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The State of Field Services: 2013 report from TSIA provides an overall snapshot of the Field Service industry based upon benchmarking data. The report highlights the top 11 areas that field service companies are working to optimize in 2013. Among these are scheduling and dispatch, part and logistics, reverse logistics, mobility, and depot and repair operations. For those of you also planning on optimizing any of these areas, below are some tips on how good field service software and reverse logistics software will help. Scheduling and Dispatch If you’re a field service company, this is most important. When your agents are sent out into the field is when your customers count on you the most. They expect your front line technicians to be prompt, efficient, and successful in fixing their problems. They’re not thinking about how you operate on the inside, as long as you help them get what they need. So, having good field service software will make sure you accomplish all your customers expect of you, improving their experience and getting them to stick around. Parts and Logistics Another piece of the puzzle is parts and logistics. With the changing technologies and continually increasing business costs, you need to track parts, materials and assets to a much more specific level to prevent fraud or abuse and effectively manage warranty reimbursements from your suppliers. Proper field service software would provide you with in-depth, real-time visibility into supply, demand, and inventory costs, allowing you to properly predict supply and demand and automate stock reordering. This also enables you to track costs and eliminate errors and inventory redundancies. Finally, you can tighten inventory stock levels and boost your operational efficiencies. Mobility A fully optimized mobility solution is critical for field service. Mobile field service software can now offer unparalleled access to critical customer and service data and offer management. Careful analysis of this data can uncover trends and ways to differentiate your service as well as cross-sell and up-sell. For example, with a complete view of a customer’s products and service history, your technicians can provide a personalized interaction by identifying recurring service issues and/or recommending replacements or upgrades. Depot and Repair Operations An optimized field service software and/or reverse logistics management software solution would give you a clear view of the stocking levels of materials, giving your returns management and depot repair centers gain a competitive advantage. It also gives you easy warranty validation, so you’re not ever performing service without getting paid for it. Reverse Logistics Last is how you can optimize reverse logistics with proper software. The right solution would give you complete visibility into your internal and external service operations as well as the stocking levels of materials, your r
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11 Areas of Service Optimization for 2013
by CSDP Corporation
The State of Field Services: 2013 report from the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) provides an overall snapshot of the Field Service industry based upon benchmarking data. The report highlights the top 11 areas that field service companies are working to optimize in 2013. Download the report here.
Among these are scheduling and dispatch, part and logistics, reverse logistics, mobility, and depot and repair operations. For those of you also planning on optimizing any of these areas, here are some tips on how both good field service software and reverse logistics software will help.
Overview
So, having good field service software will make sure you accomplish all your customers expect of you, improving their experience and getting them to stick around.
In addition, the heart of your field service software should be entitlements, so you can quickly and easily identify what level and type of service your customer is entitled to. This ensures you meet your contractual SLA requirements and don’t over-deliver or under-deliver service.
Scheduling and
Dispatch
If you’re a field service company, this is perhaps the most important piece of the customer service puzzle. When your agents are sent out into the field is when your customers count on you the most. They expect your frontline technicians to be prompt, efficient, and successful in fixing their problems.
The additional benefits of field service software are endless. Here are 10, but visit our blog for even more.
1. Improve supplier and vendor relationships2. Allows for bench technician workload balancing3. Higher productivity for workforce and equipment4. Accurately track customer-owned stock levels and set up remote part lockers or “roaming” replenishment trucks5. Better traceability with historical logs6. Increase sales and support productivity7. Better decision-making tools8. Auto-generates service requests for follow-up activities and for proactive events9. Automate and control work orders with Service Dispatch’s powerful Escalation Engine10. Balance service workload more effectively
Read our case study titled, Automate the Entire Depot Support and Logistics Process to see a real-life example.
Another piece of the puzzle is parts and logistics. With the changing technologies and continually increasing business costs, you need to track parts, materials and assets to a much more specific level to prevent fraud or abuse and effectively manage warranty reimbursements from your suppliers. Proper field service software would provide you with in-depth, real-time visibility into supply, demand, and inventory costs, allowing you to properly predict supply and demand and automate stock reordering. This also enables you to track costs and eliminate errors and inventory redundancies. Finally, you can tighten inventory stock levels and boost your operational efficiencies.
Read the following case study to find out how to Reduce Inventory and Logistics Costs.
Parts and
Logistics
A fully optimized mobility solution is critical for field service. Mobile field service software can now offer unparalleled access to critical customer and service data and offer management. Careful analysis of this data can uncover trends and ways to differentiate your service as well as cross-sell and up-sell.
For example, with a complete view of a customer’s products and service history, your technicians can provide a personalized interaction by identifying recurring service issues and/or recommending replacements or upgrades. This also enables setting up additional what-if scenarios so that if a customer has Product A, then an alert will pop up for the technician to discuss corollary Product B.
Mobility
This would not only ensure that technicians with the right skill set are properly dispatched the first time with the right information and parts, but also give field service technicians real-time access to critical service data 24x7 and allow them to complete transactions while on-site. These are absolutely vital to both customer satisfaction and service profitability.
Read more about field mobility research done by Field Technologies Magazine in Field Mobility 2012, a special report that CSDP sponsored. Download this report to learn how real users are leveraging mobile technology and using field service software and discover the latest trends in field mobility from VDC Research.
Mobility
Want a leg up on your competitors? An optimized field service software and/or reverse logistics management software solution would give you a clear view of the stocking levels of materials, giving your returns management and depot repair centers gain a competitive advantage. It also gives you easy warranty validation, so you’re not ever performing service without getting paid for it.
Another way to boost your profitability? In-house repair automation. It will automatically determine whether to repair or replace a returned product, streamlining the repair process and reducing inventory control costs. It will also automatically reorder stock and tracks the history or all work orders.
Curious how it can help your company? Read our case study to see how you can significantly improve your depot logistics and repair process to better support your field services.
Depot & Repair
Operations
Reverse Logistics
Last, but certainly not least, is how you can optimize reverse logistics with proper software. The right solution would give you complete visibility into your internal and external service operations as well as the stocking levels of materials, your returns management, and depot repair centers. This gives you an advantage as well as a high ROI. Robust and intelligent Return Materials Authorization (RMA) management will maximize your performance and put you in front of your competitors.
Read about how a reverse logistics choreography can enable full visibility into your entire reverse logistics supply chain and watch a brief demo of the choreography in action.
CSDP is a services-led software company with solutions that can automate the entire post-sale service delivery process including:• Field Service• Reverse Logistics• Customer Support• Service Contracts, Warranty & Entitlements
Our clients have realized improved customer satisfaction by up to 15 points, increases in service profitability exceeding 10%, decreased average cost per repair of 50% and increases in first call resolution greater than 20%.
The Service Relationship Management (SRM)© product suite addresses the complete end-to-end service delivery lifecycle including Contact Center, Dispatch/Mobile, Depot Repair, Inventory Control & Management, Knowledge Management, Marketing and Quote Generation, Warranty Entitlement, Training, Contracts/Billing, Reports, Scheduling, and Time Tracking. Our software is fully tailored to fit your company's needs and easily integrates with your existing infrastructure so that it implements quickly and begins generating ROI immediately.
CSDP's SRM© software solution has been delivered to some of the world’s foremost Fortune 500 companies to include IBM, Xerox, Fujitsu, Whirlpool, Rockwell and PSE&G.
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