customer base field service businesses first and foremost need to obviously deliver quality work with great customer service. Dispatching and scheduling software isn’t going to “fix” technicians with clumsy skills and/or crummy attitudes, but, like I mentioned, it does ensure punctuality and offer an effective remedy to late technicians. The software also enables applicable service segments to schedule repeat/recurring visits while onsite with customers, ensuring retention; some systems even act as a point of sale, allowing technicians to accept payment for the current job and any newly scheduled visits.

These capabilities above are great for increasing revenue and generating customer retention, but what about growing a field service business footprint? Dispatching and scheduling software plays an important role in achieving this growth by simply enabling technicians to get more work orders completed each day. We found that 95 percent of service business saw an increase in work orders completed per technician per day. Work orders equal customers, and the more customer interactions a service business can create, the more relationships they can build and the more chances for repeat business.

FSN: Apart from customer-facing benefits or the number of work orders per day,  did you discover any other direct financial benefits of this kind of software?

JG: The other main benefit of this software comes into play by reducing overhead costs and expenses.

Our study showed that 89 percent of service companies see a decrease in fuel costs after adopting dispatching and scheduling software. It makes sense: optimised routing leads to less time spent on the road and less time spent sitting in traffic, thus less fuel being used. On top of that, our research shows that 95 percent of businesses see an increase in technician punctuality after implementing this kind of technology. This brings it back to the first point of getting mobile technicians to a job on time, thus retaining more customers.

Some of these systems can get even more granular by tracking technicians’ driving habits. For example, this capability allows the back office to see if a technician is accelerating too quickly, thus unnecessarily burning fuel. As a mobile workforce grows, so to does the impact of this feature. But no matter the workforce size, tracking and monitoring driving habits enables companies to increase safety by implementing and incentivizing driving best practices.

FSN: You had another recent report that found 54% of field service businesses  don't use any software at all to manage their business. For that majority, why do you think they're hesitant to adopt technology?

JG: A likely reason that field service software adoption rates are so low is because companies/owners/managers might be intimidated by the many software choices. So instead of springing for software, they continue going about their manual ways until it eventually just becomes too much to handle. We talk to many field service operators everyday, and this is typically the predicament they’re facing.

They’ve been operating their business with “comfortable disorganisation,” but it’s taking a toll on their professional and personal life. That’s why we try to provide a personalised shortlist of products based on the needs of their business. In a sense, we’re typically  the first step for field service operators to get their business in order and reclaim some sanity in their lives.

 

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Scheduling your field engineers is undoubtedly one of the core key performance indicators (KPIs), central to your business profitability, and a key target on which staff are measured. In this article which is taken from the Advanced Field Service Service Management Handbook 2014 we look at some handy pointers to getting the right engineer to the right place at the right time... 

To get your free copy of the eBook "Service Management Handbook 2014" published by Advanced Field Service simply click here and complete the brief form!

Scheduling is one of the most fundamental aspects to get right for a field service organisation, but it’s a delicate balance between meeting the needs of both your staff and the business. Get it right and the chances are the business will be highly successful. Get it wrong and the consequences can be disastrous. Utilisation may be a simple percentage number but there are multiple factors that influence its outcome…

What type of call are you doing?

• Fixing a breakdown or performing a routine service?
• Do you just fix the immediate problem or go ‘above and beyond’ in addressing all potential problems to minimise the likelihood of another call-out?
• Are you paid per call, or does the customer have a warranty, service contract or rental agreement? [/unordered_list]

What is your routing allocation model?

• How can you ensure engineer days are utilised with maximum efficiency?
• Do you segregate engineers into geographic regions with boundary inefficiencies or route engineers for least travel time?[/unordered_list]

Can you categorise the calls you do to plan the day effectively?

• How do you optimise the number of calls per day you can handle?
• How do you balance the load? Divide your teams into large site service jobs, concentrate on multi-location quick fixes or mix-and-match?
• Do you bias planned maintenance work to the latter half of the week to free up capacity for the start of week breakdown rush?[/unordered_list]

What is your skills/parts allocation model?

