While technical support, contact centers and Web self-service continue to receive most of the attention when improving the customer experience is discussed, a key service channel, field service, is now finding itself in the customer experience spotlight, often for the first time. Driving costs out of field service operations continues to be the primary goal for most organizations, and more companies are realizing that field agents, with their face to face interactions with customers, have a major impact on customer satisfaction and incremental revenue.

Field Service is August’s “Topic of the Month” for SSPA Research, and there are three pieces of content in the works, all mindful of what members voted was their top field service concern: driving costs out of field service operations. After collecting feedback from over two dozen field service executives and field service technology companies, the SSPA has found that innovation is alive and well in field service, and is helping to cut operating expenses.

Primary areas where innovation is leading to optimization are:

• Reducing field service visits. Cutting the operating expenses for a field service organization begins before a technician is ever dispatched. Darty, a $2.75B electronics retailer in France, has eliminated many field service visits, and ensured the required visits are fast and efficient, by leveraging knowledge management and diagnostic tools in the technical support center to correctly diagnose customer problems, solve the problem on the phone if possible, and dispatch the right field tech with the right part when necessary.
• Scheduling optimization. Scheduling field service agents can be a complex proposal, especially in environments requiring that skill levels must be matched to each appointment and available spare parts inventory must be factored in. Having field service agents not working hits the company's bottom line, while overbooking appointments impacts customer satisfaction, not to mention violating service-level agreements (SLAs) if agents are late or miss appointments entirely. To maximize efficiency, newer field service scheduling products, such as those from ClickSoftware, Indus and ServicePower, incorporate analytics to factor in customer preferences, agent skill sets and parts inventory, and create dynamic schedules which accommodate emergencies or priority customers, as well as performing ongoing schedule optimization.
• Field agent productivity and accuracy. Mobile and wireless technology has changed the way many field forces operate. Using wireless devices, agents are able to accept appointments and log work performed in real time, as well as search parts inventory and use online diagnostic tools or access installation procedures, all without breaking the repair or installation flow. Field service vendors all offer mobile and wireless options, and multiple providers, such as EveryPath and Vettro, specialize in wirelessly enabling existing and home grown field service tools.
• Service team management. Web 2.0, a hot topic for customer service with its abilities to create user communities and share information, is also changing the way field teams are managed. With its new take on the marketplace concept, ServicePower offers a network where small, local repair teams can register for job assignments from large field service operations, helping companies maintain service levels in remote areas or other parts of the country were they choose not to maintain field service employees. In another area of service team management, GPS tracking devices help keep tabs on current location of field teams, to help with routing and exception handling. According to ServicePower, a field agent from one company had a bad habit of accepting a job, saying he was onsite, then heading to the golf course to sneak in 9 holes. The GPS tracking flagged him.

This month’s field service research will touch on all of these areas, and more. First up is the full case study on Darty, with some great ‘best practices’ on how to successfully phase a knowledge management project. Then, a market overview for field service technology, discussing the main processes involved in a field service interaction and the technology offered to optimize each step. The final piece will provide more information on service team management, and how the marketplace concept can be used to increase the effectiveness, and the reach, or your existing organization—without sacrificing cost or quality. Stay tuned for these upcoming research titles from the SSPA.

Learn more about John Ragsdale and his new position as SSPA's new VP of Research by clicking here.