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Category: Uncategorized

6 Field service management challenges ways to overcome them

Posted on by admin@fieldy

admin@fieldy

Field service management challenges are inevitable, it doesn’t matter if you’re a field manager, worker, or back office staff, every aspect of a field team has its own set of problems. Field technicians need to make sure they’re on pace to meet deadlines and that no steps are missed to avoid a repeat trip, while operations managers require accurate records of the job being done to advise supervisors and report back to customers. Lacking access to critical field data causes issues and prevents you from making educated judgments. Billing cycles are slowed, quality assurance and customer satisfaction are at risk, and work schedules must be adjusted.

These are some of the typical issues and obstacles that your field crew has, as well as how you can solve them by using a mobile forms solution to automate procedures and increase operational efficiency.

Achieving higher customer satisfaction

The major field service management challenge is keeping track of many workers in multiple places of dispersed teams. Customers are accustomed to high levels of connection these days, and they have high expectations for their service requests, as well as insight into specialists’ job progress.

Managers and customers can’t tell in real time if a technician is fulfilling those objectives in the field without the proper technologies. A connected field service management system, on the other hand, may provide managers with real-time visibility into job completion and allow customers to view updates as they occur.

Access to Real-Time Data

Traditional manual data input has long since passed us by. Field managers nowadays want instant access to real-time business data at their fingertips. Coordination between on-site employees and operations managers, on the other hand, is a challenge. Duplication of effort and mistakes can occur when field data is manually transferred to computer systems.

Field service management software allows workers to gather and store data in real time.
It allows you to enter essential factors like time spent, parts required, and budget.

Client digital signatures may also be collected using modern field service management technologies. They save before and after photos of the job site, as well as other important project information. This information may be synchronized with back-end systems to improve work engagement.

On-demand Assistance To Field Technicians

On-demand service delivery is one of the most faced field service management challenges in the field service industry. Clients are used to receiving competent service calls. They don’t want an inflated price or service representatives who aren’t well-versed in the basics. Inefficiencies and widespread customer discontent might result from having an unprepared technical base.

The nicest aspect of purchasing field service management software is that it is Field-based mobile app-friendly. This allows for work monitoring, precise information, and fewer repeat visits.
Field service management software makes it easier for professionals to provide accurate quotations and product estimates. Managers can use GPS to track the real-time position of technicians. This facility allows for smooth item scheduling and dispatch. It’s a wonderful approach to make the entire service process go more smoothly and profitably.

Dropping FTFR

It’s not easy to obtain first-time repair rates. According to reports, 24% of field service assignments necessitate a second visit. Every visit to the field is a cost to the firm, therefore it only makes sense to have the technician or delivery person do the work correctly on the first try. According to studies, an organization’s average field time fix rate is 77%, which means field technicians must make follow-up visits for at least 23% of service calls.

This might be due to the technician’s lack of knowledge, his inability to bring the correct components for the task, or simply a system misunderstanding. Whatever the cause, this might have a long-term negative impact on the bottom line for businesses. Companies are increasingly using technological automation to plan and perform better in the field to maintain service quality without putting a strain on performance expenses.

Precise Scheduling

The daily tracking of your field workers and ensuring that they stick to their allotted timetables is critical to the overall success of your field operations. And it’s often a difficulty for businesses, especially if they’re still scheduling field tasks manually. Automated scheduling using an FSM tool can assist in tracking real-time coordinates of your field force and assigning assignments to them on the fly. This improves workload distribution while also limiting potential deviations.

Manual Documentation

Work orders, scopes of work, and equipment requirements are traditionally maintained on paper forms and handed from management to technicians in conventional service firms (and back, when the job is done). Is this, however, an effective approach to managing the service process?
Certainly not. This style of management leads to human mistakes, wastes time, and prevents the firm from attaining shorter mean time to fulfill orders and completing more activities per day. The fact is that all paper data can be moved to mobile applications and subsequently to the reporting system, saving hours of wasteful work time and enabling performance tracking.

While these problems were formerly considered a “cost of doing business” in the field service industry, they no longer have to be a hindrance to your firm. Learn how Fieldy may help you achieve greater success by addressing these revenue, efficiency, and customer satisfaction issues. Request a free demo to see for yourself.

