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We continue our series looking at the extracts from The Service Management Handbook 2014 published by Advanced Field Service and this time take a look at how utilising modern business intelligence tools can further improve our efficiency.

You can download a copy of the full 45 page Service Management Handbook by clicking this link

Working smarter. Faster.

Given today’s challenging environment there is little margin for error, that’s why service managers need an even greater and in-depth understanding of their business to improve business planning, make more informed decisions, keep ahead of the competition and retain and attract customers.

With increasing demands for information, best-in-class field service companies are turning to the latest business intelligence (BI) tools to gain instant access to critical data ‘on-the-move’.

The benefits of management reporting for any business are well documented…

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• A clear, rounded, instant view of the whole business
• Intelligence to recognise emerging trends
• Potential to seek and respond to new opportunities or threats
• Power to understand key areas delivering profit (and loss)
• Make fast, informed decisions based on accurate and live information

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However not all field service businesses have the time or resources to pull together and analyse reams of reports.

That’s why successful, growing businesses have long since replaced stacks of hand-crafted reports and isolated spreadsheets with more interactive and intuitive BI tools, transforming the way they automate, view and manage their business performance.

Unleashing BI

Your back-end service management solution should be able to do all the work of collating real-time information automatically across your jobs.

[quote float ="left"]Your data should be regularly analysed in a multitude of ways and in varying degrees of complexity[/quote] It should also make easy work out of presenting it in the formats you have defined as being most useful to your business, giving your management team full visibility of your contract profitability and equipping your decision-makers with instant access to vital information on your business, including your profit forecasts.

As a matter of course, your data should be regularly analysed in a multitude of ways and in varying degrees of complexity, from viewing a daily high-level graphical KPI dashboard, down to examining monthly detailed reports.

By setting up quick, simple, configurable management reports, you could gain unprecedented insight into the most, and least, profitable areas of your business. Standard reports include: analysis of calls by equipment, site and efficiency; costing of jobs and engineers; performance and productivity of engineers; and KPI reporting.

Mobile reporting

Operating in a fast moving environment doesn’t allow time for your engineers to wait until they’re back at the office to give you an update on their status. So having the ability to reportonsite directly from their mobile device of choice, whether tablet, mobile phone or PDA, can be invaluable.

Mobile software that works seamlessly hand-in-hand with your back-end service management software will give you the added benefit of instantly analysing the performance and productivity of your workers and react immediately to any potential issues.

This means that you are no longer reliant on being in the office to run your reports – as it can all be done, at the touch of a button, whatever your location.

Dashboards

Employing BI tools that give you the insight to drive your business forward and avoid areas of failure could be your life line by transforming the way your KPIs are delivered and providing a new level of management analysis.

[quote float="right"]With the acceleration of technical advancements continuing to take speed, BI is becoming increasingly accessible on the cloud.[/quote] With the acceleration of technical advancements continuing to take speed, BI is becoming increasingly accessible on the cloud and the latest analytic dashboards are now fast becoming the service manager’s reporting tool of choice, offering true anytime/anywhere reporting, via a browser or mobile device, in easy-to understand formats.

You may think this functionality has been around for some time, and in some cases it has.

However many of the leading software providers are now incorporating dashboard facilities intotheir service management solutions, so you can drill-down to the original data source to analyse, at both a detailed or top-level business view, all your core data including customer status, call response, financials, hours worked, engineer visits, stock and supplier KPIs. 

Want to know more? You can download a copy of the full 45 page Service Management Handbook by clicking this link

 
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Fast Lean Smart, have recently announced a new version of its industry leading scheduling solution FLS VISITOUR for Microsoft Dynamics CRM being available now for customers. 

Last week, the market was excited to see Microsoft publish the new Dynamics CRM 2015, now available for both Online and On Premise. After evaluating the new capabilities within 2015 edition, Fast Lean Smart started to invest early in supporting and extending its solution to complement and take advantage of these when available.

The recently announced new FLS VISITOUR for Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 3 supports CRM 2015 and its feature enhancements made within the service module such as enhanced SLAs, hierarchy information and added CRM for tablet functionality.

Fast Lean Smart customers are able to further enhance their SLA management with the features provided by PowerOpt scheduling engine - helping to optimise the daily scheduling based on multiple parameters and real-time status feedbacks from the field staff.

Guiding the user through the process of scheduling in the most efficient way of providing all data needed was one of the main focuses, taking into account the new branching capabilities of the business process flow feature. The scheduling approach feels natural and always accurate even in complex rule scenarios.

