By Sarah Nicastro, Founder and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service
On last week’s podcast, I was joined by Roy Dockery, Sr. Director of Field Services Research at TSIA, for an end of year retrospective that’s become a bit of a tradition. One aspect of our conversation was looking back at our 2025 predictions to see how on point (or off base) we were.
It’s interesting to look back and consider what’s changed over the year. Curious how I fared on my predictions for 2025? Below I summarize what I anticipated and share snippets from Roy and I’s conversation about whether I “passed” or “failed.”
Prediction #1: Greater Workforce Flexibility Is No Longer Optional
My stance: Organizations will need to offer more flexibility to their frontline workforce. Why? Because it’s what today’s talent demands—and because it’s now entirely possible.
Pass or fail? Fail, mostly.
In a call a month or so ago with the Future of Field Service Stand Out 50 leaders, we had a conversation about how economic concerns have (at least temporarily) improved retention. This wariness that’s keeping employees put has taken a bit of pressure off employers to reimagine what the frontline role can look like. My nudge of caution to any leader breathing a sigh of relief is that I think this complacency is temporary, and companies who keep working to improve and modernize the employee experience – even if the pressure to do so has receded a bit – will come out ahead.
Roy also discussed the fact that many companies still can’t (or won’t) look beyond traditional metrics like utilization. “A lot of organizations are still really fixated on utilization and the amount of hours getting done versus absorption and the amount of revenue that a technician is generating. We're still looking at very old metrics,” he says. “So even though we did all of this investment to try to optimize, most people still haven't shifted their view off of utilization, travel time, and just trying to fill up a technician's schedule as much as possible. Versus looking at someone's skill set, their experience, what they can do, and then how can we empower them to add the most value to the organization? It’s a little bit of a letdown that we're doing things faster than we used to do them when it comes to scheduling and rescheduling and changing same day routes, but we're not necessarily doing it better. Especially in a way that's better for the technicians.”
Anecdotally, I’ve talked with many leaders whose organizations are focused far more on improving work-life balance, eliminating unnecessary travel, and prioritizing wellbeing. So while we may not have made as much progress this year as I’d anticipating in modernizing the frontline role, I believe it will come.
Prediction #2: Customer Expectations Will Expose Service Complacency
My stance: For years, we’ve discussed how consumer experiences set the standard for what customers expect in all aspects of their lives. Yet many service organizations have failed to evolve. Last year’s Stand Out Service Trends report highlighted this divide: Peace of mind and guaranteed performance ranked as customers' second-highest priority, yet only 26% of respondents offered outcome-based services, AND another 26% still operated reactively (offering only break-fix service).
Pass or fail? Pass.
Not only have customer expectations exposed service complacency, but AI has magnified the divide. Companies in industrial spaces that have never been held to the standards of the likes of Amazon are racing to catch up – and the clock is ticking.
The challenge is that the race is not only competitive but unclear for many companies. Determining how to shift from a transaction-based service model to an outcomes-based model is harder than it seems.
“Customers expect resolution now, hands down. Response time means absolutely nothing if you don't fix the problem; the customer base has definitely moved to wanting to measure you based on resolution. A lot of organizations this year have been trying to evolve their service portfolio. So, people were trying this year, there were a lot of tests, but they still haven't got there,” explains Roy. “Some people are lacking the data to really be able to commit to an outcome. And most people don't know how to calculate it; it's just hard for them to figure out either that value or what it looks like to sell. How to price it seems to be one of the bigger hurdles outside of the data.”
Prediction #3: Addressing Technology Debt Becomes Urgent
My stance: Modern service demands modern tools. Yet many organizations are held back by outdated systems. Last year’s Stand Out Service Trends report revealed that only 15% of respondents have a fully future-ready service management platform. And 50% have automated less than 10% of their field service tasks.
Pass or fail? Pass.
