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April 19, 2019 | 3 Mins Read

3 Ways Today’s Technologies Help Field Service Organizations Mitigate Risk

April 19, 2019 | 3 Mins Read

3 Ways Today’s Technologies Help Field Service Organizations Mitigate Risk

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Much of the conversation around technology investment for field service centers around two critical objectives: optimizing the customer experience and maximizing efficiency. There’s an important third aspect at play, though — how leveraging today’s technologies can help field service organizations mitigate risk.

In an increasingly competitive landscape, the need to minimize risk and vulnerability is imperative. Here are three ways in which today’s technologies can assist field service organizations in protecting their businesses.

1: Knowledge Capture & Transfer

If you rely on a incredibly experienced, highly knowledgeable and skilled team of field technicians or dispatchers to keep your operations running smoothly and to ensure your customers’ needs are met, you are putting your company’s long-term success at risk. As field workers and dispatchers age out and retire, letting those employees take immensely valuable tribal knowledge with them will cause measurable pain that is easily avoidable.

Today’s leading service organizations are putting tools in place to capture and transfer tribal knowledge, to take control of the information that is historically housed only in employees’ heads. This can take the shape of an optimized scheduling and dispatch solution, which replaces the dependence on highly knowledgeable manual dispatchers and instead builds the knowledge base within the technology so that the organization itself retains control. We also see the introduction of more sophisticated knowledge management solutions, which ensure that insights gleaned over the years of experience your most tenured technicians have are captured and can be more easily (if not easily) passed on to younger, less experienced workers.

2: Documentation & Proof of Service

In a world of endless information, documentation of work performed is becoming essential. Most customers today demand a detailed report of what took place during a service visit they are paying for, and you better be able to provide it. Even if they don’t demand this sort of insight automatically, they will inevitably have questions that they expect answers to. Having a proper service management system in place that allows your technicians to effectively document the service visit and work performed not only gives your organization greater visibility, but it provides what’s becoming customary information for your customers.

Where this ties in with mitigating risk is when an issue arises. Solid documentation and proof of service data can save your behind in a situation where your customer is questioning or debating the work performed. Being able to easily provide a detailed overview of what work was conducted, when, how, and why will help your organization to avoid such issues, often enabling you to recoup billable hours and defend paid services.

3: Safety

Last but certainly not least, today’s technologies help you to keep your dispersed workforce safe. From mobile devices to fleet tracking solutions, the ability to protect mobile workers is greater than ever before. Workers that at one point would have been checking in daily, even weekly, are now connected all the time, in real time. This helps companies to monitor safety and quickly respond to any risks, which is particularly important for organizations with workers operating in dangerous conditions (like oil and gas or mining) or performing service on heavy machinery (such as elevators or other large equipment).

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April 15, 2019 | 5 Mins Read

Managing Information Sources: A Services Marketing Roadmap

April 15, 2019 | 5 Mins Read

Managing Information Sources: A Services Marketing Roadmap

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By Bill Pollock

Acquiring and mastering customer and industry information should be a core competency for field service organizations. The success of these organizations rests primarily on their track record and their ability to "sell" new service concepts to distributors and customers, using sound data from a variety of credible sources.

To be successful, services organizations need to implement comprehensive and efficient processes for utilizing customer and industry information. Specific strategies need to be developed for acquiring and managing customer information, research resources, and Web-based information services. Successful services organizations will also be counted on to develop specific strategies for tapping into each of these sources in an effective and efficient manner.

There are three major categories of information for which services organizations need to efficiently manage their respective service portfolios:

  1. Harnessing Customer Information
  2. Grasping Market Trends
  3. Tracking Industry Leaders

Harnessing Customer Information

Each company, by the nature of the products and services it sells, as well as its channels of distribution, has a very specific customer set. No amount of industry research can substitute for the knowledge gained by dealing interactively with your customers. Only in this way, can you be assured that your service offerings are in tune with your customers' needs.

Participation in the sales process is an excellent means for staying in touch with customer needs, requirements, preferences and expectations. Services organizations that do not proactively engage with customers at some level with respect to cross-selling and upselling end up “wasting” an enormous amount of information; not to mention the goodwill of the services sales force. In an ideal model, services organizations should have regional or channel-specific marketing representatives whose role is to support the services sales process. There should also be some built-in processes for field technicians to, at the very least, build a foundation for selling specific components of the services portfolio to the customers they regularly support. As such, these individuals should ultimately become a vital source of input into the overall services portfolio development (and marketing) process.

Secondly, services organizations should have a process in place whereby they can query front-line service personnel who actually come into direct contact with customers on a near-daily basis. Today, an enormous amount of information about customer wants and needs is being lost because there is no venue by which field service and tech support personnel can channel this information routinely to services marketing. To put it bluntly, in too many cases, nobody is asking them for their input.