 

Version 3 also supports the new Microsoft Parature integration scenarios within Case Management and provides new capabilities inside offered mobile client applications. The newly introduced feature of self-service scheduling within mobile applications guarantees more flexibility in providing field services. The overall user experience of FLS VISITOUR for Microsoft Dynamics CRM reaches new heights.

The software of Fast Lean Smart is the only scheduling solution in the market based on extending and enhancing the out-of-box CRM scheduling engine and related entities. All the data needed is stored within the CRM database which enables complex PowerBI scenarios and soon the new PowerBI add-on module will launch, providing better analytics on historical job completion and forecast for the upcoming workload.

“We cooperated closely with other market leading solutions like AdxStudio Portal and ClickDimensions Marketing add-ons, evaluating how to extend solution capabilities to best effect and benefit of each other”, said Carsten Groth, Technology Product Manager. “The results are a new portal integration scenario and providing field service surveys within mobile applications”.

Reinforcing strong commitment to Microsoft Dynamics ISV partnership, with this release Fast Lean Smart helps its customers to increase field service quality while optimising their TCO.

Research released by Halifax and the Empty Homes Agency to mark #EmptyHomesWeek which ran throughout this week reveals that over 600,000 properties remain completely empty in the UK.

This is a stark and worrying fact that is alarming on both the human and business level. Every housing provider knows it is important to have as few empty homes (or voids) as possible – not only do they cost money, they can also be a problem for local communities.

The research also highlighted that the public are concerned about this issue –  36% of people think empty homes are a blight on their local area and 74% believe their local authority should place a higher priority on tackling empty homes.

What more can be done to convert these empty properties into cherished homes?

Reducing the time it takes for repairs and maintenance teams to complete their part of the journey to re-letting a property can be one way to reduce void days.

Field Service software provider Oneserve have been working closely with a number of Local Authorities, Housing Associations and Contractors all over the UK. Through using Oneserve, a cloud based service management solution, customers are reporting better visibility and management of the void process which is enabling them to reduce turnaround days.

Phil Pemberton, Managing Director of Property Services at Sovini (One Vision Housing) commented:

“We have reduced our voids repairs and maintenance days from 10.09 in April 2014 to 8.99 in September 2014. This is a reduction of 11% and attributable to the process improvement we have achieved through using Oneserve.”

Adam Thompson, Managing Director at Oneserve added:

“It's great to see how organisations like Sovini are using Oneserve to turn properties around more quickly. We hope to increase the number of housing providers we work with in 2015 to deliver even more value to the sector.”

Earlier this year Field Service News reported that Germany's leading pay TV company Sky Deutschland had been able to double their field service engineer productivity after implementing Fast Lean Smart's (FLS) FLS VISITOUR scheduling and FLS Mobile solutions.

Now in this exclusive interview with Lydia Otto, Director Field Service and Supply Chain, Sky Deutschland we look at this success story further including what attracted her to working with FLS in the first place and how the project has played out... 

Ms Otto, Sky is incredibly popular and, without doubt, the synonym for pay TV. How do you explain its huge popularity?

LO: Sky offers its customers first class entertainment whenever and wherever they want it. This includes award-winning series very soon after US transmission and only on Sky, access to the latest blockbuster films, high-quality kids channels and exclusive sports coverage, for instance all games in the Bundesliga and Champions League.

The multiple functions of the Sky+ hard drive receiver and the mobile service Sky Go allow our subscribers to become their own TV directors – both at home and when out. Moreover, as a leading innovation integrator we are always good for a surprise; tweaking and inventing products, online services and formats. Needless to say, our customer service also plays a key role.

In 2011, you decided to introduce a central scheduling system for your service engineers and, within this context, to implement the scheduling software FLS VISITOUR and the mobile solution FLS MOBILE. What were the actual reasons for this decision?

LO: While redefining the field service strategy in 2011 it became clear that we would have to expect an increase of orders in the short term. We wished to receive the “right” orders. In other words, to only be called out when the in-home service actually creates a real added value, prevents further calls to the customer service centre or stops customers from possibly terminating their contracts.

The expected increase in volume also meant that we needed an IT system for our scheduling activities. The key objectives were to standardise route planning, enhance productivity, increase back office efficiency, cut the time to process orders and reduce the amount of time engineers spend on the road.

 

What were the criteria used to select FLS VISITOUR, i.e. FLS as your software-partner of choice?

LO: Besides our demands for increased field service efficiency, the licence model appealed to us, since it ensures the scalability of our intentions for the coming years. Moreover, the tool was fully compatible with our corporate hardware, which meant no hardware had to be purchased and the software was implemented with very little effort on our part.