Modern technology is a prerequisite of the shift required in prediction #2, to keep pace with customer expectations. Again, the impact of AI this year makes the term “urgent” feel too soft; addressing technology debt is imperative to survival.
There’s a real need for companies to understand that the operational excellence that not very long ago was a competitive differentiator is now a table stakes expectation. This means that companies need service management tools capable of a very reliable degree of operational excellence but also must understand that it isn’t the competitive differentiator it once was. It is, however, the foundation for what’s needed to compete today.
“The challenge comes from the delayed investment that we always see with field services. I’ve talked to companies who have deployed AI in support services, have a remote team with augmented reality, and your field service team doesn't even use the same tools that your back office is using,” says Roy. “That debt has caught up with us, and now everybody expects the Uber-like experience, the DoorDash-like experience, the Instacart experience. And it's getting to the point now where it's the burden that's stopping them from really being able to differentiate or to be competitive. I you haven't invested in your field service, your execution arm, your customer-facing arm, your most valuable asset is behind.”
2025 made very clear that technology debt is urgent. While there are still many companies that need to close the gap, they are aware. I’ve noted this in my conversations and Roy has, too. “I don't think we made as much progress this year as I would have liked to see, but the awareness of it is there. In my advisory board meetings, the council that I went to, there's more corporate recognition that field service is behind [not just field service knowing that field service is behind],” he says.
Prediction #4: AI Will Bring Big Wins—and Big Missteps
My stance: We’ll see some major AI wins in 2025, and some big, painful missteps.
Pass or fail? 50/50
We did indeed see some major AI wins, but we didn’t see the major missteps I was expecting. I had anticipated we’d see a significant example of “what not to do,” but the most common misstep was not moving to adopt AI fast enough.
Wins that I was excited to cover included Makino’s use of Aquant alongside IFS, TOMRA North America’s move to IFS Cloud to leverage industrial AI, and Kodiak Gas – a story that hasn’t been published yet but was shared at IFS’s Industrial X Unleased event in NYC in November and is an excellent use case of how to think about how modern technology (including AI) can drive your business.
Roy pointed out that if there was a misstep, it was on the side of AI providers versus adopters. “If there was a misstep, I think it was more on the provider side. Some weren't actually ready for people to adopt at the rate they were selling. I think a lot of people decided this year that they were going to invest, and some providers couldn’t keep pace and became overwhelmed,” he says.
It is an important point to reinforce – that AI, sometimes marketed as “magic,” is a technology that brings some really incredible potential but, ultimately, is just another tool. It cannot solve your problems for you; you have to know what your best use cases are, select wisely, ensure you have data to support its effectiveness, and manage change.
Prediction #5: Storytelling Will Be a Must-Have Skill for Service Leaders
My stance: The importance of how service leaders communicate and the idea of storytelling being imperative for particularly how they communicate outside of the service function to gain awareness, understanding, and support.
Pass or fail? Fail.
I say fail because the economic uncertainty that impacted #1 factored in here, too, putting efficiency, productivity, and cost savings in focus. These things are always important but having them in focus reinforces the perception of what service has been versus what it can be. This keeps service leaders in a bit of a comfort zone and makes this need for storytelling less vital (for now).
That said, what Roy and I both took note of is how there has been more focus across businesses of the importance of strong leadership – which naturally surfaces storytelling.
“I don't think we got where we needed to with storytelling either, but what I am seeing is a shift to where people want leaders and not just team builders or task delegators. In that, to inspire and motivate teams, they’re going to have to be effective at storytelling,” says Roy. “We’ve both seen plenty of reorgs through this year and you’re starting to see that the storytelling leaders are the ones floating to the top of these organizations. If they’re not getting budget to hire a bunch more people, they need to lean on the ones that can inspire the people who are there.”
To hear Roy assess his 2025 predictions, both of us share some of our 2025 highlights, and give a preview of what’s in store for 2026, listen to the conversation here (or on your favorite podcast platform – Apple, Spotify, or YouTube).