[unordered_list style="bullet"] 

• Can you allocate jobs based on skills/knowledge?
• Do you know what skills each job requires?
• Do you have systems in place to manage this or does your call centre team have to know all about your products and your engineers’ individual capabilities?
• Can you train all your engineers to do everything, and keep them up to date, or do you have area experts but run the risk of over-utilising sought after individuals?
• How do you manage broken calls?[/unordered_list]

Do you understand the site access profile?

• Are customer premises open 24/7, 9am – 5pm, or appointment only?
• Can your software automatically match the work order to site access requirements to maximise productivity? [/unordered_list]

Right engineer. Right place. Right time.

It’s simple to manage a very small set of engineers with a small number of jobs. But as your business grows, so does the potential complexity. On the flip side, having more engineers and more options doesn’t necessarily have to mean more hassle for you. In fact, many growing UK service businesses find that big savings, both in terms of costs and time, can be made from getting the properly skilled technician to the job with the minimum of fuss. So when scheduling your field resources, how can you get it right?

1. Optimise travel times

With 50% or more of service man-hours commonly lost in travel time before an engineer gets on site, not to mention escalating fuel costs eating into your profit margins, optimising travel times has never been more important. When new calls come in, you need to know your engineers’ present and future locations. Modern GPS navigation, route planning software and mapping tools have changed the rules for engineer allocation, helping your engineers reach customers via the quickest and/or shortest route. Your scheduling system should reduce planning time by suggesting and prioritising slots in the vicinity of the engineer’s home location and/or existing call locations – as well as find the best slot for the job in line with SLA commitments.

 2. Track your field team

Can you see at a glance who you have in the area and which engineer is best placed to answer a new call or respond to an emergency? If for any reason an engineer cannot gain access to a customer’s site, is there another call locally that they can be redirected to? Knowing your engineers’ whereabouts will help you react and re-plan rapidly. You’ll also be able to monitor how long they’re spending on any particular job and check whether other work needs to be urgently re-planned. Over time, having this data will help build a record of engineers’ actual and reported locations, highlighting any anomalies that need addressing.

3. Combine breakdown service with planned maintenance

Which customers have routine service checks nearly due? Is an engineer already scheduled to attend the customer or working with another customer nearby? Being proactive in scheduling routine maintenance jobs will free your team to handle unexpected events. Your systems should give you the flexibility to generate service jobs when you want to and to prompt operators with information about these jobs at the appropriate time.

4. Increase first time fix

You should have the systems in place to quickly identify who has the skills and availability to take a call. Provide them with everything they need to know to get in quickly, do the job, close down and exit, including call history and technical information. Needless to say your engineers need ready access to spares and parts. Can you track your inventory so that parts can be sourced quickly – from another engineer in the vicinity, the depot or a supplier? Give your engineers the power to search for spares and order them via their mobile device. This can also assist in reducing the costs of carrying inventory on the van ‘just in case’.

5. Plan non-billable activities

Time has to be allowed, planned and incorporated into the overall scheduling process for non-job related activities such as holidays and training. Only then can you instantly see the potential clashes of too many staff away at one time. Will approving a particular holiday request make it impossible to deliver certain jobs on time? Or can delivery be achieved only by the over-utilisation of the engineer prior to or immediately after their holiday? Integrated planning can help manage this process across the complexity of all jobs and staff, keeping an acceptable balance on workloads and maintaining realistic timescales.

6. Review demand against resources

Workloads need to be managed to acceptable levels for both your field and back-office staff. Your scheduling systems should prove invaluable in managing the complexity of resourcing across all jobs and provide a holistic view over the resourcing commitments across the business – so you can see at a glance the forecasted demand on your staff and their availability to take on new work. By being able to visualise the impact of resourcing staff into new jobs and contracts, priority can be assessed, achievable schedules can be created and, if necessary, existing work rescheduled or reassigned to another engineer with the skills to complete the job.  