Field service management software: 4 top must-haves

Posted on by admin@fieldy

admin@fieldy

One of the most difficult operational responsibilities for most field service providers is managing a team of technicians. They may still rely on antiquated manual techniques to assign work and track their mobile workforce, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process.

Furthermore, field technicians respond to emergency calls on a daily basis, which must be prioritized over their usual process and necessitate immediate schedule modifications. Poor customer service, idle technician time, and low efficiency can all be caused by minor misunderstandings, delays, or missing information.

Let’s look at 4 key features of a Field Service Management tool that will help you make the most of the software and deliver desired results for your field service business.

1. Work order management

Work orders, like everything else these days, have gone digital. Who wants to deal with paperwork orders in the first place? Work order management is a typical component of field service software that simplifies and clarifies the process. When a project is received and allocated, the technician who was given it is noted on the work order so that everyone knows who was in charge of doing it.

This function also allows technicians to record their work at a specific task. Techs have the ability to take notes, capture video and audio, and photographs. In this manner, information about the job may be quickly retrieved in the future by office employees or various specialists without worrying about poor handwriting or misplaced notepads.

Then, after work is completed, your experts may label it as such in the system. Nobody will have to wonder if a project was finished since they can simply check the system to view the status of all of the work orders. Work orders are retained even after they’ve been completed so you may review them later if necessary. However, double-check your vendor’s data storage plans to ensure you have access to documents going back as far as you need.

2. Inventory management

By keeping track of the components your technicians utilize on a regular basis, field service management may aid your asset management efforts. Because your field personnel is likely to utilize many of the same parts to accomplish a variety of jobs and repairs, you must ensure that those parts are always in stock. You can keep track of your inventory levels with field service software that includes parts inventory management tools.

The system keeps track of every time a technician takes or uses a tool, allowing you to keep track of your inventory in real-time. Many providers will give you an alert when a part’s inventory reaches a specific level, so you’ll always know when you need to purchase more. Furthermore, several systems combine analytics with inventory software to provide demand projections. This informs office employees about which components are most frequently utilized and when they should anticipate restocking.

3. Scheduling and dispatching

Supervisors have comprehensive insight into the performance of field service executives, which aids in task scheduling. FSM software can automate the whole scheduling process with a centralized hub for day-to-day operations. Executives are automatically alerted of the nature and location of their next task once it has been arranged. This eliminates work duplication and ensures that the proper executive and tools are on hand when and where they are needed.

Smart scheduling: Allows dispatchers to make last-minute changes to schedules while techs are automatically updated. For allocating new work, technicians are also sorted by competence, availability, and other factors.

Text alerts: In this case, text notifications are customer-facing and may be used as a service reminder as well as a message that a technician is on the way or that the appointment has to be rescheduled.

4. Ongoing billing and service-based billing

When you manage a field service firm, you rely on a variety of income sources, the most common of which are fee-for-service and service contracts. Each of these tasks necessitates tracking, administration, and payment processing. Each of these can be difficult to manage—fee-for-service may necessitate invoicing, mobile app payments, and more; service contracts may necessitate functional billing and recurring revenue management. Add in-warranty repairs or maintenance, and the processes for each of them need having the correct information at the right time.

When it comes to choosing a field service management software that works for you or your company, all of the factors stated above are critical. Well, while you are deciding which product to go with you might as well want to check out how efficient field service management software is.

6 Ways to build customer trust & loyalty with your FSM software

Posted on by Gavaskar Rajagopal

Gavaskar Rajagopal

Great customer experiences breed loyal, repeat consumers. As a result, field service companies can expect to build stronger client connections by providing services that are faster, more consistent, and exceed customer expectations. Field service organizations can achieve so by implementing clever techniques that will improve the customer experience.

Well, remember that the customer is one of the most crucial aspects of running a field service company. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the service or product and forget that consumers are the lifeblood of any company. While every company needs to employ technology to improve customer service, combining the human element with FSM software is a winning strategy.