Third, services organizations need to push aggressively to make sure the information they require is being captured in the call tracking and Field Service Management (FSM) solutions used by their organizations. They should also have been involved in the process of promoting these solutions, and should lobby to ensure that the information logged in these systems will be comprehensive enough to be useful for future analytical purposes.

Finally, services organizations should put in place a regular means for soliciting customer feedback on wants and needs, etc. For example, many organizations carry out follow-up calls to check on customer satisfaction after a service case is closed. Rarely do these calls ask the question: "What other services do you need that we are currently not providing?"

Grasping Market Trends

On face value, understanding larger market trends and forces can be accomplished by subscribing to well-known market research sources. Research firms such as Gartner, Forrester, IDC and many others provide periodic market trends and analysis studies based on interviews with large numbers of customers.

While these reports are extremely valuable, especially when developing long-term plans, they need to be scrutinized and cross-checked. Research performed by large industry firms can sometimes be too broad to serve as a predictor for any given sub-market. For example, research statistics on the overall growth of the IT services market may or may not be granular enough to help predict how demand for services will fare in an emerging market such as pest control services. It is often necessary to engage specialized research firms (like Strategies For Growth℠) to conduct research in specific niche markets. When done routinely, this type of research can be tailored to produce the desired data without breaking the budget.

One of the common pitfalls services organizations fall into is subscribing to a single service for all of their research needs. Because of funding limitations or simply due to lack of awareness, these organizations will most likely not be exposed to research conducted by other firms. In order to remain effective, services marketing organizations should adopt a three-pronged approach with regard to available research offerings:

  • Subscribe to one service as a primary research source, assuming one can be found that focuses sufficiently on your company's relevant marketplace. If not, you may also need to retain an independent firm that specializes in custom market research.
  • Purchase a small number of selected studies from other research firms on an "a la carte" basis when they address specific areas of high interest (although this approach my ultimately become too expensive to sustain). Alternatively, commission a boutique research analyst firm to investigate niche areas of high interest.
  • Keep tabs of the findings of yet other research and analysis organizations by gleaning high level summaries and commentary which appear on the Web, or in the trade press.

Tracking Industry Leaders

A smooth-running services organization develops efficient processes for scanning industry events, news and reports. There are several approaches to this task, including:

  • Having individual service marketing staff read industry periodicals, Blogs and posts. However, this approach tends to be the least effective simply because service management is generally extremely time-constrained and cannot justify spending its time leafing through trade journals et al. For example, in the IT industry alone, there are dozens of trade journals that report on service and support issues.
  • Traditional clipping services have been used as a source for staying on top of industry announcements and competitive moves. However, these services typically deliver too much "paper" and not enough filtering. And they may often be irrelevant or outdated. As a result, gleaning through clippings has become an esoteric task generally relegated to the corporate Public Relations (PR) department.

The most promising approach appears – at least in principle – to be Web-based information delivery services. The Internet has made it possible for services management to receive targeted industry information “pushed” to them practically in virtual "real time."  Every day, there may be hundreds of relevant posts that can be filtered, screened and pushed out to the organization’s designated parties.

In order to be successful, services organizations need to take the lead in acquiring and distributing relevant information to interested parties. They also need to be able to develop a strategy, processes and a budget for acquiring these critical types of information.

The result should be a custom mix of relevant information streaming inbound on a continuous basis from a variety of sources, ultimately in support of the organization’s field, sales, marketing, manufacturing and services teams.

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April 12, 2019 | 4 Mins Read

The Many Brains Behind AI in Service

April 12, 2019 | 4 Mins Read

The Many Brains Behind AI in Service

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By Tom Paquin

Last year, I wrote an article in which I compared AI in video games—a phenomenon that’s been around for over 40 years—with AI in business applications—a comparatively new development. In it, I used the example of a two-brained approach to AI development. One “brain” manages an operational task, while the other manages a customer-focused task. I argued that this, ultimately, is what AI in service should look like.

In exploring the most recent developments in the Service Management space as they work towards more AI-powered systems, we can begin to see this come into fuller view. In doing so, it’s become clear that AI, as it will exist in the future of Service, will consist on significantly more than two interlocking brains.

To understand how this multi-tiered AI model will work, we need to understand how AI embeds itself into service management software today.

Let’s start by defining AI. AI is less like a piece of software itself, and more like a complex, open-ended programming language. The main difference between AI-powered functions and traditional programming is whereas traditional programming is designed around generating specific output based on specific input, AI programming is specifically designed to create unique output, based on multiple factors, in response to input. As more data sources are made available to the AI system, the output my change in ways that the programmer would not have initially considered. This allows AI-powered applications to “Learn”, grow, and, ultimately allows for programs and systems to provide much more dynamic output than a programmer could build into a system on their own.