   If you found this feature helpful click here to get the full eBook which has over 45 pages full of useful information for Service Managers!      

As the organisers of the Field Service Solutions Theatre at this year’s Service Management Expo, Field Service News was on hand to speak exclusively to a number of leading industry professionals straight as they stepped off the theatre podium. In this video series we are pleased to bring you the highlights from the Field Service Solutions Theatre.

Here we hear from Simon Spriggs account manager at Exel Computer Systems discussing the various types of scheduling system with a focus on assisted scheduling and why it is important for any field service company to be able to have the ability to get it right first time every time when it comes to dispatch.

Download the slides from Simon's presentation by clicking this link

 

As the general public continue to raise their expectations for service call and delivery times to fit within their own personal schedules the ability to make supply and service chains ever more effective and dynamic is likely to be the difference between those companies that thrive and those that are left behind. 

Technology is of course a major enabler in allowing companies to meet these demands and Telogis have just launched a further extension of their already comprehensive, cloud-based, location intelligence software platform. The new module is called Telogis Appointment and will be revealed at this years Commercial Vehicle show at the NEC next week (running from the 29th to 31st May) Appointment is the latest addition to theTelogis Route Planning Suite

Telogis Appointment improves customer service by allowing consumers to choose delivery windows that are most convenient for them while also being most cost effective for the deliverer. It helps shipping companies reduce turnaround times by matching delivery slots to customers’ open times to receive goods, and automates ETAs to the receiving parties via text or email – all in real time.

“Businesses that embrace a customer-centric service model and implement mobile and location intelligence technologies aimed at expediting, improving and personalising the customer experience will ultimately grow market share and remain competitive,” said Newth Morris, Telogis co-founder and president, Telogis Route and Navigation. “By providing a higher level of service to their own customers, Telogis’ customers benefit from increased fuel savings, mobile worker productivity and profits.”

 

Intelligent Appointment Scheduling that Maximises Profitability

When customers interact with online scheduling tools or speak with a customer service representative by phone, Telogis Appointment will provide a choice of available appointments based on pre-determined criteria such as delivery cost, available resources, proximity of existing vehicles and resource capabilities of technicians or delivery specialists.

Telogis’ integrated work order management, routing and scheduling programs provide customer service representatives with optimised appointment times/windows that allow the customer to choose a time that works best for them. This dynamic back-office coordination takes into account factors such as vehicle location, onboard tools, skill sets, routing and schedule, and only presents appointment options that will be profitable.

Telogis Appointment also delivers integration to/from existing Customer Resource Management (CRM) or other customer service portals and initiates a call to/from appropriate applications in order to present profitable appointment options.

 

An Integrated Platform Approach

Telogis’ platform approach for any mobile enterprise gives customers a seamless, integrated SaaS solution on which to build a more productive, efficient and compliant fleet and manage all aspects of their mobile operations. The Telogis platform combines strategic and dynamic planning, advanced mobile apps that log delivery drivers’ Hours of Service (HOS) and other compliance requirements plus easy-to-build mobile forms, commercial navigation and telematics.

Now in version 6.0, the Telogis Route Planning Suite supports static, fixed-route and territory planning as well as dynamic routing, routing support specifically for vehicles carrying hazardous materials and commercial trucks. This enables Telogis customers to be more responsive and provide a higher level of service for their own customers. The Telogis Route Planning Suite ensures that plans are built so that key customers are visited regularly and operations teams can more effectively manage last-minute jobs, resulting in increased efficiency, revenue and overall customer satisfaction.

As well as appearing at the CV Show next week Telogis will also be appearing at this years Service Management Expo which is in London's Excel on June 17th,18th & 19th and will be giving a presentation during the Field Service Solutions Theatre which Field Service News is proud to be hosting. 

 

 

 

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