Mobile Workforce Software: Digital Methods To Protect Customers And Employees From COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on every industry imaginable, but perhaps the most affected are those that require some form of face-to-face interaction with customers. These include restaurants, retail – and of course, field service.

The field service industry must adopt new processes in order to protect its technicians and customers. That means minimizing all contact between technicians and customers, and preventing the spread of disease with a highly mobile workforce.

With mobile workforce software, field service providers are given a variety of options to protect their customers and employees from the spread of disease, while simultaneously improving the way they do business. In this article, we take a look at how mobile workforce software, such as FieldConnect, can be used in this manner, as well as some of the improvements that they bring to field service management as a whole.

Use Route Analytics For Contact Tracing

One of the biggest components of any mobile workforce platform is route tracking and analytics. This not only provides managers with real-time updates of field technicians’ locations, but also allows their route data to be stored in the system. This allows for extensive analytics that can help managers plan for greater route efficiency and improved scheduling.

These same analytics can also be harnessed to determine the points of contact between customers and technicians. This allows you to set up an ad hoc contact tracing system within your company, and if you get reports that a customer or a field service technician is at risk for COVID-19, you can use your route analytics to identify who they came in contact with – and inform these people accordingly. With these contact tracing efforts, you’ll be able to keep both employees and customers safe!

Prevent Contact With Customers Until The Last Minute Through Digitized Invoicing And Remote Diagnostics

Face-to-face contact in site visits and exchanges of physical paperwork have been essential parts of the field service experience. But because the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads via respiratory droplets, and may potentially survive on surfaces and transmit the disease from there, these processes must be minimized. With mobile workforce tools, many of these processes can be efficiently digitized, reducing the need for contact.

Automatic, in-software quotations allow your team to quickly produce quotes for customers without any paper exchanged. These are also more efficient and less prone to errors as they are derived from inventory prices and rate tables, and technicians won’t need to call back to the office and get a breakdown. Customers can then pay with electronic, contactless methods.

Site visits can also be reduced by replacing initial in-person inspections with remote diagnostics. High-quality streaming video and remote sensors can help technicians get an idea of the problem without physically showing up at the site. This reduces the number of site visits, which not only lowers the chance of infection but also increases productivity of your technicians, as they spend less time traveling to and from sites.

Reduce Your Reliance On An Office-Based Workflow With Remote Tools

So many processes in field service management require the all-important office visit, but that, of course, entails the risk of disease transmission. More and more businesses are transitioning to a work-from-home environment, and even field service management will have to adapt to the times.

With mobile workforce tools, service providers can carry out their entire back-office workflow within an electronic system. Dispatching technicians for service orders can be done from any authorized phone or computer, and calendars and schedules can be completely automated and digitized to remove the need for paper records. Reports and performance tracking can all be done within the mobile workforce software, along with payroll and accounting.

These digitized processes have far-reaching implications beyond just the protection of your personnel. By migrating to a primarily digitized system, you save plenty of time and money that would have gone to running an office, while improving productivity through automation.

Field Connect | Protecting Your Workforce and Clientele Through Digitization

Aside from the safety benefits, moving to a mobile workforce management platform can increase productivity while lowering your expenses, allowing you to focus on growing your business. But, how should you get started?

FieldConnect should be your first choice! With its robust feature set, seamless integration between back office and the field, and remarkable ease of use – it’s the most advanced product on the market. Implementing our system can lead to as much as $10,000 additional revenue per technician per year.

If you want to find out how FieldConnect can protect your customers and increase your productivity, schedule a demo with us now!

Extend the Capacity of Sage with Field Service Management Solutions from FieldConnect

Managing a team of service technicians is one of the most complex operational tasks. The complications are especially compounded when a field service provider grows in size and reach. These challenges have historically been executed using primarily human labor. But the diverse variables in field service management require time and precision to mitigate unpredictable changes that occur frequently and at a moment’s notice. The management of these many components with human labor has been plagued with errors and inefficiencies—commonly resulting in miscommunications, delays, and incorrect or incomplete information.

