Main Objective: Excellence in the management of field services. And also a mantra for the service companies that have to keep a real-time control of technicians, materials, work orders, displacements, etc. But it is not enough to set this goal: work processes must be systematized to improve efficiency, increase reaction capacity and offer the best quality of service.
Consequence: it is necessary to apply a professional methodology to the Field Service management and adapt it to the characteristics of our organization. In this context, the best ally is good field service management software such as Nexent Innovations.
What aspects optimize the management of field services?
Field service companies that are managed in a traditional way are becoming an endangered species. The need to offer an immediate service of the highest quality means that they can not depend exclusively on the decisions of a single person to control their activity, let alone register it simply in spreadsheets.
As we have said before, it is essential that they apply a professional and rigorous methodology in all their processes and tasks. From the reception of requests to the control of post-service satisfaction, through the assignment of the best technicians available or those closest to them.
In this systematization of its activity, companies in this sector have a key ally: the software management services field (also known as solutions Field Service Management), which organizes and automates judiciously processes, coordinating in real time all the actors that intervene.
Explain in detail this methodology would far exceed the extension of this article. Here we will focus only on the four 4 aspects that we consider essential to achieve excellence in managing field services, and all software Field Service Management should reflect:
1. Planning: Each actor in the field services will have an agenda that reflects their shifts and guards according to the company’s work schedule. This agenda should allow knowing their availability and, depending on it, schedule tasks in advance (especially useful in the case of preventive and proactive maintenance services, for example). This agenda also avoids future problems in the allocation phase.
2. Assignment: As soon as a service request is received as in the case of preventive maintenance, the tasks must be identified and then assigned to a technician according to the criteria considered appropriate: they can be based on their availability or specialization. In this area, the field service management methodology must be flexible, allowing the criteria not to be applied in an exclusive manner.
3. Mobilization: The methodology has to facilitate that the tasks of the field services are attended by the team or better qualified personnel to manage them. It must also be flexible so that, in the case of urgent, reactive services, it can send technicians who are closer and able to solve them. Applied to software, it must rely on the capabilities of integration with mobile devices.
4. Analysis: A field service generates an important load of information, both at its origin and after its conclusion, and even at the moment of its provision. The systematization has to facilitate that the actors that intervene have mechanisms to register it, in order that it be stored and studied in depth to find patterns of behavior or use of materials and even of opportunities for improvement. In the case of Field Service Management software, it must even allow the information to be analyzed in real time to make the best decisions.