April 20188 IN MY V EWFIELD SERVICE ­ THE FACE OF BRANDBY PAUL BAPTIST, DIRECTOR, SOLUTION ENGINEERING, SALESFORCEWe all want to be super heroesField Service? You mean the "wait-around-between-8am-and-12pm-and-we'll-turn-up-just-as-you-walk-away-from-the-front-door" service, right?For some reason, while we are now more demanding as customers, we still tolerate the lack-lustre service we often get from field technicians. Perhaps it is because we feel disempowered -- hostages to a broken dishwasher or disconnected broadband service. Things are changing. In this age of commoditization of goods and services, many customers are showing their displeasure by walking to your competitors.Is this the fault of the field service technicians? I would say no! They do a good job with increased pressures: higher volumes, insufficient information, administrative paperwork, satisfaction survey targets -- the list goes on.Who doesn't want to be the person who fixes a washing machine for the parent that has three kids under five and ten loads of laundry waiting? Or the air conditioning for the elderly lady as Melbourne hits another 40+C day? We all want to be super heroes. This is a good thing. For many businesses, field service personnel are the face of their brand and usually the only face-to-face interaction a customer will ever have. So the experience has to be great and inspire the customer to continue being your customer. Here is how you can help your people be super heroes (and in turn, perhaps, be one yourself):There is no such thing as too much informationHere's the dirty little secret. There is no such thing as "too much information". The problem is not having the right information at the right time. In several time-in-motion studies and ride-alongs that my team and I conducted, we found that a lot of time was lost organizing and scheduling information via text messaging, phone calls and emails. In centralizing a lot of processes we took away the power of decision making from our technicians. We need to give our technicians access to all the information they would need to do their jobs: traffic routes, next best actions, suggested fixes, ability to contact the customer easily, update statuses on jobs, all done within the palm of their hands.
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