Customer service might be difficult to come by in the field service industry. For starters, your consumers are served in the field, away from your “sight.” Coordination of service work is crucial, and it is more important than ever for everyone to be on the same page. Keep these 5 customer service recommendations in mind when you create your business plan.

Deliver a dynamic and transparent experience to FSM software to your customers

Remember that your clients are continuously receiving offers from brands who want to sell them a fresh and immersive customer experience tied to a specific product in their private life. Don’t be surprised if these same customers have the same expectations in their work lives. That implies you’ll need to devise a strategy for engaging clients from beginning to end. You must establish a client experience that begins with their initial service request and continues until the invoice is received. At each stage of the service life cycle, it must also include the use of various channels to communicate with clients.

Using several channels to increase communications — text messages, and emails — provides a vivid and dynamic interaction with customers. It also assists you in improving your brand image and customer perceptions of your organization. Furthermore, because consumers are often worried when equipment breaks down or stops performing properly, increasing communications and customer experience across the entire life cycle is a great approach to boost loyalty.

Improve the efficiency of your service agreement procedure in FSM software

Service agreements might assist you in securing repeat business. They also make customers’ lives easier. Customers should find agreements to be more cost-effective and involve less effort. Agreements must, however, be simple to understand and completed on time in order to be successful. Service agreements can be managed with the use of FSM software. When agreements are up for renewal, the software should keep track of them and send out automatic service reminders. Some field management apps allow customers to pay for services while they are still in the field. Clients will appreciate how simple and quick agreement and invoicing are. Customers and office personnel will have less to manage if service agreements are automated with software.

Make appointment scheduling easier

Nobody wants to spend 15 minutes on the phone trying to schedule an appointment with a technician. Customers want prompt service. If you can’t give this experience, you can bet your consumers will go to one of your competitors that can accept their calls right away or schedule service appointments online. Offer consumers a flexible schedule and many ways to contact you based on their preferences – phone, text, email, or the web — whether they’re setting up or adjusting an appointment time.

Tailored customer experience

Instead of a conventional service window, provide service when the consumer needs it and on their schedule. Allow consumers to schedule an appointment at their leisure. Allow personnel to access a customer’s past service history as well as common pain points linked with system and equipment failures so that they may better handle the customer’s unique issue. This not only allows your personnel to deliver a more customized service experience, but it also allows them to better manage their time.

Offer FSM software with self-servicing options to your customers

Self-servicing options will improve service to your customers by allowing them to enter service request tickets from a secure web interface. It will help reduce your administrative and overhead costs by providing customers with the ability to enter requests on their own, and at their own convenience. With self-servicing ability, customers can instantly create new service requests, order parts and materials, review sales orders, track job request statuses, etc all in a single app/web portal. More advantages of offering self-service options to customers include:

  • Reduce expenses of service and improve productivity
  • Save time for you and your customers by accelerating the information flow
  • Higher service satisfaction for your clients

Automate Workflows

The advantages of using a field service management solution to improve client satisfaction are enormous. Even if customers have no involvement in the automation of workflows, the improved procedures can assist to reduce mistakes and improve customer satisfaction. Your field technicians are automatically scheduled, and deployed, arrive at the customer location at the appropriate time with the proper equipment, finish the work assigned, collect customer feedback, take a photo, access crucial client data through the app, and bill and invoice in a legible manner. These steps must be completed without leaving any room for consumers to become frustrated or have a negative impression of your organization or professional. Your consumers will appreciate the smooth, well-managed operations, and the first-time fix rates have a significant influence on customer satisfaction.

Finally, whatever method you use to conduct field service customer satisfaction surveys, the goal is to gain actionable information. In other words, give consumers the opportunity to tell you how you can improve your performance and increase customer happiness with field service.

So, instead of asking a series of questions to get feedback on how excellent (or poor), your field service customer satisfaction is, ask a series of questions. Also, inquire about specific suggestions for how you could have done things better. Even if your field service operations have a high level of client satisfaction, there’s always something you can improve.

Our team of experts developed FSM software for the customers and has many more ideas handy on how to build a loyal customer base and ways to retain them. Drop us a line here.