But the technology to replace and enhance certain aspects of human labor has developed considerably. One of the most critical advancements in technology has been the development of Field Service Management (FSM) solutions. These software solutions have capitalized on the growth of permanently connected mobile devices and the rapid increase of communication they provide. FSM technology has been able to utilize these developments to manage mobile workforces and field service operations.

The striking growth of Field Service Management technology

Estimates have stated that the global FSM market will exceed a value of more than $5 billion by 2023—more than double its amount from 2017. Customer demands and the logistics of managing field service teams are growing and becoming more complex. Business leaders around the world are realizing and adapting the value of FSM software into their organizations.

The growth of cloud-based systems and the ubiquity of mobile device use has led to a development that makes FSM software a new standard. FSM has overhauled the way managers, service workers, back-office staff, and customers interact and communicate with one another. Studies have displayed that 89% of customers now expect modern technology from their technician scheduling.

It is clear that FSM solutions have created a demand for quality that field service management organizations must provide in order to remain competitive. And integration with legacy platforms is core to this progression. FSM can dramatically expand the function and reach of an organization’s current systems.

Software company Sage has been one of the industry’s forerunners for over three decades. They have been a market leader for integrated accounting, payroll, and payment systems. Sage’s solutions manage accounting, HR, payroll, payments, assets, construction, real estate, and enterprise systems. They now work with millions of businesses in all types of industries around the world.

Sage Intacct and Sage 300 CRE have become powerful resources for various field service providers. Integrating with these tools is a pivotal way for FSM software to further expand its capabilities and support for field service management.

We use this article to examine how industry-leader FieldConnect can help your organization extend the capabilities of Sage using their solutions for FSM software.

Overview

A day in in the life of a technician is made far more fluid and productive using FieldConnect’s mobile solutions. FieldConnect solutions allow a customer to submit a service request through an online portal. Once the dispatch teams produce their assignment, the allocated technician can remotely view the job and complete the work order in the field.

The customer can provide a digital signature upon completion and then receives a digital notification when the transaction is completed. Upon completion, the technician’s timesheet is automatically updated.

Integrating to extend the capacities of Sage

Each of these actions in the Overview section occurs using the field service extension provided by FieldConnect, which is integrated with Sage’s service module and the ERP and accounting system. By integrating with the Sage Intacct Suite and Sage 300 CRE module, there is no longer any reason for your field service team to use outdated timesheet and work order workflows.

This integration with your Sage ERP and accounting system adds insights and efficiencies while eliminating duplicate data. Direct integration with Sage speeds up billing and simplifies the management of service to your customers.

By combining with the power of your legacy Sage systems, FieldConnect tools provide instant access to assigned jobs, history, and equipment to mobile workers. Your organization will also reduce or eliminate paperwork while improving workflows for more timely billing and easier payroll processing.

Additional solutions from FieldConnect to extend your Sage 300 CRE module

• FieldAcess connects field workers and office staff with our electronic work order software. This minimizes the time between customer sign-ff and invoicing. FieldTime also simplifies technician time review with an integrated review and approval solution.
• FieldConnect Offline integrates to complete electronic work orders even during times when there is no connectivity.
• FieldGateway provides access to a modular portal for full web-enabled dispatching, planning, and scheduling. It will also allow instant access to job status and accurate tracking of field technician performance.
• FieldDirect empowers your organization to win new and add-on business by providing your customers an online, self-service portal.
• FieldQuotes is a remote quoting solution that permits field technicians and sales staff to instantly quote and close new and add-on business while face-to-face with the customer.

Further Resources

A leader in the field service industry for nearly two decades, FieldConnect has been developed to partner with the powerful solutions of Sage Intacct and Sage 300 CRE.

With a diverse suite of products, FieldConnet’s solutions offer the highest quality in innovation and protection. Secure and efficient cloud-based resources are coupled with the finest partnerships in the industry. This multifaceted approach ensures that their support will extend the capabilities of Sage to its maximum, creating new functionality and opportunity for your business and customers.