From your point of view, which demands had to be met by the appointment and route scheduling software? Have these demands changed over the past three years? If yes, how has FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE helped you?

LO: The demands that had to be met were: Simultaneous use by various end users, optional interface to the customer management system, presentation of various order types (problem solving vs. installation), consideration of different working time models, output of a route plan with graphical representation and connection to mobile end devices.

[quote float="right"]The demands placed on scheduling software have not changed fundamentally, but they have become more detailed, e.g. adherence to the prioritisation of orders in the graphical representation or the mapping of service partners with available time

As a company, Sky continues to grow and this brings new challenges in terms of efficiency and productivity for our field service and customer service department. As such, the demands placed on scheduling software have not changed fundamentally, but they have become more detailed, e.g. adherence to the prioritisation of orders in the graphical representation or the mapping of service partners with available time. Transferring orders to service partners at the click of a mouse is also desired. The next two or three years will present us with a whole host of other interesting topics, e.g. real-time or GPS planning or interconnecting further partner networks.

 

How has Sky profited specifically by using FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE? And which corporate figures illustrate this benefit most effectively?

LO: Since the beginning of 2011 all the relevant key figures for Sky’s field service have improved. We have seen a 72% increase in productivity, while reducing the processing time and journey times by 42% and 41% respectively. By the way, since introducing FLS, we have been able to process three times as many orders with the same number of back office staff.

According to a number of independent surveys, Sky delivers the best service. This is definitely something you can be proud of, while at the same time acting as an incentive to maintain this high level and to drive up customer satisfaction even further. What are the cornerstones of this excellent service and which goals need to be achieved in order for you to improve your service?

[quote float="left"]We must offer an exceptional service that goes beyond simple installation where subscribers receive real added value

LO:Sky has been continuously investing in customer service staff, technologies and processes for many years. Our aim, particularly in the area of in-home service, is not just to install receivers and to solve technical problems, but to seize the moment and turn it into a ‘wow’ effect. We must offer an exceptional service that goes beyond simple installation where subscribers receive real added value and discover everything they wish to know about the world of Sky from the comfort of their own living rooms. We carry out regular quality calls to seek direct feedback from customers. Satisfaction > 92% (Top 1&2) with the technical customer service shows we are on the right track to ensuring Sky customers have the best possible experience.

 

Meeting the individual needs of your customers and their service demands is a particular challenge you face in the battle to attract further subscribers and to reinforce your position in the market. How does Sky go about satisfying these needs and wants?

LO: Five years of Sky mean five years of continuous growth and 3.813 million subscribers by the end of the second quarter of 2014. As we see it, there is no such thing as ‘one big reason’ why someone should choose Sky. There are most probably hundreds of small considerations to take into account. But at the end of the day it boils down to three things: Provide your customers with the best and most exclusive programme and let them decide when and where they wish to view it. Invest in innovation and surprise the viewers and, of course, offer exceptional customer service.

How did your scheduling and in-home service staff react to the implementation of FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE? How much convincing and change management did it take? Has introduction of the software led to greater staff satisfaction?

LO: In the long run, the introduction of the software delivers significant improvements for our field service division both office based dispatchers and field service engineers. [quote float="right"]as with all changes, a certain amount of convincing and change management was needed

However, as with all changes, a certain amount of convincing and change management was needed. Whereas previously it was in the hands of the field service engineers to schedule their own daily appointments, this is now the responsibility of the dispatchers. Initial obstacles were quickly overcome and all the other challenges, such as mobile device training or preparing the basic scheduling parameters, were dealt with relatively easily.

 

Adopting new corporate software usually involves an implementation project, which is often met with a fair amount of scepticism by companies and staff alike. How did you experience working with FLS as the project partner during the implementation phase? What are your expectations with regard to the level of support provided by a software developer after implementation?

LO: FLS is a partner that not only underpins the way we operate our business on a daily basis, but also with whom we can discuss individual development steps and continuously adapt the system to our needs. Furthermore, we perceive FLS as a project partner who, whenever necessary, provides us with support that actually goes beyond the contractual terms of service. We are extremely happy with the direct personal advice and support, as there is always a dedicated point of contact available.

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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?

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• 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!      

Red Hat a leading provider of open source solutions, early this week announced an update to its newly acquiredFeedHenry 3 mobile application platform.

The update, featuring a new Teams and Collaboration enhancement, is an expansion to one of the industry’s leading mobile application platforms for enterprise development. The FeedHenry 3 mobile application platform brings something new to the market with its integrated collaboration and access control features that support distributed development teams working in unison across multiple application projects.