So, what does that look like today? In service, it looks like optimization systems built into certain applications. For instance, your routing system may improve over time as it learns routes, traffic patterns, and times to complete jobs in order to more effectively automate scheduling. Or your Customer Experience system will improve to the point that it’s able to recommend customer service solutions based on what, previously, has netted the highest NPS.

These things all exist today, in one way or another, and each represent a single, little, AI brain. This is phase 1 of AI penetration into Field Service, and is already helping organizations streamline operations and eliminate the needs for backoffice staff to handle simple jobs. Phase 1 will conclude when these systems of automation reach a point of reasonable maturity, and, more importantly, organizations start looking at ways that central operations will automate themselves.

Phase 2 will of course be that centralized system; a brain that automates how all of these individual systems work together. Here’s an example: A sensor-enabled device indicates that asset has been running to the point that it’s time to schedule maintenance. The central AI system takes that AI brain’s analysis, and uses it to schedule an appointment. The routing system’s brain then dispatches a technician, offering a concise service window based on previous performance. It provides the customer with updates. Upon job completion, it checks with the inventory system, and invoices appropriately. All repetitive tasks are automated, allowing staff to focus on complex engagements, the act of service, and customer engagement. We’re not there, yet, but this is the future. A central brain working with dozens of AI systems embedded in dozens of apps, playing into each other, developing a common language, and executing on service before a human could input their name.

Sure, this is the future, but it behooves organizations to begin looking at these things today. To that end, there are three major things that organizations should be focused on:

  • Evaluate what AI systems you have today. Since those sub-brains that will inform the overall AI brain that runs operations in your business exist in so many applications today, it’s important to take stock of those platforms. Are the AI systems in place performing at an optimal rate?
  • Evaluate the integrity of your connected devices. If you work in an asset-intensive business and you’re not collecting and synthesizing asset data, then you’re way behind the curve. That’s not the only connected element of a service organization, of course. How about vans, warehouse inventory, and, importantly, your mobile workers.
  • Evaluate the overall connectivity of system processes. For the connected AI of the future to manage all of your systems efficiently, your systems need to connect to one another. Does your routing system speak to your order management system? Does your inventory management speak to your fleet management? Interconnectivity is no longer a nice-to-have. The AI-powered future calls for a unified system.

With these things in mind, you will be on the right path to set yourself up for AI success.

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April 9, 2019 | 3 Mins Read

Q&A: Exploring The Correlation Between Engaged And Productive Employees

April 9, 2019 | 3 Mins Read

Q&A: Exploring The Correlation Between Engaged And Productive Employees

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Juan Cruz, Jr. is the Senior Manager, National Field Services, at Fresenius Medical Care North America. In his role, Juan Leads and manages 6 district field service managers and 55 field service technicians. He’s recently championed a title change of his field team to more accurately reflect the evolving profession, implemented field service KPIs to measure field performance and efficiency, and developed third party SOP to manage the vetting, onboarding, and performance of third-party service providers. One of the aspects of his role that he’s most passionate about is ensuring that his workforce is highly engaged to maintain optimal productivity and customer experience. Here Juan shares with us his thoughts and advice on employee engagement.

Nicastro: Why is employee engagement so important to you and to Fresenius?

Cruz, Jr.: Employee engagement is important for several reasons. First, you have a workforce that is productive – and there is a direct correlation between engaged and productive workers. Disengaged employees will only give you the minimum — just enough to get by — get their work done and go home at the end of the day. With an engaged workforce, you are getting the best ideas and input that can propel a team and organization forward. Engaged employees are also more collaborative. They want to work together for the benefit of the clients, company, and each other. For Fresenius, it is also important because we have several initiatives from product launches to technology deployment over the next couple of years, and we want to be to be excited and ready and eager to learn about the products and technology to ensure that the launches and implementations are successful and as glitch-free as possible.

Nicastro: How have you witnessed a lack of employee engagement causing negative effects?

Cruz, Jr.: I have personally seen the effects of disengaged workforce – work is delivered, but it is not of the highest quality, which causes rework and lost time. Disengaged employees are also not responsive to business needs. There is no urgency in their step, which can have a trickle effect to other parts of the organization. Also, I have seen just the abrasiveness with which disengaged employees work with members of other teams. Disengaged employees have a difficult time working with others because they believe that they are being taken advantage of, or there is no benefit to them in the working relationship.

Nicastro: What are your methods for ensuring your employees are engaged and satisfied?