Five predictions for field service management for 2021

Posted on by Gavaskar Rajagopal

Gavaskar Rajagopal

The field service management industry is a business that is always changing at a rapid rate.

Field service procedures are working hard to meet growing customer expectations for services as well as the demand for high efficiency in equipment-related activities. And this was before the market was confronted with the new reality brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Without a question, companies that want to stay on top must be well-versed in new technologies as well as current techniques and concepts for AI, machine learning, and augmented reality deployment. When these areas are properly understood and implemented, they ensure an acceptable degree of expectation and commercial value. The purpose of this article is to provide a quick overview of the top 5 predictions for Field Service Management for 2021 and their business implications.

1. Automation in field service management

Almost every field service discussion includes the phrase “automation.” Every well-known FSM solution on the market includes this as a standard feature. It is feasible to automate job assignment procedures with the appropriate scripting and pre-configuration. That, however, is no longer sufficient.

Field service software automates tasks including establishing a task to conduct maintenance services, scheduling and assigning field service professionals, and tracking the position of workers, among others. The following are some of the major advantages of adopting field service automation software:

  • The productivity of field labourers has increased. All customer- and service-related data is centralised in one location, making it easy for technicians to evaluate repair orders and service-level agreements, for example.
  • Dispatchers can use automated intelligent scheduling to allocate the best personnel to the project based on their talents, work schedules, and GPS location. As soon as a new work order is given to them, technicians will receive real-time notifications.
  • Resolution time is reduced. Workers may remotely monitor an asset, look for information on comparable work orders, read knowledge articles, and watch video lessons to help them solve the problem faster.

2. Technician enablement

Incoming technologies like augmented reality and holo-lenses, which allow for the execution of complicated tasks with real-time supervision and direct access to a knowledge base, help field technicians as well. Every aspect that enhances a technician’s work style improves overall efficiency, first-time fix rate, and, ultimately, customer happiness.

Other options, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, are also available to assist field technicians.
Drone inspection of hard-to-reach regions offers significant advantages over the old, human-based method, particularly in the telecommunications and oil and gas industries (see our white paper to discover how integrating drones with AI/ML may cut field service maintenance costs).

When combined with cloud services or an IoT platform, the site survey and inventory procedures may be completely automated. In this scenario, the job may be done more easily and swiftly owing to a wearable that shows the extent of work to be done by the technician and checks their health status.

3. Proactive and predictive maintenance

People are spending more time at home, which makes them more conscious of the state of their appliances. It’s having an effect on their utility costs as well. As a result, there is a shift in concentration. Customers want to ensure that their home gadgets are completely working, thus they want to be aware of any potential breakdowns or malfunctions. The Internet of Things can link household equipment to management software provided by a service provider.

When a possible or imminent problem is detected, the IoT system monitors performance and sends an alarm to the consumer and provider. This level of predictability allows for maintenance to be planned ahead of time. As more individuals take measures to make their houses smarter, boosting functionality for remote working and socialising, it’s a metric that’s becoming increasingly significant.

4. Mobile apps

Digital apps are just now beginning to be used in the field service business to improve service delivery. Not every business is ready to integrate mobile app features into its field service management software. Those that are able to do so will have a significant edge.

Within the field service software package, mobile applications allow personnel and consumers to connect. They can also be used by field service employees to record and track task progress.

5. Upgraded risk management process

Field service personnel have never had to be concerned about where they — or their clients — have been, but businesses are increasingly taking steps to guarantee that in-person site visits are as secure as possible. Field service companies are developing pre-screening questions that their technicians may use to assess the risk of exposure for various activities, particularly those in high-risk environments like nursing homes or hospitals. For the foreseeable future, this will most likely be a risk management trend.

Field service is now proactive rather than reactive. These emerging field service trends can help you pivot in the aftermath of COVID-19 if your objective is to empower technicians, enhance customer interaction, and convert field service into a profit-generating arm of your organisation.

The next step is to look at a comprehensive solution that will give you the tools you need to implement these trends.

Fieldy is a comprehensive field service management system with a robust feature set designed to improve every element of field service operations, including client asset management, work order management, predictive maintenance, and more.

