Field Service News | Software and Apps (2)

Turning Field Service into a Strategic Lever

Mar 10, 2020 • Features • bybox • Software and Apps

In today’s digital economy, every company is now a service company. The winners are companies that meet customer’s ever-growing expectations; the losers leave openings for competitors to exploit. In this fight, field services have become a crucial battleground. But how can you turn something that has traditionally been a pain-point for many companies into an area of strategic source of value and differentiation? Jon Magson, Commercial Director at ByBox, joined us to help answer this question.
What’s changing about the field service landscape?

JM: ByBox has been in this industry for over

20 years now and we’ve always focused fundamentally on solving the customer’s pain points when it comes to field services. What we’re seeing is an ever-growing demand to not only offer a functional field service solution, but to turn field services into a real source of differentiation from competitors.

What’s brought this change about?

JM: Customer expectations have grown. Think about the kind of experiences you have with the final mile in other industries. It was only around ten years ago when it was the norm that shopping ordered online would arrive within three to five working days. Now anything less than next-day delivery is too slow.

Customers have the same level of expectations when they call for an engineer, but it isn’t just about being quick to react. Every service moment is an opportunity to solve problems, implement new solutions and ultimately delight the customer. In a world where people are getting used to amazing customer experiences, field services can’t afford to fall behind.

What’s harming companies’ ability to give customers a great experience?

JM: Companies are investing significantly in field services to modernise and optimise the people involved through technologies like engineer scheduling software or job logging systems. In 2019 the global investment in this area was£2.18bn and that’s expected to rise to £4.58bn in 2025. Where companies are falling short is, they are still using legacy inventory management systems and processes. So only part of the problem is fixed. It’s no good having the engineer on-site at the right time if the right part isn’t there also.

In our research, we found that 51% of first-time fix failures were due to the required parts being unavailable. Companies need to get this right. Far from delighting a customer, failing to fix something first time leaves the customer frustrated. The key question is would you run a finance department without visibility of all the figures? Or a procurement department without any certainty the products you buy will turn up. The answer should be no, so why do we accept this in field inventory? Field inventory needs to be modernised in order to offer customers the great experiences they deserve.

What’s the next step in modernising field services?

JM: We believe it starts with the Field Service Edge. How close can we get the parts that engineers need to the engineers or the job that needs them? This is a critical question, the less time an engineer is travelling or searching sites to pick up parts the more time they have to offer customers the kind of experience they have come to expect. This needs to be achieved without the use of expensive same-day deliveries, and it also need to be done just-in-time. If we want to see a strategic shift from field services being functional to becoming a source of value and differentiation within a company, it’s hard to make that argument while costs are inflated by moving parts using an expensive same day journey.

Finally, we must eliminate blind spots in field inventory management. Too often parts aren’t available, or inventory costs are bloated because plans were changed without having the right information. We want to encourage companies to always operate in a known space when it comes to inventory.

How does ByBox approach this problem?

JM: ByBox enables companies to turn any space into a secure site for staging critical parts at the field service edge, optimising inventory placement and delivery speed while eliminating premium delivery costs. ByBox intelligently orchestrates all inventory movements, with dynamic allocation and reallocation to minimise trapped capital, working in harmony with the customers engineer scheduling system.

We call this Field Service Inventory Modernisation. With ByBox, companies can operate with confidence because critical parts inventory is always in a known state and fully traceable across the whole field service lifecycle, ensuring pinpoint accuracy, predictability, and control.

To find out more, please contact Marketing@ ByBox.com to arrange a demo

Mize Secures Equity Investment from M33 Growth

Mar 03, 2020 • News • Software and Apps • Mize

Investment will be used to accelerate growth, drive customer success and fuel product innovation.

Mize, a leading provider of connected customer experience platform and service lifecycle management software for manufacturers, today announced it has secured a significant equity investment from M33 Growth, a venture and growth stage investment firm. The investment will be used to accelerate growth, drive customer success and fuel product innovation at Mize.

As customer expectations grow, brands must deliver experiences that meet those demands, or risk customers taking their business elsewhere. Historically, much of the focus on customer relationship management has been on pre-sale interaction, but companies are increasingly recognizing the need to extend customer experience to post-sale, including service events. In fact, according to global market intelligence firm IDC, the ability to deliver enhanced experiences across customer interactions and service events has become a critical success factor for manufacturers. However, with data and processes spread across different systems, it’s difficult to properly track and service products. Manufacturers need a way to efficiently manage customer engagements across all channels, optimizing the service experience, driving up customer satisfaction and ultimately maximizing customer lifetime value.

Mize’s software platform is trusted by many of the top OEMs in the heavy equipment, consumer durables and automotive markets. No other software platform in the space can tie together customers’ needs across warranty, support, service and parts lifecycle management. Its Connected Customer Experience Platform brings together customer portals, knowledge resources, product registration, warranties and plans, servicing, parts and repairs post-sale in a more connected way, resulting in a seamless experience for the customer and improved operating margins and increased revenue for the company. While enterprise CRM and ERP systems claim to address these challenges, they have not been built from the ground up to directly address the unique requirements of managing the post-sale process and the complexities that come with it.

“Growing customer expectations have resulted in an increased demand for software platforms and applications that manage the entire service lifecycle,” said Mize CEO Ashok Kartham, a successful serial entrepreneur who is an industry expert on warranty and service management. “As companies transform the way they manage customer communications pre- and post-sale, Mize provides innovative technology and applications that support their strategic vision. We have joined forces with M33 Growth so we can leverage their financial and strategic resources to better meet customer needs and accelerate our growth globally.”

IDC positioned Mize as a Leader in warranty and service contract management and a Major Player in field service management and service parts management. “Mize delivers a wide variety of capabilities to support the evolution occurring within the service market, where primarily cutting costs is no longer the end goal,” said Aly Pinder, Program Director, Service Innovation & Connected Products at IDC. “Mize has a track record and a leadership team that has built a product, a set of functionalities and a platform that can deliver advanced capabilities across the varied processes.”

Managing the post-sale customer engagement process poses several challenges for manufacturers. In researching the market for solutions addressing these complexities, the M33 Growth team found that most platforms were solving only one component of the intricate workflow. Mize’s solution stood out as the only true enterprise grade platform that enabled manufacturers to manage the entire customer service lifecycle.

“Everyone has experienced the frustration that can come from engaging with a brand post purchase, whether making a return or getting a product serviced,” said Mike Anello, managing director at M33 Growth. “Typical post-sale processes have not evolved with the pace of customer expectations. Mize is solving for that pain point at scale by giving manufacturers the platform they need to manage the entire process. We see tremendous opportunity in the market problem they are addressing, the power of their platform and the experience of the leadership team. As a partner, M33 will help Mize grow its product offerings, customer success teams and market reach to strengthen the company’s leadership position.”