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Paul Whitelam, VP Product Marketing, ClickSoftware, outlines why turning to look at how effective our customers’ are at dealing with issues can shine a light on your own performance and productivity...

Whether trying to get more jobs done in a day, more jobs per technician per year, or more fixes achieved on the first try, there are plenty of time-tested ways to show improved field service performance through metrics.

But if you’re still not sure that your field service is delivering peak performance, it might be time to look in a surprising place for a new set of KPIs: your customers. How hard are they working? At a time when every business is obsessed with delighting their customers, many underestimate the role customer effort plays in determining the quality of the experience.

The Customer Effort Score is a new KPI that measures how much effort your customers put into getting an issue resolved. If retaining loyal customers is a priority for your business, read on.

When your customer goes to work

Today, you can order something online in a matter of seconds and get it the same day. You can even hail a ride in minutes at the click of a button. Companies like Amazon and Uber are making it effortless for customers to receive great service. These on-demand businesses have set a high standard for all service organizations.

Great customer experience can begin as soon as an issue arises. Great customer experience can begin as soon as an issue arisesIt can start with their first phone call, their visit to your appointment booking portal, or how they are notified of the technician’s ETA.

The same is true for bad experiences. To uncover all the ways you could ease your customer’s pain even before you fix their problem, consider every potential interaction with your business. Here are three ways field service organizations can reduce customer effort.

1. Enable true self-service

To some, self-service means troubleshooting and problem solving done by the customer. For others, the definition includes providing ongoing access to important information that helps the customer not only treat issues but continually get the most value from their product or service.

This also should be extended to include how easy it is for the customer to request help or information, book an appointment, or speak directly to a representative. Much of this can be accomplished with a well-designed and easy-to-navigate website, connected to a knowledge management system that shares information consistent with what your employees see.

2. Empower everyone involved

For every step of the service journey, you want customers to feel in control of the process and that you’re treating their time with respect. Dispensing confusing or incomplete information does not help.

Your front-line employees should also be empowered to do the best job they can. Will they have prior access to the customer’s case so they can arrive prepared? Will they be routed to a job site with the correct parts and equipment already in their vehicle? Can your call center and mobile employees make decisions based on flexible or well-defined policies to reach to a satisfying resolution faster?

Imagine a customer who needs to explain a problem to the newly-arrived technician after already doing so over the phone or online, and then is unable to get the problem fixed due to a missing part or lack of skills. Now they have to restart the process to make a new appointment. How would they rate their effort on a 1-5 scale?

3. Integrate, integrate, integrate

To enable the control, transparency, and empowerment customers want, tight cross-channel and cross-team integration is critical. While customers might prefer phone agents over automated chat bots or SMS, ultimately, they want the option that gets them the help they need as quickly as possible.

However many channels you offer for communication, ensure customers are easily transferred and that information is shared seamlesslyHowever many channels you offer for communication, ensure customers are easily transferred and that information is shared seamlessly. You want to minimize the times your customer is sent to another department. But if it’s unavoidable, you can send them along with all the relevant information so they don’t have to start over with the next person on the phone.

Similarly, the way your field service professional interacts with your customer should be standardized and consistent with your brand. Integrate your communication channels, your CRM, as well as your processes and policies, to consistently deliver service that minimizes customer effort.

High effort is inversely related to good experience

User experience designers who work on everything from smartphone apps to retail spaces understand that minimizing friction and effort is good for customer experience, retention, and repeat business. Research by Gartner and Forrester encourages businesses to focus on how they can lower customer effort to win hearts and minds. Making your customers feel that their time is valued and auditing for areas of improvement is a great starting point.

Besides boosting your workforce efficiency and productivity, examine where your organization can minimize customer effort. This creates seamless experiences from the moment the need for service arises. Your customers will thank you with their loyalty.

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A national commercial landscaping company has dramatically increased its efficiency and improved its environmental credentials after embracing digital transformation.