Please don’t hesitate to contact our trained field service specialists field service management software 2021 if you’d like to learn more about these and other field service trends, as well as how Fieldy may benefit your company.

Key performance indicators for field services

Posted on by admin@fieldy

admin@fieldy

Identifying the right metrics to gauge the outcome and success of your field service operations can certainly help you understand how well your company is performing and help determine areas that need to be improved for you to accomplish all your business goals. But the question is, what are some field service metrics or field service management software KPIs that you need to track?

In case you identify the wrong ones, there is a higher chance that you will be overlooking some of the main issues that are impacting your organizational performance. And also if you focus on too few or too many metrics it will get difficult for you to make informed decisions in your daily business operations.

Here are the top 6 field service management metrics/KPIs you should be tracking to accomplish all the set goals of your company:

The Efficiency of Field Service Management

When analyzing field service operations, people always consider and prioritize the quality of the service that is being offered in the field.

The effectiveness of field service management is measured based on how sooner the jobs are responded to by the company and the technicians, faster resolution time, FTFR, and more.

These are some of the important data that can help us gauge the quality and performance of your field services and offer the best service to your customers.

Customer Retention in Field Service

To know if the customer base of your company is regularly growing and if the repeat customer count is increasing too, continually examine your overall customer retention rate.

Analyze the profiles of long-term and repeat customers to understand the most effective ways that keep consumers satisfied and encourage them to continue servicing with you. Always ensure that customer service representatives follow up with customers after finishing every job, and address any issues that might have come up post the repair and focus on improving the entire customer experience.

In order to be on top of the quality of the service provided, CSRs and technicians should be well-groomed to ask for service ratings from clients and ask the customers to fill out survey forms as soon as the work is done. Continually aim to improve the quality of your customer service to reduce the churn rate and work on improving the chances of customers referring your business to others.

Average time to finish the job

This metric offers a critical insight into the amount of time each of your technicians takes to execute a specific task/resolve the issue. This metric is primarily utilized to plan the capacity of your field service team and also help modulate the scheduling and dispatching steps of your operations.

By using the advanced FSM tool, you can effortlessly monitor the performance of your entire time and the amount of time consumed to finish the task by letting your field service professionals/technicians update their check-in time when they reach the client’s location and the time they check out post task completion.

FTFR

Your technicians need to be equipped to be able to finish the job/resolve the issue in a single visit and need not have to revisit the customer’s place to deal with the same issue many times. This metric is important for a company to run in the most productive way possible. To monitor this metric, calculate your first-time repair rate and get to know if there are too many follow-ups from your staff side which might lead to several missed opportunities and profits from new jobs. Make sure that correct technicians are dispatched to perform relevant jobs based on each of their experience and expertise which will eventually garner the best score of the service. Additionally, it is also important for the technicians to get to the job site with all the needed gear and equipment they’ll need to accomplish the job.

Per lead, revenue rate

To determine your bottom line look no further than revenue per lead rate. The total volume of sales divided by the total number of leads (including canceled leads) amounts to revenue per lead.

When looking at field service performance indicators it’s critical to look at the % of closed leads. It’s also necessary to revisit the primary business processes if your company has been closing only a small % of all the generated leads.

LTV (Life Time Value)

The total revenue you aim to receive from a single customer over the course of their relationship with your organization is termed LTV. To calculate this number you need to know how long customers stay with you on average. Multiply that number by the anticipated monthly revenue to find their LTV. The LTV will help you discover what constitutes a good service operation, different methods to implement while prioritizing tasks/jobs, whether or not the job is worth the time of your technician, and more.

Metrics like these eventually lead to one thing: it is immensely important for you to know what needs to be measured in field service projects/processes if you want your business to flourish. And in order to do so, you’ll require a heightened understanding of FSM software’s analytics capabilities/features.

The good thing is that Fieldy will allow you to measure all these indicators and much more. It’s built with the purpose to assist all FSM businesses and field service personnel to make timely and accurate decisions and measures. It is an essential tool for all FSM project managers and administrators, as it will provide them with clarity on success, income, and performance.

There is a free demo available for you to check out our services. You can register for the free demo here.