Schedule a demo with FieldConnect to begin learning how to extend your optimization of Sage for mobile field service solutions.

How to Improve Customer Communications

You call your bank to check on a charge to your account that you do not recognize. “Please say or type your 16-digit account number,” says the automated voice. You dutifully oblige and then push the “3” button to reach a human. After a couple of minutes, a live voice appears on the line. “This is Kim. How can I help you today?” You respond with your issue and the very next question is “I can help you with that. For security purposes, can I please have your 16-digit account number?” “What?” you think to yourself. “I already provided this information.”

The scenario above represents one of my biggest pet peeves when working with any financial organization. It suggests a number of issues – lack of integration between automated systems and the ones that representatives use, an assumption that I might not be very good at identifying and pushing buttons with numbers on them, or that scammers and thieves can be easily thwarted by having to say an account number, rather than just pushing the buttons on a phone. I believe that the first reason, lack of integration between systems, is primarily at fault, but the key point is that I no longer prefer the phone to deal with my financial institution.

This brings us to the systems that a field service company uses to manage its business. Many of these systems are inward-facing, dealing with payroll, accounting, inventory, and the like. But how well have the externally-facing systems been set up? These systems represent the ways that customers interact with the business and they are critical to acquiring and retaining customers, especially as the way they work, and that we work with them, has been forced to evolve. Whether by phone, website, email, or text message, the interactions need to be consistent, despite their unique qualities and need to be supported whether someone is in their office, in their home, or in some other location. Where consistency can be enforced across all these scenarios, the dividends will be substantial, supporting brand awareness and creating a positive customer experience across all communication channels.

First Touch

Perhaps one of the most critical touchpoints for any service organization is the first one. How easy is it to navigate the phone menu, or make a request on the website? Better yet, is there a dedicated line for service requests that bypasses the lengthy menus and recorded messages? After all, the potential client is dealing with an issue that needs fixing and time spent navigating through phone menus could feel like a lifetime. If you have a number of customers under maintenance contract, consider a dedicated number that gives these important customers more direct access and a VIP experience.

For non-emergency scheduling, consider a few different channels where the customer can identify the problem and provide preferences for scheduling the service call. These channels could include a web portal, a specific email address, or even text messaging capabilities. Again, for those customers with maintenance contracts, consider a proactive, outbound message to initiate the service visit, based on the maintenance interval time. When considering a web portal, make sure that there are no onerous software or browser dependencies. This capability should be easily supported on a standard configuration, especially as many people are now doing their jobs from home.

Once initial contact is made, are automated responses and confirmations sent quickly? Ideally, there’s a mechanism for responding quickly to voice mails, emails, web requests, or text messages. If there is no

automated way in place to accomplish this, does someone on the service team have the responsibility to connect with the customer? This key step lets the customer know that their request has been received and is being worked on. Bonus points for being able to personalize automated responses with company or contact name.

Scheduling the Service

Coordinating a technician to meet the customer’s timetable can be challenging, but customers should be insulated from those challenges as much as possible. From an internal perspective, leverage tools that help match the right technician to the job. Their suitability at the time could depend on several factors – location, areas of expertise, and equipment and parts on board their vehicle, for example.

Once the technician has been scheduled, let the customer know what the schedule looks like and when they can expect service. Windows of time are a necessary evil with a remote workforce due to unforeseen issues that might impact the arrival time. But being able to shrink the window, say from a 4-hour window to a 2-hour window will give customers a more positive perception of the service company and its ability to manage the remote workforce. If the time window can be shrunk to an hour or less, that represents best-in-class.

When the Technician Is On the Way

The service call has been scheduled and the technician is assigned. Keeping customers informed through a variety of communications keeps the lines of communication open to further reinforce a customer-centric approach. For example, a confirmation can be sent via the customer’s preferred channel. But rather than send a one-way communication, consider adding a feedback mechanism for the customer to confirm that the time still works, or to provide updates relative to their own availability.

