WHITE PAPER USING SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFT- WARE TO ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER USING SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFT- WARE TO ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

2 CONTENT MAKING CUSTOMERS HAPPY... 2 THE ROLE OF MOBILITY... 3 ENTERPRISE 2.0 AND SOCIAL SERVICE... 3 ZERO WAIT STATE... 4 FINDING THE RIGHT SOLUTION... 5 GOAL-FOCUSED SERVICE... 6 ABOUT IFS... 7

3 USING SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE TO ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOM DEVROY VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES FOR FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT IFS Today, you can manufacture a product anywhere in the world to a high level of quality. High quality is the customer expectation. The product features and related service become competitive differentiators. There is a compelling business case for improving the customer experience and customer satisfaction. Yet while customer satisfaction can increase cross-buying and other desired behaviors, measures of customer satisfaction for past purchases are backwards-looking metrics i. What s more, a level of customer service that satisfied a customer in the past may not continue to satisfy the same customer going forward as customer expectations and technology evolve. ii Regardless of what backwards-looking measure we follow customer delight, net promoter score (NPS), or some other metric, we are still left with the challenge of looking into the future to determine which improvements will positively affect the customer experience and lead to increased customer retention. This forward-looking, problem-solving intelligence is required by manufacturers focused increasingly on improving performance by delivering aftermarket service, as well as designated service businesses honing their approach to the customer. Enterprise technology has a role to play in this process, not only to provide a consistent service and increase important metrics like first-time fix rates, but as a tool for adjusting to customer expectations for enhanced communication. So how can service management software for field service and for depot repair be leveraged to drive up customer satisfaction levels, increase sales of service offerings and thereby drive revenue and margin? That is what we will discuss in this whitepaper, with a special emphasis on some of the new and emerging technologies that best-in-class companies will adopt in the months to come. i Choosing the Right Metrics to Maximize Profitability and Shareholder Value ii Measure and Improve Customer Satisfaction, Urban Wallace Associates 1

4 MAKING CUSTOMERS HAPPY When we talk about improving the customer experience through field service management software, we are talking about the use of technologies that can improve the timeliness and quality of service. But we are also literally talking about technologies that make customers happy by making their lives easier or making them want to engage more with the service provider. It is hard to underestimate, for instance, how advancing consumer technology has changed the expectations business-to-business and consumer customers alike have when it comes to service provision. As little as a few years ago, if we wanted to schedule service for anything ranging from a piece of capital equipment like a water recycle system to our personal vehicle, we would place a call to a service provider and make an appointment, or even physically visit a repair depot or shop environment. We would then need to determine the availability of service and determine when this service should be scheduled. The service provider, meanwhile, would consult a paper calendar to determine availability and manually schedule the service. For quite some time, the calendar has migrated into a digital environment, be that Microsoft Outlook, Excel or some type of industry-specific or broadly applicable scheduling tool. The service customer may schedule their affairs in similar fashion, using Outlook, Google Calendars or other tools. On both sides, the calendar is now in a digital environment. The change service businesses must adapt to now is the increasing expectation that the appointment process be accessible online. Rather than placing a call or even engaging in correspondence, the customer may expect to be able to gain visibility to service availability online through direct access to the back-end systems of the service provider, schedule service, and ensure that service is then automatically reflected on their own calendar. Consumer service businesses including restaurants and theaters are already moving in this direction. This is bringing a new level of convenience that, for example at movietickets.com, customers are willing to pay a premium for. Increasingly, business-to-business consumers will come to expect this level of digital interactive service, as it already is in consumer service businesses. While this trend may lead to less actual interaction on the phone with the customer, it allows them to schedule service in a simple, transparent fashion from any device with internet connectivity at any time of the day or night. The ability to conduct business from anywhere at any time is part of the new culture. Betting that this trend will reverse itself is unlikely, and businesses ought to expect that if they cannot offer this level of service, they stand to lose customers to competitors that do. 2

