Seize The Mobile Moment: Field Service Mobility Solutions Improve Customer Experience

Transcription

1 A Custom Technology Adoption Profile Commissioned By HP January 2015 Seize The Mobile Moment: Field Service Solutions Improve Customer Experience Introduction Customers expect to get what they want in their mobile moment. They expect to access any information or services from any device, in their immediate context, at their moment of need. As a result, mobility has become central to the delivery of a high-quality customer experience and often, by extension, the employee experience. IT and business decision-makers must enable employees to seize their mobile moment, particularly those employees out in the field who must deliver high-quality service and support to customers directly on a daily basis. To enhance field service workers productivity and, ultimately, service quality, organizations must mature their current enterprise mobility approaches by strengthening their mobility strategy, its alignment across business units, and its integration with other business systems. The most mature organizations are taking a holistic approach that combines enhancing security, leveraging data analytics, and using cloud-based services to deliver differentiating mobile experiences for customers and employees and achieve results. In January 2015, HP commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a custom study of 271 IT and business decision-makers from companies with more. The study explored the business priorities, technology initiatives, and mobility maturity in support of field service workers. All respondents were manager or director level and above. All respondents clearly understood the field service worker strategies at their organization.

2 1 Customer Experience Tops Business Priorities For 2015 In today s business ecosystem, customers are in the driver s seat. They are increasingly empowered as they become more connected. The focal challenge for organizations today, which is key to commercial success, is to ensure that business-to-customer interactions meet customer experience requirements. In order to deliver that customer experience, employees must have the tools they need and, in many cases, have also come to expect. Not surprisingly then, IT and business decision-makers are recognizing these imperatives and prioritizing the following business initiatives for 2015 (see Figure 1): Improve customer experience. Over three-quarters (78%) of IT and business decision-makers surveyed identified improving the experience of their customers as a critical or high priority for This means that firms will need to take a systematic approach to the design and delivery of external business services to ensure that they are tuned to understand, connect, and serve customers at their moment of need. Grow revenue and reduce costs. In addition, and not surprisingly, respondents identified the need to grow revenue (77%) and reduce costs (72%) as a high or critical priority for Improve workforce productivity. In support of other priorities, organizations are looking to improve workforce productivity. Optimizing business processes and enabling innovation allow employees to more easily meet customer expectations efficiently and effectively. Improve data and information security. An equally critical priority for 2015 is the need to improve data and information security across the organization. Better and secure access to information improves employee productivity and the customer experience, allowing organizations to meet basic business objectives of growth and cost control. Organizations have ambitious business priorities for the coming year. They are investing in new tools to empower their workforce to deliver better customer service. For example, 83% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they must improve the use of data analytics to improve business decisions and outcomes to help meet their business priorities in FIGURE 1 Improving Customer Experience, Growing Revenues, And Reducing Costs Are Top Business Priorities For 2015 Which of the following initiatives are likely to be your organization s top business priorities for 2015? Critical priority Improve the experience of our customers High priority 35% 43% Grow revenues 35% 42% Reduce costs 26% 46% Improve workforce productivity 26% 46% Improve data/information security across the organization 35% 36% Information Workers Boost Productivity With Mobile Technology Employees have already leveraged different mobile solutions to support their work activities. Forrester s Business Technographics Global Telecom And Workforce Survey, 2014, revealed that almost half (47%) of information workers from France, Germany, the UK, and the US, on average, spend 3 or more hours per day using a smartphone or tablet for work-related activities. The same survey also highlights the growing use of different applications and services that are being used by information workers from traditional applications such as , web browsing, and calendar to more sophisticated tools such as instant messaging, file sync and share, web meetings, and presentation and word processing tools. Leveraging tablet and smartphone devices and tools is even more crucial for field service workers and engineers. Accessing critical customer information, technical specifications, inventory availability/location, and diagnostic information while on the move is essential to ensure delivery of high-quality field service. For example, repair technicians may leverage their tablet devices to access complex diagrams and other technical specifications to enable them to quickly engage with support staff and diagnose faults on specialist machinery. Or, for example, security guards may

