Field service: Are you missing three business-critical opportunities?
When times are tough, the competition for the in-the-field consumer dollar (and loyalty) gets even tougher. Field service is critical to your ability to scale your business. So, when you lose or disenchant customers, you erode your bottom line and your ability to attract more business.
But, if you have a field service offering, you already know this.
What’s probably of more interest to you is where your weaknesses are and how you can improve your field service outcomes for your customers, technicians, and finance and operations departments.
1. Don’t blame your technicians - bolster their ability to do a good job
If your technicians are muddling their way through the day, you only have yourself to blame. (Harsh, but true).
Poor manual rostering and timekeeping processes, double bookings, inefficient skill and proximity call allocations, no automated travel routing, complex and often paper-based data capture and synchronisation (instead of mobile apps), incorrect or unavailable parts, and inadequate visibility of customer records, all contribute to your technicians' inability to perform at optimum capacity or capability.
So, can you blame them when they disengage or leave?
2. Improve customer satisfaction by owning your problems – and doing something about it
Poor customer service (aka an SLA fail or disappointment) has long been documented as a ‘brand switching moment.’ Whereas great service inevitably prompts increased loyalty and, thanks to social media, amplifies your good reputation in the eyes of prospects.
The rise of digital solutions has increased your customers' expectations of what excellent service looks like – including faster response times, proactive remote assessments and fixes, self-service, accurate technician ETA times, and the right technician for the right job – along with the right parts.
Never mind that you are constrained by technology, traffic, trained resources, and supply chain or warehouse issues. Those are your problems, and your customers really don’t want to know about them.
3. Reduce stress for your finance and operational teams – without adding headcount
Money and data make the world go around, especially in field service.
Profitability, streamlined hands-off administration, native integration to line-of-business solutions such as your ERP, customer service desk, CRM, and sales processes, along with increased revenue from repeat business and minimised return technician visits, are things of joy to beleaguered finance and operations teams. As is having a firm handle on business assets and where they are (from company vehicles to customer orders) at any given time—24/7.
But is this what they have to work with in reality? And is it all on a single, powerful platform?
What does good look like, and how can you ‘make it so?’
While the world of field service is diverse, there’s a common goal: To reap the financial rewards of making your customers happy.
And that’s something we’re passionate about. We have years of experience helping businesses successfully transform their approach to field service delivery – to meet ambitious SLAs, empower and engage employees, and generate more profits.
If you’d like to know what ‘good’ looks like and how you can improve your ability to compete and impress, check out our two field service events later this month - one for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the other for NetSuite.