5 THE ROLE OF MOBILITY Mobility is also becoming an increasingly important factor in the customer experience. Customers expect to be able to schedule service interactively from any device as described above. But the mobile technologies used by technicians interacting with a consumer or business customer also have an impact on customer perceptions. If the individual interacting with a customer is using mobile technology, this can impact how the service company is perceived. The technician or representative using a mobileenabled service management software system may have at their fingertips more complete information about the customer, the assets a customer needs serviced, or the project or business or personal needs in general. This, in turn, can allow a technician or representative to be more proactive and consultative, anticipate the need for additional service, and increase customer satisfaction. The mobile device may give them access to schematics or diagnostic tools, and other information that allows them to leverage existing data about a customer, their service history, or the equipment or assets being serviced. This may lead to a more rapid resolution to the problem, which, in turn, can create an upsell opportunity. Mobile devices used by the service technician or representative may also allow customers to digitally sign off on work and even take customer satisfaction surveys. So mobile devices used by the service provider can enhance the customer experience, measure the satisfaction of the customer, and create upsell opportunities. The technician can manage the entire quote-to-cash service lifecycle from the mobile device. ENTERPRISE 2.0 AND SOCIAL SERVICE Enterprise 2.0, the trend toward enterprise technology taking on aspects of social media, is impacting the service management space. It is possible for service to be requested or scheduled directly through public social media tools like Facebook or Twitter. Certainly these tools can be used to push out postings about service related topics. Twitter is often the default case management queue in cloud software companies like Hootsuite. The use of Twitter or Facebook as communication vehicles back to the individual that has requested the service, perhaps through a private message on either of these sites, seems to be the first generation of social media incorporation into the service cycle. For some consumer and business customers, these social media sites may be a preferred vehicle for electronic communication, primarily because they are device independent and are public in nature. 3

6 These social sites may be a preferred vehicle to receive notifications that the service visit has been confirmed, that a service technician is running late, or that a visit needs to be rescheduled either due to a schedule conflict for either the service provider or the customer. If a piece of equipment has been transported from a customer site to a depot repair environment, social media notifications may even present visibility into the repair process, notify the customer of the arrival of parts that have been on order, or provide information on when service is expected to be, or has been, completed. Again, the goal is to facilitate scheduling and communication in a 24x7 digital environment, allowing the customer to use the device or communication channel they prefer. ZERO WAIT STATE Mobility, enterprise 2.0 and internet-enabled scheduling will streamline the front end of the customer lifecycle. This is important because this level of convenience is increasingly expected. In service delivery, however, convenience often boils down to timing. Where there is a formal service level agreement (SLA) in place, it is essential to get a technician, crew or representative on site within a certain number of hours. In these cases, service must be scheduled expeditiously to meet the contracted SLA and oftentimes to safeguard a customer s assets, minimize lost productivity and revenue, avoid product spoilage, or even protect the environment. Missed SLAs are one prime reason customers may cancel contracts, and could lead to a financial penalty. While we have discussed making the requesting of service easier, and the communication with the customer better, the predictability of service delivery is another matter. Many service organizations create a large window of anticipated arrival. This uncertainty on the part of the service provider as to the timing of service is due to the dynamic nature of the service schedule. Some service calls may run late. Traffic congestion may throw off the schedule. Customers may cancel their service request, moving the availability of a technician up. Technicians may call in sick, further throwing a well-planned schedule, well, off schedule. Each change will require a dispatcher to realign the schedule, allocating service calls across a team of technicians or representatives while doing their best to take into account any SLAs, parts availability on each technician s truck, the skills each job requires and the extent to which a technician may or may not possess that skill, and the current location of the technician relative to the service call. This requires software capable of running the complex algorithms required to assign the right technician to each job, and it also requires technicians to carry mobile devices that communicate the changing schedule. 4