Cruz, Jr.: Communication is the key to anything that is worthwhile. One of the things I do is take pulse surveys every once in a while to get the team engaged in decisions that need to be made. But even more importantly, taking action on the survey responses and letting the team know that action has been taken or in some cases that an action cannot be taken. If employees see that they are not getting feedback on their feedback, or that action isn’t being taken, they will become disengaged and no longer want to participate. Also, I include employees in discussions with other departments so that there is collaboration between different teams and business functions. A lot of these cross-functional discussions not only build trust with other parts of the organization, but also allow team members to contribute outside of their core responsibilities.

Nicastro: How do these efforts pay off?

Cruz, Jr.: When you have an engaged employee, you have an engaged mind. You also have a situation where ideas and creativity are being fostered, and the ideas that come from your frontline workforce can be transformational for a service business. Engagement also increases collaboration across different teams and parts of the business. As a manager you can make better use of your team, from being tactical to being more strategic, and operate with better productivity.

Nicastro: What advice do you have for others on improving employee engagement?

Cruz, Jr.: My biggest advice would be to proactively solicit input and advice, and really listen to what people have to say. Be intentional in getting advice, feedback, and ideas and implement those contributions where appropriate. Ensure you have a 360 loop where the employee is aware that their contributions were not in vain. Also, be an example to others. Leaders need to set the example of being engaged in their work, with other people, and other teams within the organization.

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Leveraging Your Knowledge As An Asset

April 8, 2019 | 3 Mins Read

Leveraging Your Knowledge As An Asset

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By Marietta Nienhaus

This article seeks to answer two questions. First: How do successful companies leverage their knowledge to drive growth? Second: Which trends do we see in the market today related to knowledge management? When we talk about knowledge, we refer to the knowledge management concept that is defined as "… a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of an enterprise's information assets.” (Michael D. Koenig KMWorld, 2012).

These information assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and previously un-captured expertise and experience of individual members of staff. While most companies have methodologies, processes and systems in place to gather information, with the purpose of reducing development, marketing, sales and delivery costs, only a few have been able to leverage their knowledge into the development of new services. For example, Fortune 500 companies lose roughly “31.5 billion a year by failing to share knowledge” (Babcock). A shocking fact, right? We are not only talking about the potentially high added value to the customer that is enabled though knowledge driven services, we also talk about the high margins that can be generated in the company. This means, if you get your knowledge management strategy right it’s a true win-win situation.

Where to Begin

Companies wanting to plunge into the knowledge management-related services ‘game’ need to first consider whether their know-how is worth selling and whether their capability can be put to the market in order to be used by others. This is exactly what a major truck and bus manufacturer did when they saw their market share from selling trucks and busses dropping. They realized how much knowledge and information they were already collecting from their vehicles and what great value that could bring to their clients. They then developed different propositions from this knowledge and began offering different services to their clients. An example of such a service was their fleet management system, which enables the truck’s raw data to be collected from the truck in real time and then translates this into simple and meaningful reports for customers. This service provided clients with information, such as predictive maintenance, information about the driving technique of their drivers e.g. fuel efficiency, excessive idling, and so on. Having this report in hand, the end customers can take corrective actions for the use of their trucks, improve the abilities of their drivers, or even replace drivers who don’t perform as expected, as well as reduce downtime due to predictive maintenance. By finding a way to utilize their knowledge and information, the organization was able to develop a new profitable line of service business, which opened new horizons to the company’s profitability. At the same time these new services give the client new insights, increasing their chances of success by assisting decision-making, facilitating learning, as well as by encouraging and nurturing cultural change and innovation.

Where to Go

Using knowledge management to make maintenance predictive is the next logical step in today’s connected world. This means that maintenance can become more efficient, both in terms of availability to the client, as well as in terms of cost. Predictive maintenance means that you will be able to address issues before the product goes down by acting on information from the product, instead of following a list of actions that need to be verified and checked. For example, in a mechanical assembly you can use sensors to record information on the way the assembly works. From the data stored you know the threshold where you must change the part. When the part reaches its defined threshold, you will be alerted by the system and so you will make the change only when it is necessary. What’s more, knowledge management is now extending its reach into environmental scanning and competitive intelligence, gathering knowledge from vendors, suppliers, customers and even the scientific and scholarly community. An example of this is IBM, which now provides consulting services to its clients with regards to business strategy, big data and analytics, managing transformation and organisational change.

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What Good Digital UX Means to Your Technicians

April 5, 2019 | 4 Mins Read

What Good Digital UX Means to Your Technicians

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By Tom Paquin

The prevailing wisdom is that, when it comes to Digital User Experience, the emphasis of design should always favor the customer. It’s true that managing customer user experience through your organizations’ systems is a key element in serving, retaining, and attracting new customers, but if you’re stopping there, you’re ignoring a huge opportunity. </p.

