How To Reduce Field Service Costs To Meet Optimization Goals

By Liad Churchill, TechSee

Field service organizations have long been implementing measures to reduce their high operational costs. In particular, technician dispatches are a huge drain on operating expenses when considering labor costs, vehicle expenses, and the opportunity-cost of having technicians unavailable for revenue-producing activities. Field services may be tempted to decrease field service costs through various ‘quick fix’ methods, including:

• reducing technician headcount
• minimizing hours of service
• outsourcing to third-party contractors. 

However, these measures often prove ineffective in the long term as they negatively affect the customer experience. Fewer technicians – or less skilled technicians – can mean longer time-to-fix rates or decreased first-time-fix rates, KPIs that notoriously frustrate customers.  Instead, field service organizations should focus on the three key areas that have been proven to reduce field service organization costs over the long term while improving the CX.

Three areas proven to reduce field service costs

• Lower Volume – remotely or proactively address customers’ issues to decrease the need for truck rolls
• Shorten Time – help technicians resolve customers’ issue faster
• Optimize Staffing – make sure technicians are utilized as efficiently as possible