Since adopting the WorkMobile mobile data capture app, Grace Landscapes has saved many hours’ worth of filing and data inputting time each month and greatly reduced its paper waste.

Grace Landscapes, which has a head office in Yorkshire, is one of the forerunners in the commercial landscaping sector. Established in 1978, it has grown from one to more than 120 members of staff based in four different locations, with an annual turnover of £6million.

Previously, the company’s field workers relied on paper-based forms and handheld cameras to capture information on landscaping and maintenance projects.

This resulted in a cumbersome paper trail, with a three to four-day wait to receive paperwork back by mail. The information then needed to be manually inputted into its CRM system and filed away in a time-consuming process.

Grace Landscapes recognised that it could benefit from a digital solution to help manage its data more effectively, and as it decided to upgrade its company mobiles to smartphones, began to look into ways that they could be used to their full potential.

After trialling WorkMobile’s cloud-based application for eight weeks with just four users, Grace Landscapes now has a permanent licence for each of its 40 field workers and supervisors.

[quote float="left"]After trialling WorkMobile’s cloud-based application for eight weeks with just four users, Grace Landscapes now has a permanent licence for each of its 40 field workers and supervisors. [/quote]With the help of WorkMobile’s flexible form designer, information can now be sent back to the Grace Landscapes head office instantly, along with photographs. With this information automatically integrated into the CRM and saved in the correct file, it not only saves time but also leaves less room for human error.

Team members can now search for completed jobs and other data within seconds, something that could previously have taken members of staff many hours to do.

It has also greatly enhanced the company’s reporting capabilities, making it much easier and quicker to find out, for example, how many jobs each person has done, to see any outstanding work, or to check the risk assessments for each site.

Neil Pix from Grace Landscapes said: “Once we realised how much time and money our previous method of data capture was really costing us, we made it a priority to find a more sophisticated, digital solution.

“WorkMobile’s app was exactly what we were looking for, and the results we’ve seen have actually exceeded our expectations.”

All these factors have improved Grace Landscapes efficiency and enabled us to spend money on other areas of the business.

“We pride ourselves on being an environmentally responsible business, and even established our own on-site recycling facility over 10 years ago, so the major reduction in paper waste is a fantastic added bonus.”

Colin Yates, chief support officer of WorkMobile, said: “We’re delighted that Grace Landscapes has seen such immediate, tangible benefits from using our mobile data capture solution.

“Our goal is always to help businesses revolutionise the way they work, saving them time and money while also helping them to become more sustainable.

“With just a few simple changes, Grace Landscapes has embraced digital transformation and completely eliminated its reliance on outdated physical paperwork.”

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Zip Water UK has revealed how driving performance data has helped the company manage fleet risk and cut annual insurance costs by more than £30,000.

The drinking water appliance specialist made the savings across its 120-strong mixed fleet following the introduction of WEBFLEET, the Software-as-a-Service fleet management system from TomTom Telematics.

With WEBFLEET – and the integral OptiDrive 360 solution which scores drivers based on key performance indicators and provides them with real-time feedback and advice – Zip Water has witnessed a significant reduction in road traffic collisions.

[quote float="left"]Having the tools in place to promote a safer driving style among our van and car drivers has led to a much-improved fleet risk profile[/quote]“Having the tools in place to promote a safer driving style among our van and car drivers has led to a much-improved fleet risk profile, a 15 per cent reduction in insurance premiums thanks to reduced claims, and a welcome fillip to our employee duty of care,” said Graham Short, Fleet Manager, Zip Water UK.

“Furthermore, we have seen a demonstrable improvement in fleet mpg, along with a sizeable reduction in our vehicle maintenance bills, including tyres and brake wear.”

Zip Water drivers are now also using the WEBFLEET Logbook app on their smartphones to keep accurate journey logs, rather than having to complete manual mileage sheets at the end of each day. The drivers simply validate their journey information and select whether the trips they have made are for business or private purposes.