To understand that opportunity, we do need to understand user experience for the customer. As a service company, what are the interaction points between you and your customer in your service loop? Let’s break this down by doing some good old-fashioned service journey-mapping (Albeit heavily generalized). There are typically three components to a service interaction:

  • Initiation of service: This could be scheduled maintenance, a call or digital schedule resulting from a break, or an automatically-scheduled appointment.
  • Delivery of service: From routing, to coordination of remote delivery, though the actual delivery of service, this is where a customer’s ticket is actually resolved.
  • Resolution of service: Invoicing, upselling, marketing, customer surveys, and all of the other administrative tasks that mark job completion.

If we look at the customer journey through these three steps, there are a few places where maximizing the digital user experience for the customer is paramount to a successful interaction. On a very binary level, the emphasis on customer UX lives almost exclusively in steps 1 and 3. And yes—having easy systems for the customers to use in both instances is important. But it’s that middle step—the delivery of service—that has the most tangible effect on the customer outlook, and that is solely in the hands of your employees.

In fact, all three steps require the employee to interact with more digital systems than the customer would, thus emphasizing the importance of UX in systems the customer never interacts with. At least, that’s the way it should be. Starting with scheduling and routing, through the service appointment, and certainly for invoicing and ticket closing, systems that are fast, accessible, and above all, easy to use, are imperative.

Having powerful tools to manage inventory, fleet positioning, and knowledge management is great, and makes a huge difference, but ensuring that the software itself is intuitive is the key. Technicians need to be able to access what they need quickly and easily, and they need to see a tangible benefit over what they’re capable of doing offline to make the software valuable.

Here’s an example: Let’s say that you’ve invested in a new inventory management system, and your technician is looking for a part. Your system will show the location of the part across all channels, but the way to do that is not readily clear to the technician, or it’s hidden in the ninth submenu, or the system is not available on mobile, or the system works terribly on mobile. So—the technician calls a colleague to check to see if they have the part, drives his truck across town to grab the part, then returns to the job site.

What are the implications of this? First, the technician isn’t using the inventory management system you just spent all that money on. Second, the technician had to leave the job site for a prolonged period of time, meaning potentially more customer downtime. Also, assuming neither technician logged the inventory exchange properly in the software, we now have a situation where there is an inventory exception, meaning that parts allocation is off, parts reordering is affected, and inefficiencies ripple down the service value chain.

Research has shown repeatedly that if workers are met with an unintuitive product, they will go out of their way to avoid using it. Think not just about the level of inefficiency that this causes. Think also about how this impacts the customer experience. It’s clear, then, that while customer UX is important, within the service sphere, good technician UX is arguably more important. There are, of course, a few dimensions to this, so how do you help maximize technician UX satisfaction? Keep these things in mind:

  • Involve Technicians in the Technology Rollout and Purchase Process: I’ve spoken about this before, but managers and business leaders have a great superficial view of how a technicians’ job is completed (even if they were once technicians themselves), so there’s a definite need to make sure that technicians are explaining the scope of their on-site responsibilities, and confirming that new software and hardware can achieve and enhance those responsibilities.
  • Test Software in the Appropriate Conditions: A software demo in a controlled environment is, frankly, a waste of time. Execution is key, and for the technician, that means that access to software under the right circumstances is key. How will they access Knowledge management when they’re up to their elbows in machine parts? Think this through thoroughly.
  • Train, Train, and Re-Train: Onboarding new software and hardware can be a pain, take time, and waste a day or two that could be spent in the field, but the efforts pay dividends. Also, training doesn’t end with rollout. Be prepared to implement 30, 60 and 90-day trainings not just to make sure the systems are working right, but to collect feedback on where systems can be improved.

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The Art of Creating Digital Dependencies

April 1, 2019 | 3 Mins Read

The Art of Creating Digital Dependencies

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By Greg Lush

As you may have read in my last post, the most challenging part of making it through the adoption cycle of a new digital tool is pushing through the trough of disillusionment. Creating the proper digital dependencies, in the right order, is hyper-critical for you to achieve the goal of goal of attaining an outstanding digital reputation. Our objective is to select one or two areas within the business which we can apply one of the valuable applications. To pull this off, the applications chosen must touch many parts of the business and the processes should be considered as compulsory. Here are some things to consider:

  1. Finding that one or two critical business processes which can naturally tie to one of your valuable applications is simpler than it sounds. If you are not already familiar with the details of your business, then partner with somebody who is within your organization.
  2. Think about the user’s current habits, your suggested first application needs to be close to the spirit of the existing process. Straying too far will force the user to think about things completely different, and while that is not always a bad thing, the first hiccup they experience will find them quickly using their old ways.
  3. Your suggestion should simplify their lives. Please don’t misinterpret this as make the activity faster. It is hard to gauge the efficiency gains until after the individual has fully resolved, and used for a period of time, the new digital process. Without question, your designs should always focus on simplification.
  4. Answer this question: What does every person need? For instance, in the service business people need to get purchase order numbers, or on the sales side of the equation they require quote numbers. Introducing these very narrow opportunities to your community will raise their comfort level by accessing the new environments daily, increasing their confidence.