Even more important is the ability to keep the customer informed as their service time approaches and should include a call from the technician when they are 15-20 minutes away. Leveraging technology even provides interactive mapping capabilities that will show where the service technician is on an interactive map, taking any guesswork out of the arrival time, as it approaches.

Completing the Service Call

Once the work is completed and it’s time to sign off, what does the customer review? Traditionally, the technician would walk through the work that was done and answer any questions. But with concerns about direct, person-to-person interaction, why not attach pictures to the job that was done? This approach reassures the customer and shows them exactly what work was performed, since the field tech may not be able to do a traditional review, and equipment placement often precludes customers from seeing the work for themselves.

Once the technician leaves the worksite, what kind of follow-up is conducted to provide the customer with a review of the problem, and the fix? Take advantage of the field service management technology and roll up the results of the repair. This can include an overview of the work done, as well as the pictures documenting the failed part(s) and showing the replacements. For certain types of equipment, it would be helpful to include any regulatory documents that need to be filed, or that were filed on their behalf.

The Billing Process

Now that the work is done, it is time to get paid for it. What does this process look like with technology applied? For one, it can be considerably quicker and can eliminate the physical transfer of paper documents from one person to another. Also, since the information from completed work orders can be sent immediately back to the office, invoices can be turned around in hours, or a couple of days. But, be aware of the agreed-upon billing terms for maintenance customers and make sure the due date doesn’t reflect anything other than those agreed-upon terms.

But think about the billing process as an opportunity to accomplish a few other objectives, including additional awareness about services you might offer, as well as a request for feedback. No need to do a hard sell, as the contact is already a customer, but certainly a chance to demonstrate the full range of service offerings. As far as customer feedback, it is essential to give customers the opportunity to share how their experience went, whether good or bad.

Follow-up

The service has been completed and the invoice has been processed and sent. Now is the perfect time to stay top-of-mind with a follow-up. The beauty of this communication is that there is no ulterior motive or sales angle, so the customer perceives this purely as goodwill. Yet, you can subtly support your objective of a quality customer experience.

This communication can take several forms, depending on how much work is performed for that customer on a regular basis. It might be appropriate to send a follow-up that summarizes the single visit, or perhaps roll up all visits for a certain period of time – monthly, quarterly, etc.

Synopsis

At the end of the day, it is about associating service with positive customer experience at every stage of the journey. From beginning to end, companies need to take advantage of every opportunity to smooth the path to completed service, whether planned and scheduled, or based on an emergency situation. Maintaining consistency in the look and feel of messages, regardless of the channel, will enhance the service company’s brand, keep the customer informed at all times, and provide a customer experience that differentiates the service offerings from competitors.

Field service management solutions can help open up additional communications channels, leverage the internet for self-service options and real-time technician tracking, and aggregate information for the customer that demonstrates exactly what was done, including pictures, to eliminate billing disputes and resolve any discrepancies that might arise. Additionally, the same solution can streamline internal processes, eliminate tedious, paper-based tasks, and drive efficiency for greater revenue. Sounds like a win-win!

How FieldProject Can Help Your Field Service Business

How can construction companies better manage their many projects, especially in today’s ever-changing work environment? While remote work is business-as-usual, given the nature of the construction industry, some of the changes that impact the way we work require new approaches to maintain efficiency and visibility to all aspects of construction project management.

Time Entry

At the most basic level, one of the challenges of project management is one of the most straightforward – tracking and accounting for workers’ time, whether individually, or as a crew.

Integration

For companies using Vista by Viewpoint, or Spectrum by Viewpoint, it is important to consider the value of direct integration into these platforms. FieldProject maximizes your investment in the Viewpoint platforms by leveraging existing data, reducing IT complexity, and maximizing project-based resources.

Integrating the Back Office

Your back office may no longer be in the office. With so many workers now working from home, how can you integrate them into your traditional workflows? By making all information available through a web browser, on any mobile device, the back office can now complete their tasks from wherever, whenever.

