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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

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 Giles Margerison, Director with TomTom Telematics discuss what exactly is meant by the term end-to-end field service.

Ahead of his speech to delegates at the 2014 Service Management Expo Giles Margerison, TomTom Telematics’ Director UK & Ireland, considers the impact of technology on the changing face of field service management.

The activities of field workers have traditionally been managed as separate, distinct, operations to those of the back office – but times they are a changin’.

The face and pace of service business is being revolutionised by innovations in mobile workforce management.

The field is increasingly being brought into the fold with technology forging end-to-end connections between vehicles, field hardware, mobile workers, the back office, management and other departments. The value of this cannot be underestimated with data generated by field service fleets proving invaluable to numerous areas of a company – from customer relations to HR, sales and accounts.

What’s more it is becoming easier than ever to connect business hardware and software with fleet management technology. Out-of-the-box integrations mean back office systems are seamlessly connecting with vehicles and mobile workers without the need for expensive IT consultancy.

Harnessing big data to boost business performance

By using connected technologies to make smarter decisions, informing advancements in operational processes, radical improvements can be made to business performance and the bottom line.

Business connectivity is already having a major impact in the back office, where the integration of CRM, ERP, workflow planning and other software platforms has allowed companies to achieve significant efficiency gains.

Fleet management systems that have open APIs are now extending integration capabilities to the field – helping businesses harness the potential of big data to cut costs and achieve unprecedented levels of customer service.

The telematics gateway for M2M efficiency

Using an in-vehicle telematics unit to transmit field data to the back office, signature capture devices, for example, can now make use of job and GPS positional data from a fleet management platform to prove a delivery was made to a specific location at a particular time by a designated driver.

Similarly, mobile printers, paired by Bluetooth to an in-vehicle telematics box, can now print receipts or invoices enriched with this same information.

Accessed via fleet management software, all field data can be shared with back office software, including routing and scheduling and workflow management systems. By doing so, managers can ensure jobs or deliveries are completed punctually and customers notified in advance of precise arrival times, with work schedules planned in the most efficient manner, taking into account factors such as traffic or proximity.

Tomorrow’s world ...today

Innovations such as TomTom Telematics’ PRO 8275 driver terminal extend field service capabilities even further, combining the capability of mobile hardware, satellite navigation and mobile business applications on a single device.

Bespoke apps for use on such terminals are now being developed, enabling it be tailored to meet specific business and service requirements – from conducting and submitting vehicle safety checks to recording proof of delivery.

Managers and drivers, as a result, are now being brought closer together than ever before with new M2M processes catapulting field service into a bold new era,