Everything You Need to Know About Field Service Management
Field service companies are organizations whose work is basically to send trained personnel to attend to customers' requests. The field service industry is quite broad and includes all kinds of service providers. Field service companies offer services like HVAC, plumbing, and food delivery.
Companies that offer field service basically send out techs to fulfill clients’ requests and are tasked with monitoring techs’ activities and ensuring maximum productivity. These tasks birthed field service management. Thus, field service management can be described as the management of the operations of field management companies.
Aspects of field service management include scheduling working, tracking vehicles, creating invoices, managing workers’ activities, and a wide range of administrative work, serving as customer service representatives. We consider field service management in more detail in this article.
Core aspects of field service management
Field service management is aimed at improving the overall efficiency of the operations of field service companies. The core aspects of field service management indicate areas where the companies and the workers struggle.
Safety
Although it is not always considered as such, the safety of techs is a major aspect of field service management. It is ethically irresponsible for an organization not to ensure the safety of its workers, especially in the field service sector.
When safety measures are not safely effected, the productivity and profitability of the company will be negatively impacted. The occurrences will lead to a decline in service revenue from the impacted productivity and reduced profitability.
Field service managers are thus tasked with creating safe workspaces for their employees and equipping them with tools that guarantee and enhance safety.
Tracking and scheduling
Field service companies struggle with prioritizing requests, dispatching the right personnel, and tracking the activities of their workers. Proper tracking and scheduling of visits can significantly improve customer satisfaction.
In terms of tracking and scheduling, field service companies have solved the issue with tracking tools that have to give real-time data.
Communication
Communication is critical to the success of field service companies. Managers should be able to communicate with workers in real-time. Since communication has been identified as a major issue, it is important that field service managers and organizations identify and apply digital tools for maximizing the quality of their communications.
Operational costs
Field service companies should track and optimize their operational costs, making operational costs a core aspect of field service management. Field service companies could incur significantly higher operational costs from basic wastage in the form of technicians completing fewer jobs or making multiple visits to fix an issue.
An important metric for these organizations to focus on to reduce operational costs is the first-time fix rate. When technicians are equipped to fix issues on first visits or at least as swiftly as possible, basic operational costs can be significantly reduced.
Field service management allows field service companies should optimize their operations and achieve maximum productivity and profitability. A vast range of field service management solutions is available for different companies to apply and improve the quality of their operations like customer service representatives.
