Customer service is a critical core competence that many field service organizations have to master. It can very often determine the success or failure of the company. Customer service is not something that organizations with a mobile workforce can learn overnight but is a collective skill that is honed with proper use of mobile devices and software tools over a period of time. Learning about what works in the field when solving customer problems is a challenge that many organizations face today. The organization that uses the best of mobile devices and software tools stands to gain a vital edge in competitive markets where differentiation is paramount.
One way to learn quickly is to have good data from the field using mobile devices and messaging tools. Data such as:
- How much time are field technicians actually taking to finish jobs at customer sites?
- How much time are field service employees spending on the road compared to time spent at the customer site?
- How many jobs do your field employees complete in a day?
- How much time do your field personnel spend filling out forms, expense reports and time cards?
- How much data is being lost due to human error, inaccurate forms, data-entry mistakes and lost paperwork?
Organizations that are able to optimize their field resources to provide faster and better customer service are improving worker productivity while cutting operational costs at the same time. Good data collection from the field is the first step in the process. This means reducing errors in the data and one way to do this is to rely less on error prone manual filling of forms and time cards and introduce more automation.
Automation offer other advantages as well.
Field employees have to spend less time on filling up forms and can focus their attention on more important tasks such as evaluating how customers are using their product and improving field communication. Accurate data can enable the organization to use effective analytics and data mining techniques to optimize their service parameters for improved efficiency and productivity. And finally automation also makes downstream processes such as payroll a lot smoother and easier.
Organizations that embrace mobile devices and new time and attendance automation solutions such as automatic time clocking can speedily improve many aspects of their customer service operations and get a leg up on their competition.