Equipment Usage

While the human aspect of projects is important, it is also beneficial to track equipment usage and to assign that usage to the appropriate part of the project.

Reporting and Visibility

Our solution offers project phase tracking, equipment management, as well as the previously-mentioned time tracking for individuals and crews.

• Configurable, at-a-glance project status, and detailed service reporting.

Additional info

FieldProject from FieldConnect is the perfect field mobility tool to quickly collect the data you need to manage your projects. Speed up invoicing and improve accuracy with this easy to use tool for managers, supervisors, crew leaders, and individual team members in the field. With FieldProject, your office is anywhere and everywhere

FieldProject integrates with your ERP to capture project time for individuals & crews, and materials & equipment – from any web-enabled mobile device. Enter and access mobile project activity documentation including pictures, video, task notes, custom forms, and signatures all with a direct connection through your ERP project module. And, your field team can review and manage active jobs, project history, crew time tracking, mobile form entry, material costs, & equipment assignments.

• Eliminate paper-based forms – capture all form data in a reportable SQL database.
• Simplify your field team’s internal and external communications with online project details on any active project from any web-enabled device.
• Eliminate duplicate data entry – enter project notes one time for everyone to see and review from anywhere.
• Drive accountability for your team and your customer with digital signatures and on-the-spot reporting capabilities.
• Improve billing accuracy by assigning the right inventory to the job and by tracking equipment usage, all at the job site.
• Project Managers, Foremen, Crew Leaders and field engineers use any Internet browser capable device to access FieldProject. Use offline mode if no connection is available. FieldProject automatically scales to fit your device – whether it’s a mobile phone, tablet, phablet, laptop or desktop computer.

How LEGO and FieldConnect Changed the World

In the days before electricity, Billund was an obscure Danish village, and Ole Kirk Christiansen was just a simple carpenter with ambition. As a young man, Christiansen turned his love of whittling and playing with wood into a business and, in 1916, he opened his own shop.

While initially producing furniture like ladders, stools, and ironing boards, Christiansen’s love of toys is what drove the company forward. As toys became a bigger part of his business, he even renamed the company to reflect its new direction: leg godt, or “play well,” became LEGO.

Ole Kirk died in 1952, just as his son was on the verge of transforming the simple Automatic Binding Bricks into a full-blown “System of Play.” Designed on the principle that all blocks should interlock and be interrelated, the system became the foundation of modern-day LEGO. That means that any LEGO block produced since 1955 can interlock with any other.

Software & Hardware Technology

If all of the software and hardware technology that businesses use today came from the same source, it would fit together as easily and seamlessly as LEGO bricks do. But they don’t. We’ve tried to overcome that challenge through the adoption of industry standards, but the failure of that effort for many applications is encapsulated in this quote from a technology analyst a number of years ago (wish I could provide proper attribution). He said, “The beauty of industry standards is that there are so many of them!”

Technology companies have introduced a flurry of integration “brokers” over the years, and they, too, have failed to provide the kind of straightforward integration that companies could really consider agnostic. The latest wave of integration strategies has revolved around integration platforms and integration as a service. While these approaches have simplified integration to a certain extent, it can often feel like you’re mixing your erector set with some Lincoln logs and things just don’t line up. And when things do break, it can be impossible to fully understand and manipulate what might be inside the black box of an integration platform.

FieldConnect’s Approach

At FieldConnect, our approach has been more aligned with Christiansen’s LEGO concept. If you imagine all the “components” of a typical LEGO set, you may recall the seemingly boring, flat, gray piece. While unassuming in a stand-alone scenario, this gray piece provides the foundation to build upon, assuming that the pieces are compatible. Soon, the gray piece has walls, towers, and defined spaces built upon it in yellow, blue, red and green. No matter the size, shape, and color of the blocks on top of the foundation, they all fit, because they were made that way. We like to think of ourselves as the flat, gray piece. Maybe a bit boring, at first, but as you combine the building blocks of our solution, and start integrating them with blocks from other solutions that your business uses, the real fun begins.

