Today's Field Service Life Cycle Has A Digital Starting Line

By Rick Shimko, Oracle Field Service

Your customers have been conditioned to expect seamless digital experiences in their lives and doing business with your FSO is no exception. Knowing this, transitioning your FSO’s life cycle from manual to digital should be priority number one.

The field service life cycle used to begin with a customer call to your contact center to report a breakdown or equipment malfunction. This request would slowly travel – emphasis on slowly – from the contact center to dispatch where relevant information would be handwritten or manually entered into a rudimentary customer management system, then technicians were dispatched during a morning meeting. This type of labor-intensive, error-prone service is no longer acceptable which is why a digital field service life cycle can change the way you do business, as well as streamline operations and improve customer satisfaction.

But before you roll out the technology needed to digitize your shop you need to do your homework. What information does your customer need to quickly solve minor issues and perform maintenance activities? How will you create, share, and update this content? How can you leverage these technologies to meet customer demand for service with fewer resources while maintaining or, better yet, improving service margins?

While it may seem daunting, digitizing your FSO’s life cycle doesn’t have to be one time-consuming, expensive project – you can add these technologies as time and budget allow. And if you’re thinking that this doesn’t apply to your business, consider this: your competitors are already re-engineering service delivery to include digital-first and self-service options to improve speed to resolution and customer experience.

Now is the time to start transforming your FSO and this article will provide you with a blueprint on how to do that successfully.