Enhancing Field Service Productivity By Meeting The Evolving Communication Needs Of Today's Field Service Workforce

By Michael Doerk, senior manager of content marketing, Kodiak

As the pace of business accelerates, the productivity of your field service workforce and the success of your organization is dependent on their ability to connect with the people, information and applications needed to do their job. The key to productivity is an enhanced level of connectivity, one that provides field service workers with seamless voice and data communications whenever and wherever needed. In the drive to increase productivity, many of you have deployed mobile field service management applications to automate functions such as work order, scheduling and asset management for technicians in the field.

Equally important to field technician productivity, however, is the availability of fast, secure, reliable group and one-to-one (1:1) communications wherever they maybe, whatever network they are on, and whatever device they are using. What’s less clear, however, is where to find the solution that meets these requirements.

Traditional cellular services provide the “everywhere” coverage required and the device flexibility, but its group communications isn’t fast or simple. Land Mobile Radio (LMR) networks provide instantaneous group communications, but do not meet the need for ubiquitous coverage or access to broadband data applications. Email and voicemail may be just fine for group and 1:1 communications but lack the immediacy as well as the context needed for effective collaboration. Texting certainly provides short, focused communication but isn’t reliable or secure, and in many areas cannot be used while driving.