Let’s not forget that adoption is 80 percent resolve. It will be important that you baseline the starting point and set goals for you to reach directly related to adoption. Please do not let your head get too big as the adoption numbers will rise quickly if you have adequately chosen a good digital dependency. Please remember that we are trying to build a solid digital reputation. Make sure that you share the good news of the adoption to the users and the leadership in a tasteful and non-boastful manner. Of course, you yourself are also prone to bringing back old habits. Let’s use the example of notifying people regarding their progress towards adoption goals. For example, four weeks have gone by since you first deployed your two digital dependencies. So far so good, you had a few hiccups at the beginning but all in all things seem to be running quite smoothly. It’s time to let others share in the good news, what do you do?

  • Send an email to the leadership team advising them of the adoption metrics?
  • Use a collaborative news object from within the cloud platforms valuable applications.
  • Create the news object, and it's appropriate notifications from within the cloud platform, yet also send a courtesy link via email to the leadership team.

Which would you choose consciously? Most likely, since you are reading this book, your choice will be item number three. Let me share with you, from personal experience, that at the beginning you will choose number one. If you come from the IT side, and not generally from the business, odds are you will choose item number two. The correct answer will be your conscious decision to select item number three. One of the worst things you can do is make the new platform appear as a burden or even worse an area of embarrassment for the leadership team. Depending upon the individuals they may or may not come to you for assistance in accessing the recently released news object. It is critical that we keep our eye on the ball and always remember why this first step is so important, we are building a digital reputation which is made up of trust. Don’t permit your ego or unrealistic expectations of the users to get you going down the wrong path.

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Emily Thomas Kendrick is the President and CEO of Atlanta-based Arrow Exterminators. Family owned and operated by the Thomas Family since 1964, Arrow is the sixth largest pest control company in the United States and the 2nd largest privately held, ranked by revenue with revenues exceeding $225 Million. Emily is a member of the Thomas Family’s 3rd generation and has been in the business for more than 20 years. Her family and her team have aggressive plans to grow the business to over $300 Million in the next 3.5 years and $500 Million in the next 9.5 years.

“Growing up” in the family business gives Emily a unique perspective on what it’s like to be a woman in field service. What strikes her is the ability to stand out. “Obviously, you stand out because of your gender but the great thing is that as a result, it creates an opportunity to stand out because of your ability. You earn respect when others see how capable you are and frankly they lose interest in your gender and only focus on your abilities,” she says.

As field service companies look to foster diversity, Emily explains that it’s a delicate balance because you want to first focus on hiring right person for the job – but at the same time, if you aren’t intentional about diversity it won’t just miraculously happen. “Always hire the best person for the position but be intentional as it relates to adding diverse perspectives to your team. If you create a diverse team, you will have the ability to understand all aspects of a situation. If everyone is coming at the solution from the same point of view, you are likely to miss out on a large spectrum of the industry and culture,” she says. “At Arrow there are many women in leadership positions not because they are women but because they were the best person for that role. Female team members can provide insight into our customers and those making buying decisions for their households, they can provide detailed work, can multi-task and can be extremely creative. I am excited to see more females getting involved with our industry and serving in all facets of the business."

As you work to incorporate varying experiences, perspectives, and opinions, you have to be sure you are creating an environment in which they can be useful. “Foster a culture that is inclusive in all aspects and respects the input of all team members. A safe environment that allows the team to express their thoughts and this allows every team member to thrive,” says Emily. “Once someone is hired and spends time in the pest control industry, they usually fall in love with it. Retaining top talent is key to every company’s success. We spend a lot of time as a company continually working on our employer value proposition (EVP). This is basically the balance of the rewards and benefits that are received by employees in return for their performance at the workplace. This should be part of every company’s strategic planning. At Arrow, for every idea we implement regarding our revenue and profit growth, we try and implement a benefit for our team members as well. Whether it is tweaking an insurance plan we offer, or changing PTO policies or starting a wellness initiative, making our talent a priority is imperative for retention.”

