Field service is an increasingly vital part of the after-sales care that customers have come to expect after purchasing a product. And as with many other industries, it is going through a period of radical disruption as a result of digital technologies. By Richard Kloé.
One of the key success factors of a successful business is its employees. For me, as the Managing Director of Headland Machinery, with a team of more than 25 service engineers operating throughout Australia, ensuring that their day runs as smoothly and productively as possible will not only benefit the company, but also our customers.
We all know, pleasing a customer doesn’t end once you have sold them your product. The customer lifecycle is a continual process and field service is a part of that process.
For the last five to 10 years, companies like Headland Machinery have been harnessing the power of mobile technology to improve efficiencies and the day-to-day running of the service team. But, what happens to those companies with field service staff who are still operating manually and continue to ignore the need for an automated solution?
They get left behind.
We have seen in recent times how businesses have been affected by digital disruption. Take Uber or Airbnb – these companies have disrupted the way the taxi industry and the travel industry operate. Both organisations have taken advantage of the technology available to them and have used it to their advantage to get ahead of the competition, leaving their competitors asking questions.
Mobile technology is having a similar impact on the field service industry, with businesses taking advantage of cloud-based solutions and smartphones. Mobile devices have allowed technicians to bring the office out into the field. Gone are the days when technicians would have to carry books, schematics, diagrams or laptops to a job. They are now able to access the most important information straight from their device.
Our field service team makes up a large part of Headland, and mobile devices are essential for our engineers as they need to be able to view all of their jobs, machine history, spare parts and customer details in real time. Our engineers use a field service software product called NextService, and the newest release of the software is integrated with a Google Maps view. Google Maps have become a routine in the lives of every smartphone user, and for our engineers this technology has made it easier for them to track their next job.
From a despatch-scheduling standpoint, you are able to see all the different area breakdowns so you can potentially have one engineer responsible for a cluster of suburbs allowing for greater productivity. This is also beneficial for our customers as we can ensure that they see the same service engineer each time, which improves the customer experience and builds a degree of continuity of work.
After speaking with my field service team, they have all acknowledged that being able to use the latest in mobile technology alongside NextService has enabled them to continue to work directly from the field, reducing their hours driving to and from the office. After six years of using mobile-based field service software, we have greatly increased our productivity in the field, which wouldn’t have been possible if we were continuing along a manual track.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the next wave of digital technology benefits the field service industry.
Richard Kloé is the Managing Director of Headland Machinery