Field service management: 3 tips to improve quality of service

How to improve field service? To increase the quality of service, field service businesses should be looking to take advantage of paperless processes, more efficient travel routes, and mobile solutions. Implementing field service management best practices can significantly enhance these field service operations. In an increasingly competitive market, quality of service is a key differentiator. According to a 2014 survey conducted by the consulting firm Aberdeen Group (State of Service Management: Roadmap to a Profitable 2014), 68% of field service companies say they focus on customer satisfaction more than their costs and benefits when analyzing results.

The success of aftermarket services is highly dependent on technician capabilities and caliber. As a result, field service companies must ensure technicians have everything they need to successfully complete their tasks, which is vital for field service improvement.

1: Go paperless

In 2024, service companies can’t afford to ignore digital workplace tools. Field service management software is vital in every aspect of service delivery, from planning to completion. Field service companies can meet three objectives simultaneously with fully electronic information flows and the right data management strategy. They can:

• Reduce operating costs
• Field technicians can improve productivity
• Increase customer satisfaction by meeting what customers expect

This is all part of the field service digital transformation. Everyone benefits:

• Dispatchers have all of the information needed to optimize travel routes.
• Customers can access real-time progress updates about their service requests, enhancing the field service customer experience.
• Technicians can use mobile apps for field service to see their complete schedule and consult technical drawings and manuals while on the move.
• Administrators have a dashboard that gives them the big picture for all customer service activities, including appointment times, response time, repair times, and the number of service calls in progress, a cornerstone of digital field service management.

Avoid typing errors, reduce billing time

Going paperless also eliminates the errors that inevitably occur when people manually enter information. Now, field service technicians can use drop-down menus and checkboxes to report on service activities. They can also include photographs and electronic signatures that validate that the work was completed correctly. Ideally, field service management software is also integrated with business applications such as field service ERP software and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software. Integration with information systems, which the Praxedo solution achieves using web services, significantly reduces billing times. This integration is a crucial strategy to improve the effectiveness of field service organizations. Invoices can be automatically generated based on the details — service duration, services performed, spare parts used — provided through the technician’s mobile app.

2: Optimize travel routes

Field service management software is also key to ensuring that technicians always travel on the most efficient routes during their workday. The software, particularly field service scheduling software, must be as intuitive as possible, enabling dispatchers to simply drag and drop to move service phone calls, change schedules, and reassign tasks to other technicians. Proper scheduling and dispatching are really important things for any optimization within the effectiveness of field service operations. The dispatcher can see field technicians’ progress in real time on a map. Now they have the visibility needed to assign an urgent service call to the nearest technician and to add nearby preventive maintenance tasks to a technician’s schedule when it makes sense, leveraging field service dispatch software.

Constraint-based planning and artificial intelligence

Field service management software must support constraint-based planning — the ability to consider technician availability and skills and customer constraints such as service times and contractual requirements. Artificial intelligence helps dispatchers make decisions by using algorithms that analyze the operational requirements and first time fix rate (FTFR) to determine the optimal schedule for each technician in just a few seconds. This is greatly enhanced by field service call management software, which integrates these various elements into a seamless workflow.

3: Go mobile

The field technician’s mobile app is crucial to their activities. Whether they’re using a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, or a connected watch, technicians can access all the information they need during their workday. For example, the map shows them the location of all of their service calls as well as the location of spare parts depots and inventory levels. Technicians can use their mobile devices to get all the details for their next service call, including the site address, contact details, service requirements, and service history. If they’re using the Praxedo mobile app, they can assign themselves additional nearby jobs, an essential aspect of field service improvement.

Turn technicians’ mobile device into a mini mobile office

Technicians can use the GPS function on their mobile devices and Google Maps, Waze, TomTom, or Plan to get directions to their next job. They can use the device to record their work hours, including job completion times, work orders, travel times, and break times. Technicians can also check stock levels for the spare parts in their vehicles. If the right part is not available, integration with the company’s ERP system lets them know where the nearest stocks are located and the available quantities so they can reserve or order the required part. Technicians can even use their mobile device as an electronic payment terminal to accept payment for the services provided while still on-site. This is facilitated by comprehensive field service technician software.

Enable technicians to collaborate and work offline

To accelerate problem resolution, technicians can use their field technician mobile app to initiate video conferencing, instant messaging, and shared whiteboard sessions with remote technical experts to gain additional insight. They can also exchange photos and diagrams that include annotations and comments.

Praxedo Share, a remote collaboration service developed by Praxedo, won the “Best Application for Mobility” award at the Trophées de la Convergence. When field technicians are working in areas with no network access, they still need to be able to use the mobile app to access information, such as details about spare parts, stored locally on the device. Any data entered while the device is offline is synchronized when the network becomes available again.