People, they say, are the best assets of any organization. This adage rings particularly true in the area of field services.
Field services providers are highly reliant on the capabilities of its people. Most field technicians have highly specialized skills, very much dependent on the products and services they offer. This means that companies with multiple offerings usually manage multi-skilled field service staff.
Managing employees with different skills set may not seem unusual. But in a field service scenario, overseeing technicians with varied capabilities is not so easy. Making sure that you have the right technician for the right job at the right time and place (or what is called skills-matching) can only happen if you adopt a clear process and intuitive technology.
There are a number of benefits to adopting the practice of skills matching. One important benefit is that it increases customer satisfaction. Customers want quick resolution of issues. There is nothing more frustrating for customers than having to repeatedly request for new fixes. In addition, if the service impacts a mission-critical operation, this can mean expensive downtime for the customer. Tapping a technician who has the knowledge and competency to fix the issue at hand at the fastest possible time guarantees a good customer experience.
Which brings us to another benefit of skills matching: increase in first time fixes. All field service organizations strive for a first-time fix for each and every job. This not only keeps the customers happy, it also helps lower costs for the organization. Repairing a botched job due to a gap in competency entails additional labor costs and takes the technician away from other jobs. Increasing first time fix scenarios therefore mean less costs, additional revenue and a more productive workforce.
So how can you ensure that customers get the right technician at the right time and place?
Gather data on your field services team’s competencies. Keep track of your people’s training, expertise and experiences in one system that can be constantly updated. It would also be best if you can include performance monitoring and even customer feedback on the same system so that it provides you better insights for skills matching;
Gather and analyze data on the kinds of work orders being requested and their seasonality: this allows you to forecast and meet demand for certain skillsets.
Replace paper work orders with a digital app --- this helps you keep track of your field service team’s schedule and monitor the work they do and how long they do it, enabling you to quickly tap the right technician when a project comes up; and
Adopt an automated field service solution that can help you easily manage your workforce, provide you ways to collect data in every point of the customer transaction and help increase customer satisfaction.