Short added: “The value and efficiency gains that the telematics system has delivered to our business have been considerable. These have been recognised across our entire workforce – from the field to the back office.”

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Field service businesses have a lot of problems that keep them from thriving—like scheduling challenges, high fleet maintenance costs, too few jobs, and wide service windows that keep customers waiting all day.

Now, these businesses can solve all these issues (and more) from within their field service management system with Commusoft's new Real-Time Vehicle Tracking feature.

The new feature builds out from the Commusoft cloud-based software package designed for field service companies both large and small, including plumbers, heating engineers, renewable engineers, electricians, oil technicians, property managers, fire & security companies, and builders.

How is Commusoft's Real-Time Vehicle Tracking feature better than a standalone GPS?

Why pay for a GPS system that doesn’t work hand-in-hand with your job management software? Because Commusoft's real-time GPS system is tightly integrated into a world-class job management system, it allows operations managers to make better decisions when it comes to tracking jobs. 

By bringing scheduling information and engineers’ locations together, Real-Time Vehicle Tracking gives operations managers the ability to create faster, more efficient schedules, which in turn lets them:

• Reduce engineers’ travel time.
• Reduce costs by pinpointing unsafe driving and rough vehicle handling.
• Schedule more jobs into a single day.
• Reduce service windows and provide faster customer service.

Real-Time Vehicle Tracking also increases the odds of recovery in cases of vehicle theft. 

'These are all benefits a business wouldn't see with a traditional GPS,' says Jason Morjaria, founder of Commusoft. 'Our Real-Time Vehicle Tracking now gives businesses of all sizes access to a world-class schedule optimising solution.'

How does Commusoft's Real-Time Vehicle Tracking work?

Commusoft sends users a dedicated Commusoft GPS vehicle tracker; it's highly precise, and can’t run out of battery or be left behind at a work site—unlike tracking solutions that rely on a mobile phone’s built-in GPS. Plus, there's no need to track your engineer’s personal device, just the company vehicle.

The vehicle tracker interfaces with the Commusoft job management software to let the user track their vans and engineers in real time from their desktop or mobile device.

Commusoft’s Real-Time Vehicle Tracking is included at no extra monthly charge for Commusoft's Paperless Office plan users and higher. Users pay a one-time charge per vehicle tracker (one per vehicle), but no extra after that. Now, field service businesses can finally say goodbye to monthly vehicle tracking fees and say hello to real-time GPS tracking included in the price of their job management software.

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We explore how leading British glazing firm SafeStyle have improved their engineer utilisation significantly having implemented Eagle Field Service...

Client Profile

Safestyle is a leading UK manufacturer, installer and servicer of windows and doors. Safestyle produce over 6,000 windows and doors each week.

Reason for Change

A myriad of systems resulted in poor visibility of service engineers, limited management reporting as well as duplication of data and general inefficiency.

The Benefits

Improvements are manifold, engineer utilisation has increased, the user experience has improved, processes are more efficient and the powerful reporting functionality allows root cause analysis to identify problems that can then be fixed in the product design stage.

With 13 installation and 36 sales branches around the UK, and a 600-employee factory manufacturing over 6,000 doors and windows each week, Bradford-headquartered Safestyle is one of the country’s leading businesses in the replacement door and window market. But by late 2013, the company recognised that it needed to update its aftersales customer service capabilities, which had become spread over three distinct systems, giving rise to inefficiencies and data duplication.

Challenge

The core system was a decade-old customer care system, directly fed from Safestyle’s ERP system, which handled maintenance work associated with the ten-year guarantee that Safestyle offers its customers. In addition, any aftersales maintenance necessitated by customer complaints was handled by a second system.

This did not benefit from a data feed from the ERP system, and so required manual data entry.

