How Mobile Field Service Solutions Can Help Improve Customer Service

By Deb Geiger, Astea International

Your field technicians have a tremendous impact on your customers and maintaining your organization’s relationships with them. Delivering value through service resolution can improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue through more repeat business and sales of new service contracts. Because service technicians are the “face” of your company and interact regularly with your customers (often more than any other employees), you should equip them with tools to complete their work efficiently and effectively. This is particularly important because customer expectations for service are increasing, and the service market has become more competitive.

That’s the message in a new Aberdeen Group report, “Field Service 2016: Strengthen the Team and Bond with Your Customers,” which outlines best-in-class strategies for turning service interactions into opportunities to expand and improve customer relationships. In its’ most recent Field Service Workforce Management study, cited in the report, Aberdeen described best-in-class service performers as achieving 92 percent customer satisfaction rates, 90 percent performance in first-time fix rates, and 7 percent annual improvement in mean time to repair. Companies achieving those industry-leading results made service a priority by investing in the right technology. The majority of those top performers invested in mobile tools so technicians have access to critical information in the field. Those companies also focused on improving forecasting and planning for future service demands; invested in knowledge management to better diagnose issues and resolve them faster; captured service history information and made it available across the enterprise; increased technician training frequency; and were more likely to rely on part-time or outsourced workforce to provide more flexibility.