Consider The Opportunities

While the pest industry, and even other field service industries, may not be the career path some of us have envisioned since Kindergarten, the reality is that there are vast opportunities in these industries. “The pest industry is robust and growing and needs quality people. There is a real opportunity for top tier people to advance quickly and make a real and lasting impact on the company and the industry. There are many professional groups in the pest control industry that allow for professional development and mentoring. It truly is a wonderful industry to be a part of,” says Emily. “When I tell others I am in the pest control industry, I always tell them it might not seem glamorous to you but each day I get to make a difference in the lives of the people I work with by providing support for their professional development. Our team is providing uncompromised service to our customers in protecting their family’s health and largest investment, their properties. That’s pretty damn glamourous in my eyes! We have had numerous females come through our intern program including an intern this past summer who decided through her experience with Arrow to minor in Entomology, and another who changed her degree to Marketing and plans to come back after graduation and work in our industry.”

What advice would a woman that is a long-time member of a male-dominated service industry provide to a woman just entering the industry? “There is no substitute for hard work and the sky is the limit. Learn all you can about the operations of the company and make yourself an indispensable part. Be willing to take chances and learn from all opportunities. Be willing to fail and make mistakes. The old saying, ‘you learn more from your failures than your successes’ is absolutely true,” says Emily.

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By Bill Pollock

Every business has a portfolio of products and services that it markets, promotes, and sells to customers. In fact, most businesses make their product and service portfolio information available through a variety of means, including published product literature and general marketing collateral, service guides, company catalogs or brochures, and various other types of printed matter. In addition, most of the product and service information is also typically accessible via the Internet through company and/or dealer Websites, trade association or other industry clearinghouse Websites, online commercial buyers guides and/or directories, and others.

However, even your own company's brochures or Website may not be 100% complete – or completely up-to-date – with respect to the information it provides on its portfolio of products and services. In fact, in a competitive marketplace where new products and services are being introduced on a virtual daily basis, it is more than likely that some product and service information may be missing – and most likely, these will be the newest additions to the overall portfolio. Further, what the company may make available to the general marketplace, may not yet have landed on the desks – or the desktops – of your customers.

For this reason, your company will be depending largely on its field technicians to make sure that customers are always current, up-to-date, and well-informed on the various types of products and services it offers. In fact, if they are doing their jobs properly, they should have a more current, comprehensive, and accurate "read" on the company’s products and services than any other single document, brochure, web site, or other piece of marketing collateral.

After all, the technicians are the ones who are out in the field every day dealing with dozens of customers and all types of equipment – small, large, new, old, and everything in-between. They have probably already attended all of the most relevant training classes, or have seen a demo, for all of the new types of equipment well before the market base has even learned of their existence. They have probably even installed some of the newer products for which your company may not yet have released a formal brochure or product spec through its typical customer, dealer and/or media channels.

As a result, who better than your field technicians to know what products are available, why they may be better in some business applications than some of the company’s historical products, and which of their accounts may benefit from adding some of these new products to their own installed base of equipment? The answer is, of course, nobody else does – certainly, nobody else who deals directly with the company’s customer base on a day-to-day basis.

They should also already have a good understanding of what the specific needs and requirements of their customers are with respect to their existing products and services; and by keeping current with the new products and services that are continually being made available, they will find themselves in an excellent position to assist their customers in matching these new products and services to their evolving needs – or basically upselling them to a more efficient operating scenario.

By the nature of the word itself, “upselling" is different than "cross-selling". When you "cross-sell" a customer, you are typically selling them a companion piece of equipment or service to what they already have. For example, if one of your customers already has an extended warranty contract on one piece of installed equipment, but not on another, you may find it relatively easy to "cross-sell" them an extended warranty on the second unit as well. Or, if a customer is already receiving preventive maintenance support on two of their three units, you may be able to sell them a PM contract for their entire installed base. Basically, in these cases, "cross-selling" simply means selling the customer “more of the same”, or more variety for the same base of equipment.

However, upselling is more vertically-focused than cross-selling. By that, we mean that upselling goes beyond simply selling your customers "more of the same", typically involving the sale of upgraded, enhanced, new and/or upscaled products and services. For example, if a customer currently has three older units installed, but you believe that they can actually handle more throughput, at less expense, by upgrading to two of your company's newer units, this could conceivably lead to an upselling opportunity.

The best way to decide whether a customer sales opportunity would be better represented as a "cross-sell" or upsell situation is to first determine what the specific customer needs are. In situations where a customer’s business systems and services needs are fairly static, and the existing equipment appears to be meeting most of their requirements on a regular basis, you may still be able to "cross-sell" them additional units, or certain add-on coverages to an existing service level agreement (i.e., more frequent PMs, remote diagnostics, extended hours of coverage, etc.) as a means for making them somewhat more productive in the way they utilize their equipment (and the company’s services).