Finally, a specialist scheduling system handled service engineer scheduling and routing, creating the service engineers’ daily work programmes and vehicle routings. While each system worked acceptably well when viewed in isolation, a very different picture emerged when they were viewed as a whole. Service engineer visibility required enhancements to go to the next level, management reporting was limited, and opportunities for better scheduling were being missed.

As a business, we’re passionate about customer service, and so retiring these various systems and replacing them with something that was both newer and better would be an obvious step forwardIn addition, adds Nick Stokes, Safestyle’s IT Change Manager, the whole process was overly reliant on paper, using printed work schedules against which service engineers would report progress by telephone, requiring headquarters staff to manually update the relevant system.

Clearly, schedules provided on tablet computers, and directly updated by the service engineers themselves, would be far more efficient, as well as providing real-time progress visibility.

Finally, adds Nick, the core legacy system was becoming both difficult and expensive to maintain. “As a business, we’re passionate about customer service, and so retiring these various systems and replacing them with something that was both newer and better would be an obvious step forward,” he recalls.

The only question: replacing them with what, exactly?

Why Exel?

Consequently, in early 2014, Safestyle began surveying the marketplace for field service management systems, and subsequently invited a number of suppliers to submit quotations for supplying a replacement system.

The clear winner: Exel Computer Systems’ Eagle Field Service solution.

“From a functional and ease-of-use perspective, it offered all the functionality that we were looking for,” recalls Nick, “in addition, although this hadn’t been a formal requirement, we could see that we might, in future, want to be able to use elements of Exel’s EFACS E/8 ERP system. So for a variety of reasons, going with Exel and Eagle Field Service made good sense.”

This is due to the fact that Eagle Field Service is an element of the EFACS E/8 ERP solution, utilising the functionality and modules required, such as Document Management and Workflow. Should a client require the manufacturing functionality, licences are bought, the modules implemented and the staff trained.

Implementation

Implementation began in early 2015, with a goal of commencing a phased rollout by the third quarter of the year. Implementation was straightforward, recalls Nick, noting that as Eagle Field Service’s intuitive interface and ease-of-use is driven by a rules-based engine, time had to be devoted to creating the required rules.

In addition, he points out, the move away from paper schedules to tablet computers called for careful testing, the provision of user training and thorough User Acceptance Testing. “Customer service is important to us,” he stresses, “it was better to be right than rushed.” But with testing and training complete, rollout began as planned, and was completed within a few weeks.

Business Benefits

The move to Eagle Field Service, relates Nick, has delivered a number of very distinct benefits. The user experience - both for headquarters staff, and service engineers - is far more intuitive, and enables people to work more efficiently.

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In the Big Discussion, we will take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put three key questions to them to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This issue our topic is the what to expect in 2018 and our experts are Michael Blumberg, Blumberg Advisory, Bill Pollock, Strategies for GrowthSM and Jan Van Veen, moreMomentum

The first question we tackled was What is the biggest challenge facing field service companies in the next 12 months?

Now let's turn to the second question in the discussion...

What is the biggest opportunity facing field service companies in the next 12 months?

Bill Pollock: The biggest opportunity facing field service companies today is the ability to compete head-to-head with any of their main competitors – however large or small – through the implementation and/or upgrade to a Cloud-based Field Service Management (FSM) solution. Over the past several years, Cloud technology has normalized the playing field for both FSM solution providers and their customers, who are no longer encumbered by the cost and complexity of their legacy premise-based solutions and applications.

Advances in technology are also giving a boost to those field service companies that have embraced these new technologies. For example, the greatest opportunities over the next 12 months will most likely be realised by those companies that will have already implemented Augmented Reality (AR) and/or Merged Reality (MR) into their field service operations. However, the most likely dominant field service organisations will be the ones that have also taken steps to explore the benefits of moving to an Artificial Intelligence- (AI) and Machine Learning- (ML) driven field service solution.

The technology is already there for every field service company; however, only those that embrace – and implement – these technologies will actually be able to reap the benefits.