The FeedHenry 3 Teams and Collaboration enhancement includes:

• Global collaboration on mobile application projects: Multiple distributed development teams, both in-house and outsourced, can work simultaneously in FeedHenry 3 on mobile application projects, which consist of a variety of client applications, cloud applications, and services, each with their own individual Git repositories. Developers work individually but with access to relevant project-related components, increasing agility at individual stages in the application development lifecycle.
• Role-based collaboration across the application lifecycle: Multiple skills and teams, from application design, front-end coding, back-end services development, analytics, administration, and more, can work concurrently across multiple application projects bringing applications to market faster and more efficiently without impacting individual developer agility and productivity.
• Access controls for mobile projects: Configuration of fine-grained controls at individual levels of each mobile project enables ease and security of access to key project components. This helps lock functionality at different levels within the platform. For example, by setting authorised access controls, sensitive back-end systems credentials can be insulated from third-party or other developer roles, providing greater security and compliance. This fine-grained access control also encourages an API-driven and micro-services development and discovery approach, enabling ease of discovery and reuse of core components and services.
• Company-wide visibility across mobile projects: Centralizing collaboration and control across multiple skills in multiple mobile projects, across various stages of their lifecycle, enables visibility of all company-wide mobile projects. This promotes a mobile-first approach to enterprise mobility, supporting innovation and reuse.

Commenting on the release Cathal McGloin, vice president, Mobile Platforms, Red Hat stated “Enterprise mobility has matured beyond a single application, silo approach, toward a team-based, business-centric model, where multiple applications, at various stages of the application development lifecycle, are managed by different teams. Organisations are looking to improve their agility and responsiveness on mobility projects while at the same time having distributed teams and centralised policy management. Teams and Collaboration, as an integrated feature across the FeedHenry 3 platform, addresses this need, enabling a granularity of access control across different development resources, whether in-house or third-party, that promotes agility and reuse of core components.”

Chris Marsh, principal analyst, 451 Research added “With 40 percent of large enterprises planning to increase their application development outsourcing, collaboration across enterprise IT, lines of business and any external partners that may be involved is crucial. As the complexity of juggling multiple application projects and the pressure of faster development cycles increase, enterprises will look to platform vendors to offer more team-based collaboration features that provide centralised visibility and control of all application development projects across the organisation."

The second advert for Trimble Field Service Management's latest mobile workforce platform 'Work Management' contains the same quirky humour as the first edition but this time focusses on the plight of the poor field technician who is sent to the wrong job with the wrong tools, or on his own when he clearly needs a second pair of hands. It is a genuine problem all to common in the industry and a clear barrier to improving first time fix rates. However, I must admit I laughed out loud the first time I watched this video. Just wait for the little fella to run try and fill the whole at the end...

Lincoln Property Solutions Ltd, a Properties Management Service company in Basingstoke, Hampshire, has selected Tesseract Service Centre to manage its Properties Portfolio and related maintenance and cleaning schedules.

Lincoln Property Solutions provides facilities management to improve efficiency and to ensure the buildings in their care provide the environment and services that will satisfy not only the business needs but also residential requirements of their workforce. The company relies on an experienced workforce of operatives who follow a set of schedules. These schedules used to be managed using spreadsheets, into which data would be entered manually, until Lincoln Property Solutions decided it needed something more efficient, more automated and more centralised.

Enter Tesseract, a service management software company that has already revolutionised the systems of more than 300 businesses worldwide. Lincoln Property Solutions came across Tesseract at SME14, the service management exhibition at the Facilities Show 2014 in London. Tesseract has an exhibition stand at SME every year, and this year managed to persuade Lincoln Property Solutions that utilising the facilities of Tesseract Service Centre would be hugely advantageous.

“We are looking forward to Tesseract providing us with a system to enable us to work smarter,” says Des O’Neill of Lincoln Property Solutions. “We anticipate that it will be a very successful partnership.”

Welcome to the latest edition of the Field Service News podcast. This time we are pleased to bring you an exclusive guest podcast created by Paul Adams of specialist service management software providers Solarvista.

Paul takes a look at how the Cloud, Mobile and Enterprise Systems can be brought together in a modern Service Management system and takes time to look at various aspects of each of these elements whilst avoiding jargon and taking some complex discussions and explaining them in simple easy to understand ways. An excellent overview for the those working in service management that are trying to get their head around some of the core technologies that are driving service management forward into the twenty first century.
To download the full podcast just click here and complete the brief registration form!
PLease note that this is a joint promotion between Field Service News and Solarvista Ltd. By downloading the podcast you agree to our terms and conditions laid out in the privacy policy here

Want to know more about Solarvista? Check out their page in the Field Service News Directory here