However, for customers whose businesses are continually growing or expanding, whose needs are becoming much more demanding (i.e., using new technical applications, increasing throughput quotas or expanding the number of daily shifts, etc.), or who are continually outgrowing their existing installed base, perhaps these represent situations where upgrading to an entirely new suite of business systems and services, or moving to a much more all-inclusive extended warranty agreement, would be a more logical solution.

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By Tom Paquin

Go ahead and call me cynical, but when it comes to service success, I’ve only ever cared about the numbers. Organizations can trot out whatever new, flashy technology they want, but if you can’t point to some sort of tangible improvement derived from its adoption (Preferably one that can be directly tied to money saved or money earned), I really can’t be bothered to care.

Service organizations are no stranger to performance metrics, obviously. In a field where the product is your service, it’s impossible to measure success without them. Business drivers like revenue earned, customer satisfaction, and jobs completed have always been the measure of service success, but organizations that have moved towards more digital processes now have significantly more visibility into their organization’s operations, and with that comes the ability to both measure new success metrics, and make significant improvements to your own performance. Are you measuring the right metrics? How does your performance stack up? Let’s take a look at some of the things that service organizations are measuring today, how they measure it, and what their performance looks like.

First-time Fix Rate

We will define First-time fix rate as the total number of service tickets divided by the number of service tickets resolved upon first visit.

First-visit resolution has become the standard-bearer of metrics for field service organizations in recent years, and for good reason. It simultaneously gives a picture of operational efficiency in terms of knowledge management, inventory management, and understanding of the serviceable asset while indirectly measuring customer satisfaction at the same time. Unsurprisingly, then, this metric is measured by two thirds of service organizations, according to research from Service Strategies. My own research indicates that among all firms, the average first-time fix performance is around 60%.

There are obviously some caveats to these broad averages. Different industries servicing assets of varying complexity levels will have dramatically different performance. When asked what the most likely reason for a second visit is, for instance, my research has shown that the leading reason was the need to use the first visit for diagnostics. While a diagnostic visit may be the standard today, connected devices are beginning to eliminate that need altogether. In fact, if you benchmark organizations with IoT-enabled serviceable assets versus those without, the fist-time fix rates improve dramatically.

Mean time to repair

We can define this as the total time from ticket to invoice, though some firms look at this exclusively as time on the job site. I’d argue that time from ticket to invoice is more valuable for a variety of reasons that help measure scheduling and routing efficiency as well as workforce availability and fleet utilization.

Compared to first-time fix rate, this metric is studied by far fewer organizations. According to Service Strategies, it’s only 36% of firms that measure this at all. I was admittedly perplexed by this because I feel like this metric could be the standard-bearer for field service excellence. When I have a service need, whether it be installation of new equipment, repair of existing equipment, or scheduled maintenance, to say nothing of things like pest control or roof repairs, I want that service completed as quickly as possible. This, of course, differs dramatically from industry to industry, so in my research, I prefer to look at this in terms of annual improvement, which sits at an average of 12%. As organizations improve, this number naturally plateaus, but improvement should consistently be the goal.

Remote resolution rate

We can define this as the total number of service tickets divided by the number of service tickets that did not require dispatch. Firms currently measuring this metric are saying that on average, 1/3 of service calls can be resolved remotely.

Benchmarking remote resolution requires a reasonable understanding of how service is executed at your organization, from the call center, through dispatch, to the repair. Can call center technicians walk end users through repairs on the phone? Do they? Do they have a plan for when to escalate to a service visit? Are there augmented reality-powered guides that can show customers how to swap out parts and recalibrate certain pieces themselves? IoT can help take this a step further. Can a call center representative provide a power cycle, firmware update, or system reset remotely? Can they use internal sensors to identify which part might have failed, and direct users how to repair? As you can see, there are a great deal of ways that organizations can begin to maximize and benchmark remote resolution, and it doesn’t ostensibly require any additional technology spend. It does, however, benefit from utilization of some new tech.

Asset uptime

This is defined as total asset operating schedule divided by actual asset utilization, or, conversely, total asset operating schedule hours divided by asset downtime hours minus 1. According to Service Strategies, only 40% of firms with applicable assets are measuring this today, so this is a great metric to use, where appropriate, to improve your serviceable asset performance. The benefits of doing so are obvious; You’re proving the efficacy of your serviceable asset, managing your technician workforce, and ensuring that the customer’s assets are working as-intended at all times. Among those firms measuring this, the average performance is 85%. Improve upon that, and you’re in the elite.

With any measure of performance, there are of course two avenues of improvement: Improving what you’re doing, and improving what you’re measuring. New technology spend, training opportunities, and efficiency gains will help you improve both.

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