But how did we make the other pieces fit so well with our gray one? We simply figured out what the various pieces of a complete solution looked like, and made our foundation in a way that would make sure they all fit. We found that the best way to ensure this fit was to integrate the system at the data and process levels. So, we don’t integrate with the data, but rather just use the data that is available to us, because we have architected our field solution so that it can read and write directly to the database.

Let’s look at how we work in a Microsoft environment, as an example. Microsoft has many components that can be brought to bear in a field service management scenario. We have created the FieldConnect so integrate seamlessly into this environment. Essentially, we looked at how Microsoft has designed and built their yellow, blue, red, and green blocks and then designed our gray foundation to make sure their blocks will snap onto our base.

Increasing Collaboration & Improving Business Processes

So, while we have the field service piece covered, how can we increase collaboration? Let’s snap the yellow brick from Microsoft Teams onto that gray, flat one. How about managing business processes? The red Flo brick will fit nicely. Our executives need dashboards to know how the business is doing relative to key performance indicators. The blue brick from Power BI has a spot on the base. You can even add the green brick from Microsoft Office to integrate the traditional productivity applications into the overall system.

While this may be a simplistic view of software integration, do not underestimate the power of a system that integrates in a manner similar to the LEGO example above. This approach can enable tight integration and the ability to grow while leveraging the power of interoperability to accomplish amazing things. Just to complete the analogy, we leave you with this:

Yes, that is a full-size Bugatti Chiron supercar made entirely from LEGO bricks. Proof that an integrated, modular approach can yield amazing results!

6 KPIs to Tell You If You’re On Track

Given the nature of our connected world and the impact of technological advances, it is little wonder that customer experience and satisfaction have risen to the top of the list of differentiators for so many companies. In many instances, customer satisfaction can be measured directly, via a survey to customers asking for their feedback. Unfortunately, with so many purchases and other transactions happening online, and the desire for customer feedback so intense, customers are starting to experience “survey fatigue.”

Don’t get me wrong, thoughtful customer response to a 6-7 question satisfaction survey is great feedback, but getting meaningful responses is becoming increasingly difficult. So, how can a field service-based business get a better sense of customer satisfaction without bothering your customers with a survey every time they use your services?

KPIs for Field Service

If you’re like many field service-based businesses, you have your eye on some key performance indicators that help determine how well certain aspects of the business are doing. These indicators tend to focus on how much work is being done, how much revenue is being generated per technician, and other indicators of business health. These also tend to be looked at through an inward-facing lens. That is, what do these metrics indicate inside my business? By adjusting that lens to look outward, some of these very same metrics can help gauge levels of customer satisfaction, with the right focus. Here are a few that we recommend as a great starting point.

#1 – Attach Rate

Attach Rate is the percentage of active customers that have a preventative maintenance contract. This metric has a lot of relevance in a commercial environment, as field service businesses in the commercial space seek longer-running relationships than on the household side of these businesses, which tend to be more transactional. Monitoring the percentage of customers with an active preventative maintenance contract is an indicator of customer satisfaction and provides some predictability in revenue projections. It also tells you which customers are willing to make a longer-term commitment to using your services. A steady or rising Attach Rate is a solid indicator that customers are satisfied and are willing to make long-term commitments to work with you.

#2 – First-Time Fix Rate

The First-Time Fix Rate determines how many repairs were resolved in a single visit. Ideally, this is most of the time and this metric can be a key indicator for several potential problem areas, or success, depending on the trend. Having to schedule a technician for a second, or even third visit to successfully effect a repair will definitely have an impact on customer satisfaction. A low, or decreasing First-Time Fix Rate may also indicate an issue with training, or pairing up technician skills with the job that needs to get done. But one thing is for sure, a repair, resolved on the first customer site visit, improves customer satisfaction, and reduces costs. Tracking this metric over time will give you a sense of the experience that your customers are having and the corresponding level of satisfaction should track with it. As a bonus, increasing the First-Time Fix Rate lowers costs by eliminating second and third trips for the same repair.

