Automate all field services support

Cloud expands the opportunity for services support efficiencies, argues Dave Hart

What do you get when you mix field service innovation with the efficiencies of the cloud? A field service "big bang", of course. The field service industry is going through nothing short of a revolution – and it's about time too.

Historically, field execution simply meant scheduling a technician to get to the customer site within a contracted window of time. Actually fixing the problem, or having the right parts or skills for the job, was almost an afterthought.

Thankfully, those days are gone. But the problem remains that field service has not entered the information economy as quickly as other lines of business, nor has it moved at the same pace as the rest of the organisation. Unfortunately, the industry is now in a position where it can't afford not to catch up.

In fact, field service is the perfect fit for the information economy where knowledge is the primary raw material and source of value. The problem is that to date, it hasn't properly converged or integrated with the wider IT-based information society.

Yet those of us in field service could have a front-row seat to an industry experiencing major transformation. It's already happening on a global scale.

Market forces have led to decreasing margins, everything as a service, disruptive services, slow kit sales, and higher customer expectations. A realisation that field service can and should be a profit centre rather than a cost centre could represent a real leap forward.

We have 1980s-style processes and systems colliding with the expectations of today's information-based, customer-led economy.

Yet cloud computing can deliver all the end-to-end automation, let customers pay as they go, get them up and running in days not months, be user friendly for all ages, and what's more, customers never have to worry about hardware or IT resources.

Field service is inherently mobile, social and time sensitive. It needs new technologies that complement these attributes. By empowering and mobilising service technicians with cloud-based, real-time tools in the field, they can do work orders, request parts, schedule and be scheduled, look up manuals, take payments, renew maintenance agreements, use social media to communicate problems swiftly and effectively, and up-sell and cross-sell products where appropriate.

This can all be done on a smartphone or tablet device. All the data can be real time. Technicians also have the option of working offline and synchronising their files at the end of a job – reducing "dead" administration time.

CRM systems can pick up the information and ensure the customer receives future communications, advice, updates and education. And of course all that data can be analysed to deliver insight about a business or its customers.

Knowledge can be shared for future and ongoing reference and training purposes, retaining experience gathered over the years to assist the next generation, which may have limited experience, particularly with older equipment or other assets.

The role of the service organisation has transformed across multiple industries, not just big manufacturing giants. It's not just about delivering support; it's about understanding customer needs, and providing products and services to ensure customer satisfaction, profitability and maximum value.

The challenge for service organisations is delivering efficiencies at the same time. It simply can't be done without automation.

End-to-end cloud-based, social and mobile field service applications will outpace and outperform manual processes every time. Change is uncomfortable and sometimes poses its own set of risks and challenges, especially if an organisation is reliant on rigid software and broken processes.

Dave Hart is vice president of customer transformation at ServiceMax