 

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Jan Van Veen:  When talking about the biggest opportunities, I think we need to look beyond 12 months. It is mission critical to act now on future success.

Most industries are somewhere around the top of the life cycle and are facing (first signs of) commoditization.

The big opportunity for them is to go through the next life cycle where the added value is about enhancing the use of technology. The new value propositions will be heavily driven by data, algorithms and intelligence. The value will be far beyond predictive maintenance and uptime of technology.

This is a domain in which young, rapidly growing data-driven companies are in their comfort zone. So, the opportunity here is moving up the food chain and increase relevance for clients. By failing to pursue these opportunities, the threat is being forced down in the food chain and seeing other players deliver the high value, whilst seeing your role being limited to manufacturing equipment, spare parts and, to some extent, delivering low skilled hands-on machines for maintenance.

For those companies who are not ready to focus on these opportunities, I think your top priority should be to build the missing foundation and make sure you are ready to pursue the opportunities soon.

 

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Michael Blumberg: The biggest opportunity facing field service companies in the next 12 months lies in pursuing strategies that will advance their journey along the path toward servitization.

The specific strategies vary from company to company based on where they are on their journey. For some companies, 2018 will be the year when they finally transition their field service operation from a cost centre to a profit centre. For others, the opportunity lies in monetizing service offerings and effectively marketing and selling service outcomes.

Still, others will have the opportunity to invest in digital technologies that enhance service quality, boost productivity, and create an uber-like experience for their customers.

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Kris Oldland Talks exclusively to Dan Sewell, COO, Espresso Service about the impact installing a dedicated, cloud-based Field Service Management System Tesseract part of the Asolvi group has had on his engineer and dispatchers...

Find out why Evatic have rebranded to Asolvi here

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NRS Healthcare has selected Paragon’s routing and scheduling software as part of its commitment to continually improving the quality of service provided to social care users on behalf of the NHS and Local Authorities.

The company will use the planning solution to better manage a fleet of 300 vans responsible for the delivery and collection of mobility equipment, wheelchairs and daily living aids, which are allowing people in communities across the UK to live independently and with dignity.

As a leading provider to the social care sector, NRS Healthcare sources, procures, installs, services and recycles over 2,000 different products to help keep people active when mobility becomes difficult following an operation or due to a debilitating health condition. Following the results of a service user feedback survey, the company identified a preference for tighter delivery and collection windows, so it needed an advanced planning tool to replace the existing manual process.

NRS Healthcare initially implemented a pilot scheme in Cambridge and Norfolk using Paragon Integrated Fleets to plan a mixture of 40 home-based and depot-based technicians, with a view to rolling out the software across all 16 depots.

Over the course of the trial, the company demonstrated quantifiable service improvements which included the introduction of two-hour time slots. In addition, NRS Healthcare achieved an increase in the number of activities per technician by 28 per cent and 17 per cent at each depot respectively which has provided technicians with a more consistent workload and predictable finish time.

 

Moving forward, NRS Healthcare’s central planning team will use the routing and scheduling software to schedule daily operational delivery and collection requirements, including both one-and two-man services, across the nationwide depot network. Estimated delivery times for each product will also be incorporated into the planning process to increase schedule accuracy.

Raaza Temour, Director of Implementation & Training at NRS Healthcare commented: “The key driver for embarking on this project is our desire to continually improve the quality of service we offer. With the NHS and Local Authorities under huge pressure to provide social care within very tight budgets, we needed to find a way to further enhance the experience of the service user without increasing cost. We teamed up with Paragon because of their unrivalled experience across many industry sectors, which gave us complete confidence that they could help us deliver the service improvements.”

William Salter, Managing Director of Paragon Software Systems said: “The growing demand for NRS Healthcare’s services in a market under huge funding pressures means that operational efficiency is critical but this cannot be delivered at the expense of good customer service. The ability to provide time windows that customers can be confident will be met is just as important for NRS Healthcare as it is for a food or furniture retailer.  We are proud to have been chosen by NRS Healthcare to help them deliver an efficient and reliable service to the health authorities that also meets the individual needs of the social care user.”