#3 – Repeat Visit

A Repeat Visit metric represents the number of times that an installed product had to be re-serviced by a technician within a certain time frame (e.g., 7 days, 30 days, etc.). Repeat Visit provides you with a different angle of looking at the cost to return and deliver service—this time tied to a specific installed product. If you look at this metric by product line or family, it can point to products that require a high number of repeat visits within a certain time window and provide great input for product development teams. Looking at this metric by the individual technician, it can point to insufficient testing on-site or lack of adequate training. It can also point out the technicians who have mastered service on a certain account or product and can be leveraged as an expert resource. From a customer satisfaction viewpoint, it can be eye-opening for the customer to see how often certain products require repeat service. Providing information that helps them limit downtime while providing warranty services and expert technician support is a value-add that differentiates your service levels from those of your competitors.

#4 – Average SLA Compliance Rate

SLAs or Service Level Agreements establish the parameters of service that should be achievable by the mobile workforce and acceptable to the business customer, based on potential disruptions to their business. Improve Service Level Agreement compliance rates by empowering your field technicians with field-based access to the customer’s current SLA, repair history, and maintenance information. Meeting your commitments to customers, and doing so with a mobile technician that has the confidence and expertise that having all pertinent information brings, changes the dynamic of the relationship to one of being a trusted advisor. Making the switch from simply delivering a service to one where you are a trusted resource will have a dramatic effect on how customers’ experiences are perceived and should drive a corresponding increase in customer satisfaction.

#5 – Mean Time to Service

This metric measures the average time from work order creation to arriving on site. Given that many customers in a commercial environment are on preventative maintenance contracts, this measurement may be skewed toward non-scheduled or emergency jobs. However, those situations are often the ones that distinguish your reliability and professionalism relative to other service providers. Also, keep in mind that customers will compare your service delivery to a range of other experiences, inside and outside the same realm. Making a customer wait, or being unable to provide timely updates as to the arrival time of the technician, will certainly impact the customer experience in a negative manner.

#6 – Mean Time to Repair

The Mean Time to Repair represents the average time from work order creation to work order completion – not assignment completion, but when the work order is completed. The time it takes to complete a repair can provide insights into training deficiencies and can reveal other inefficiencies in the process that are in need of attention. This metric, through the inward-facing lens, can point to inefficiencies in the broader billing cycle and challenges to getting proper paperwork to accurately close a work order and produce an invoice. For customers, they expect receipt of an invoice in a timely manner so they can properly account for the expense. Invoicing delays, inaccurate invoices, and big swings in billing cycle times create headaches for the accounting department and have a corresponding impact on customer experience and satisfaction.

A Great Place to Start

As mentioned initially, direct polling of customers can yield valuable information and insights, but efforts to collect this information can sometimes be perceived as intrusive and bothersome. In fact, one might argue that the ability to get statistically valid response rates to customer surveys might itself be an indicator of customer satisfaction – either that it is really good, or really bad.

The indicators listed above are a great place to start, and improvements can be introduced, monitored, and achieved by replacing manual, paper-based tasks with a mobile application for field service. The view into these metrics is pretty straightforward and the underlying data that is used to create visibility into these indicators generally comes from just a couple of business systems. Focus on the basics to keep everything moving forward.

Expanding the KPI Universe

And once there is a comfort level with interpreting information from a basic set of indicators through both the inward-facing and outward-facing lenses, consider the power of tying together a broader and deeper cross-section of enterprise information. The benefit of having access to more data means that, under the right guidance, you should be able to glean more insights, improve internal processes, empower your mobile workforce, and drive even more tangible improvements in customer experience and satisfaction.