7 Technology that allows for an exacting and dynamic approach to the service schedule by adjusting technician assignments in real time therefore becomes a key factor in improving the customer experience. Promises made with regard to the timeliness of service can be kept, and more precise promises can be made because the schedule can change dynamically to meet scheduled service requirements as efficiently as possible. FINDING THE RIGHT SOLUTION When conducting research on potential solutions that can address their business needs, there are some givens. Each solution has to be intuitive, flexible, have solid service scheduling and dispatch, customer relationship management, depot repair, contract management, warranty management and other core functionality. But two aspects of the service management software solution that are essential to the customer experience may often be overlooked. The first of these has to do with the need for a flexible and infinitely configurable mobile interface. Most companies will not use mobile service management solutions off the shelf without changing the workflows and the user experience. It is important to be able to do this without paid modifications to the interface this should be configurable by the company licensing the software and technology. So it is important to look for the ability to create your own screens, with the gold standard perhaps the ability to edit screens right on the mobile device itself. Maybe you have a team of technicians or representatives devoted to work for a given customer and want to tailor the fields and the appearance of screens they use in the field to reflect the requirements of the task at hand and the key relationship with that customer. The screens can be designed by a superuser on the fly, using their own mobile device. They can then publish that new design out to the field employees on the team. The second, perhaps underappreciated, dynamic is the ability to not only serve the customer, but to prove you are serving the customer. Whether or not there are SLAs in place, it is desirable to document improvements in service delivery. When SLAs are in place, the contract often calls for reporting on the degree to which these SLAs are met. So software ought to allow for automated reporting on service levels, fix service levels, the degree to which four-hour, next-day or other SLAs are met. This ought to be driven by mobile technology, using digital real-time date stamps. Geo-fencing through location-based services can directly report when a technician was on site, and work order completions can create a permanent record of when repairs have occurred, and whether or not these events are in keeping with the SLAs in place for that customer. 5

8 GOAL-FOCUSED SERVICE In exploring the technologies that can enhance the customer experience and improve customer satisfaction, what is the real goal we are trying to achieve? While some studies cite increased revenue as the ultimate goal of increased customer satisfaction, experts at Pepperdine University writing for the Graziado Business Review iii cite difficulty making the satisfaction-to-revenue connection as different measurable factors may be important to each customer. However, the article states that satisfied customers can be expected to: be retained longer and in greater numbers buy more goods cost less to serve be willing to pay slightly higher prices respond faster to promotional efforts refer others, thus helping reduce the cost of acquiring new customers suggest and evaluate new products and revenue streams In the months to come, ensuring a positive customer experience that increases satisfaction will still require that we satisfy measurable customer demands for quality service. But this quality will have to do with more than meeting objective customer demands. It will also encompass the softer side of streamlined convenience and communication in an increasingly mobile world. Tom Devroy is Vice President of Sales for the IFS Field Service Management product line. He has over 30 years of experience in high tech service operations including work with hardware, software and consulting firms, as well as premier global service organizations like Ericsson, DHL, Xerox, and Ingenico. He holds a degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. iii Calculating the Value of Satisfied Customers 6

9 ABOUT IFS IFS is a recognized leader in providing business software to companies that aspire to become more agile. IFS uses its deep industry-focused expertise to help companies in targeted sectors increase agility in three core areas: enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM), and enterprise service management (ESM). Founded in 1983, IFS is a public company (XSTO: IFS) with over 2,600 employees. IFS supports more than 2,200 customers worldwide from local offices and through partners in more than 60 countries. For more information about IFS, visit AMERICAS ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, CANADA, ECUADOR, MEXICO, UNITED STATES ASIA PACIFIC AUSTRALIA, INDONESIA, JAPAN, MALAYSIA, NEW ZEALAND, PHILIPPINES, PR CHINA, SINGAPORE, THAILAND EUROPE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA BALKANS, CZECH REPUBLIC, GEORGIA, HUNGARY, ISRAEL, KAZAKHSTAN, POLAND, RUSSIA AND CIS, SLOVAKIA, TURKEY, UKRAINE EUROPE CENTRAL AUSTRIA, BELGIUM, GERMANY, ITALY, NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND EUROPE WEST FRANCE, IRELAND, PORTUGAL, SPAIN, UNITED KINGDOM MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA INDIA, SOUTH AFRICA, SRI LANKA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES NORDIC DENMARK, NORWAY, SWEDEN FINLAND AND THE BALTIC AREA ESTONIA, FINLAND, LATVIA, LITHUANIA En Production: IFS Corporate Marketing, August THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN STATEMENTS OF POSSIBLE FUTURE FUNCTIONALITY FOR IFS SOFTWARE PROD- UCTS AND TECHNOLOGY. SUCH STATEMENTS OF FUTURE FUNCTIONALITY ARE FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS ANY COMMITMENT OR REPRESENTATION. IFS AND ALL IFS PRODUCT NAMES ARE TRADEMARKS OF IFS. THE NAMES OF ACTUAL COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS MENTIONED HEREIN MAY BE THE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. IFS AB 2014