 

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Winterhalter Gastronom GmbH is a global leader in commercial dishwashing systems for the catering, hospitality, and hotel industry. With over 1,000 employees worldwide and revenue of €134 million in 2011, the owner-operated company ranks among the global players in the catering industry.

The company is headquartered in Meckenbeuren in the Bodensee district and has a second production facility in Endingen am Kaiserstuhl. Worldwide, Winterhalter has offices and partners in over 70 countries. Also part of the group is Winterhalter Gastronom AG, based in Rüthi, Switzerland.

From paper to IT-based scheduling

In order to provide customers from Winterhalter always with clean plates, glasses and utensils, hundreds of service engineers worldwide take care of the maintenance, repair and commissioning of the machines. Some 100,000 jobs are planned, controlled and handled per year.

In 2010 Winterhalter decided to introduce a field service management system in Germany in order to optimise the data processing and quality customer service and to ensure process reliability. Until this time, the resource planners used a SAP-MRP list. The service engineers received their orders by fax. Additional information about the customer or the machine could be obtained only by phone. The technicians completed their service reports on paper, which were checked by the back office team and then released for billing.

The decisive criteria for the selection of a solution were the integration in the existing SAP CS system and in the processes of Winterhalter as well as the internationality of the provider. In addition, the mobile client should run online and offline, and the ROI of the solution should be represented. The decision was made on mobileX-Dispatch, the solution for the graphical scheduling, and mobileX-MIP for Field Service, the mobile solution for the service technician.

 

Introductory project in Germany

In autumn 2011, the solution was implemented in Germany. The dispatchers now plan and control the service technicians in a rotation system. They are also responsible for customer contact, order acceptance and customer satisfaction surveys. The graphical scheduling in mobileX-Dispatch shows the dispatcher all resources and the SAP CS orders clearly on the Gantt chart as well as on a map display.

Based on the order type and the respective transaction mobileX-Dispatch automatically determines the necessary qualifications and draws up a list of suitable technicians. The route optimisation ensures that the service technicians get an ideal order of jobs and directions for handling of their jobs.

After the allocation by the dispatcher the service technician receives the jobs on his laptop in the mobile client mobileX-MIP for Field Service. He can therefore start directly from home for the first customer. Even in fringe areas - ie offline - he can access all order data, such as documents or the service history and prepare the feedback report. Once connected again, the data transfer takes place automatically in the background.

The material logistics is also connected to the mobile client. Depending on consumption, the technician orders spares one to two times per week. If necessary, urgent spare parts can also be delivered by overnight express. In addition, he can capture his vehicle stock level for the annual inventory or the periodic inventory correction in digital count lists. These are then sent back to SAP MM.

After repair or maintenance, the service technician creates his service report by click on a button. This can consist of modular times, travel expenses or other services and material consumption. The final service report is signed by the customer on the touch screen. Subsequently mobileX-MIP for Field Service automatically transfers the data to SAP CS. The office staff reviews the feedback in the mobileX-release monitor and then forwards it on to invoicing.

 

Meanwhile Winterhalter service technicians use mobileX-MIP for Field Service in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK.

Cost-benefit analysis

“At the beginning of the rollout, there was a certain mistrust of the new solution. But today, the colleagues cannot imagine working without the system. Data quality has improved dramatically with the field service management system. In addition, our personnel structure has changed in the customer service. While the number of our dispatchers has hardly changed, we now have a lot more service colleagues in the field. That is, we can provide more customers with a better and faster service.” commented Christian Schneider, Director Operations International at Winterhalter Gastronom GmbH

Outlook

The number of service technicians in customer service at Winterhalter rises from year to year with more and more customers. Even more countries will use the WFM solution in in future.

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