KPI#3: MEAN TIME BETWEEN FAILURES

What is it?

Mean time between failures (MTBF) measures the average time between customer issues. The goal for service organizations is to maximize this metric because a high time between failures represents high service quality and maximum uptime.

How it measures workforce performance

MTBF is less about resolving the single issue that prompted a failure, and more about a service professional’s ability to holistically maintain the health of the machine. This is a skill that is typically difficult to measure. Seasoned service heroes know how to take advantage of time in front of an asset to ensure that everything is working properly. They’ll work to proactively maintain or replace parts before a failure occurs, and understand how to keep failures from happening in the future.

How it measures customer experience

The less you notice this measurement creeping up, the better. Tracking MTBF is a great way to measure customer uptime and service reliability — ultimately resulting in happier customers. While service is about providing a great experience in each customer interaction, a better outcome is preventing the failing in the first place.

Challenges to measuring mean-between-failures

• Measuring mean time between failures requires long intervals of data because it’s a lagging indicator: MTBF is a big picture measurement. It requires a sustained ability to measure the time difference between failures. Quite often, organizations may only look at a quarter’s worth of data, and that’s not enough time to accurately measure MTBF because a good indicator of health means that failure may only happen every few quarters. 
• Attribution of mean time between failure to service professionals is up for debate: What is the definition of failure? Is it when different, unrelated issues arise in the same asset? Or can it also be a problem that (unknowingly) is not fixed correctly the first time, and subsequent service calls were needed to address the actual problem? Because multiple service technicians are usually contributing to service across one asset or customer, it’s difficult to attribute a long or short MTBF to a single individual.

How to measure mean-time-between-failure:

It’s straightforward with the exception of these scenarios. When dealing with long MTBF intervals (6 months or longer) or an extremely short average asset lifecycle, using the standard approach to MTBF might not be suitable. Instead, using MTBE (mean time between events) might be a better measurement. When using MTBE as a metric it’s less about whether a particular interaction with a customer constitutes a failure and more about measuring how many times you had to interact with that customer. Fewer interactions signal fewer service issues.

KPI#4: SERVICE COST PER WORK ORDER

What is it?

Service cost per work order (or per case) is an effective measurement of the total cost of each work order or case created. It’s also known as the average cost per truck roll.

How it measures workforce performance

The cost per work order provides a measurement of the duration and/or parts usage a technician uses, on average, to resolve an issue. Higher performing individuals innately know how to solve problems without shotgunning expensive parts.

How it Impacts Customer Experience

While customers aren’t concerned with how much it costs to resolve each problem, the bigger quality issues remain true here. A lower cost per work order generally highlights a higher quality of service -- and that’s what customers notice.

Challenges of measuring mean time to resolution

• Service cost per work order might be a misleading indicator of performance: Context is key, especially when a few experts are regularly assigned complex jobs. These are cases when top employees may have a higher average service cost per work order. If yours is an organization that saves the most difficult cases for workforce heroes, know that the more complex the cases, (typically) the more expensive the service costs. ○
• Service costs can have an inverse relationship to customer satisfaction: You likely get requests from service teams for additional help because more resources (and faster response times from those with lighter workloads) typically result in better service performance. So don’t look at this metric without regard to the customer experience component. ○
• Service cost per work order doesn’t differentiate poor experiences and repeat visits: After scouring data from hundreds of organizations, it’s clear that one of the most difficult challenges in measuring service costs hinges on the ability to identify when consecutive work orders are related to the same issue. Organizations that carefully track when cases that were previously closed, were closed in error -- because the root issue wasn’t resolved properly the first time -- are rare.

How to measure mean time to resolution:

One of the best ways to track cost per work order is to use the metric to measure service cost per success. By flipping to the positive outcome, your organization will have a better understanding of who within your workforce are the heroes of your organization (those who resolve issues with minimal parts and visits). The difficulty with measuring each success is understanding whether a case is isolated or related to another case. Depending on how you capture data, you can use different methods to measure successful events, including the method describing how to measure repeat visits previously.

KPI#5: NET PROMOTER SCORE

What is it?

Net promoter score (NPS) is one of the most widely used methods to identify customer satisfaction and loyalty. Simply put, it measures the number of promoters and detractors for the service you provide

How it measures workforce performance

There is no other metric that reinforces the statement “customer is king” more than NPS. Happy customers overwhelmingly signal strong workforce performance. Typically, NPS measures a qualitative experience (technical workforce skills), such as how quickly a problem is resolved, but sometimes, NPS reflects a customer’s opinion about how they feel they’ve been treated (soft workforce skills).

How it measures Customer Experience

This is one of the most straightforward measurements possible to gauge customer satisfaction.

Challenges of measuring mean time to resolution

• Net promoter score alone is not a true measure of workforce performance: While customer satisfaction is a critical component in delivering great customer service, NPS alone is an incomplete measure of the performance of your service workforce. In service organizations where NPS is the measurement used, service costs skyrocket. Customer service professionals provide endless perks and free services in order to create customer loyalty. Unless this is part of your organization’s objectives, be careful when using NPS alone. 
• Net promoter score is difficult to attribute to any one service factor: While NPS is a comprehensive measure of a customer’s experience, it’s difficult to use it to clearly identify any one specific factor or event that impacts score.

In the final feature in this series we will look at the Aquant Workforce Performance Index and how field service organisations like yours are leveraging this to improve their customer satisfaction ratings. Look out for this article in a weeks time!

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Leadership and Strategy @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about Managing the Mobile Workforce @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Read more news and articles featuring Aquant @ www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=aquant
• Connect with Edwin Pahk on LinkedIN @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwin-pahk-8a066515/
• Find out more about the solutions Aquant offer to help field service companies @ www.aquant.io/
• Follow Aquant on Twitter @ twitter.com/Aquant_io