In a field service context, with the right field service management solution, you are able to go beyond the six KPIs listed above and start managing your business from a perspective that was formerly unattainable. Optimally, your solution is sophisticated enough to integrate data sources from previously isolated systems giving you an understanding of both cause and effect that allows intentional and meaningful optimization of the field workforce. The integration of data across what used to be siloed repositories will reveal interdependencies that allow adjustments and course corrections based on insights and resulting conclusions that were not previously available.

In the final analysis, make sure that your field service solution can measure KPIs, allowing you to start simply, and expand as your familiarity with interpreting data increases. It is critical that your system can capture information within the context of its own designed metrics, but also can encompass data from other systems to provide a more holistic view across the range of processes that exist in your business. Be sure to look at these KPIs through an inward-facing lens and take action where the data indicates there is an issue. By driving continuous improvement through this ongoing process, a view through the outward-facing lenses should reveal a satisfied customer.

What does the Digital Workplace mean for Field Service? – Part 1

These days, the concept of the digital workplace is described in so many ways and through so many channels. Technology media, social media, software business communications, websites, and blogs (oops, including this one!) are all touting the benefits of pursuing the digital workplace. But what is the digital workplace and how will you know when you have achieved the goal of creating it?  The problem lies with the context. The digital workplace has a high-level definition – use digital transformation (also a nebulous term) to align technology, business processes, and employees to improve operational efficiency and meet the goals of the business. But what does it mean in the context of field service management?  

“The keystone in any field service management solution is the mobility application that allows the physically dispersed workforce to access dispatch assignments, view work orders, review site history, capture time spent on each job, and to transmit information to and from the office effortlessly.” 

Improving Efficiency in the Field Service Industry

The good news is that field service is very well-suited to benefit from the transformational journey toward the digital workplace. This is due in no small part to one of the greatest benefits of achieving it – removing geographic barriers. Field service-based businesses suffer inefficiencies primarily because of the distance between their workforce and the office. It is inherent to the type of work that needs to be done, and is frequently addressed by requiring the workforce to travel to and from the office to deliver physical proof of their accomplishments – time cards, signed work orders, and other paper documents.

It reminds me of the early days of computing when we created electronic files, but had no means to share them easily with others. The “sneaker network” meant you copied a file onto a 1.44 MB floppy disk and then used your sneakers to walk to the other computer to copy it over. Hard to imagine in today’s networked world, to be sure. Components of the digital workplace for field service are designed to overcome these geographic challenges. The keystone in any field service management solution is the mobility application that allows the physically dispersed workforce to access dispatch assignments, view work orders, review site history, capture time spent on each job, and to transmit information to and from the office effortlessly. Amazingly, tens of thousands of dollars can be saved by taking this first, relatively simple step.

Additional benefits can be realized by looking at solutions that leverage cloud computing to lower IT overhead, provide tight integrations to back office systems that reduce or eliminate paper-based processes (payroll, anyone?), and deliver additional functionality like field quoting or a customer portal to capture even more revenue and enhance the customer experience. So, do not shy away from the opportunity to begin your own journey to the digital workplace.

Think about it in the context of your specific business and don’t get overwhelmed by the pundits and prognosticators that describe a future state that appears so complex you don’t want to even take the first step. Yes, make sure your potential solution provider has a forward-looking architecture. Sure, talk to them about their ability to integrate augmented reality and the Internet of Things. But more importantly, figure out who can help you take that first step, or two, will allow you drive efficiency and additional revenue, and can join you as a trusted partner to continue the transformation in a practical and manageable way – now, and well into the future. 

FIELDCONNECT’S NEWEST FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS ARE FULLY INTEGRATED WITH OFFICE 365 AND LEVERAGE POWER APPS, POWER BI, MICROSOFT TEAMS, OUTLOOK, AND MORE. WANT TO TRULY IMPROVE VISIBILITY AND COMMUNICATIONS ACROSS ALL YOUR CUSTOMER-FACING DEPARTMENTS? FIELDCONNECT IS THE ANSWER. LEARN MORE BY SCHEDULING A PHONE CALL WITH ONE OF TEAM MEMBERS HTTP://FIELDCONNECT.COM/CONTACT/

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