3 2 leverage their mobile devices while patrolling a site to report any building faults that occur during their night shifts. Yet there is a gap between what employees want and need and what they have. Despite technology and business decision-makers recognizing the need to improve workforce productivity, only half of the information workers in Forrester s Business Technographics Global Telecom And Workforce Survey, 2014, said they are satisfied with the technology they have at work or even technology management s ability to provide the tools they need for work. As workers also leverage and demand more mobility solutions to support their work activities, technology management leaders must continue to implement and execute on comprehensive enterprise mobility initiatives that enable workers to fulfill all their work activities, regardless of the device they use. ENTERPRISE MOBILITY INITIATIVES FOCUS ON SECURE MOBILE ACCESS TO INFORMATION Over 80% of organizations identified expanding their mobility strategy as a key enabler for meeting business priorities over the coming year. Organizations recognize that they must continue to refine and improve their enterprise mobility strategy to ensure that they are able to meet the growing demands of increasingly mobile-savvy customers and workers. To meet these expectations and improve employee satisfaction with work, technology and business decision-makers prioritize mobility initiatives that (see Figure 2): Improve security of information/data available to employees through mobile. As more and more business processes and customer engagements are conducted through mobile channels, it is more important than ever that firm s secure applications, content, and devices across a broad ecosystem of operating systems and form factors. Sixty-nine percent of survey respondents prioritize the improvement of security of information and data on mobile devices, with 34% reporting mobile security as a critical priority. Leverage more cloud-based services to better support mobile access. Over two-thirds (69%) of those surveyed also plan to deploy cloud-based services to better support mobile access. Cloud-based tools allow organizations to empower employees to access businesscritical information from anywhere, at any time, and to manage their own mobile applications and devices. Create a comprehensive multichannel strategy. To better serve the customer across all touchpoints of the customer journey, IT and business decision-makers recognize the importance of their mobility strategy to create a comprehensive multichannel strategy (64%). Allowing seamless engagement between all customer touchpoints, whether it be the website, call center, or mobile device, is very important to improving the customer s experience. This requires a holistic approach to integrating mobile into other back-office applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and order management system (OMS) applications. Such integration would allow field service workers to access customer information and all their interactions with the organization regardless of their access channel. Expand access to information and applications for mobile employees. Sixty-three percent of respondents also identified increased access of information and applications for mobile employees, including field service workers, as an enterprise mobility initiative. This is tied in closely with the priorities to improve the security of information/data and allow better access through cloudbased services on mobile devices. FIGURE 2 Enterprise Priorities Focus On Improving Security And Leveraging Cloud Over the next 12 months, how important will each of the following enterprise mobility initiatives be? Critical priority Improve security of information/data available to employees through mobile devices Leverage more cloud based services to better support mobile access Create a comprehensive multichannel strategy (mobile, tablet, web, face-toface) to better serve our customers Expand access to information and applications for mobile employees, including field service workers High priority 34% 35% 27% 42% 29% 35% 24% 39%

4 3 Maturity Drives Business Value To assess the maturity and sophistication of mobility solutions within the organizations, Forrester asked survey respondents to assess their organization s mobility capabilities across four dimensions: mobility strategy, mobility alignment, information and application access, and field service. Respondents were asked if their organization has a well-defined mobility strategy, how well-aligned it is across different business units, how well users can access back-office applications on their mobile device, and how they measure the effectiveness of field service mobility solutions. Analyzing the results, Forrester was able to segment respondents into five categories (see Figure 3): services that allow them to deliver excellent customer experiences. Close-up on mobile experts: This category tended to be dominated by US (35%) and UK (27%) organizations with large employee sizes (64% of organizations in this group have more than 5,000 employees). This group spanned all verticals, with electronics and high tech (25%) having the strongest representation. FIGURE 3 Organizations Fall Into Five Levels Of Maturity laggards. Thirty-one percent of respondents organizations fall into this group. These organizations fail to meet mobility needs of both customers and employees, as they lack the proficiency in each of the four dimensions: strategy, alignment, information and application access, and field service. opportunists. Only 6% of respondents are classified as mobility opportunists. They have the backoffice integration to allow strong information and application access on mobile devices but lack the strategy and business alignment needed to fully benefit from this integration. Information access/ field service opportunists 6% specialists 35% experts 20% strategists. This group of respondents demonstrated excellent strategy and alignment but lacked execution in information access and field service enablement. Seven percent of the respondents in our study fall into segment. specialists. Thirty-five percent of respondents are classified in this category. These organizations have some degree of competence across all four domains. These organizations did not demonstrate the full mobility capabilities required to offer industry-leading mobility solutions for customers and employees. experts. Twenty percent of the respondents fall into this category. These organizations demonstrated significant competence across dimensions to maximize business value from investments in mobility solutions. experts are customer-obsessed and boost productivity of field service workers with tools and laggards 31% Strategy/alignment strategists 7% MORE CUSTOMER-OBSESSED MOBILITY EXPERTS ENABLE HIGH-QUALITY FIELD SERVICE Comparing mobility experts with other maturity segments revealed distinct differences in business priorities and practices, including: Greater focus on customer experience. The vast majority (93%) of mobility experts highlighted the need to

5 4 improve the experience of their customers as a high or critical priority for 2015 versus 74% for all other segments. Differentiation in the marketplace. experts realize the importance of improving the differentiation of their products and services from competitors to help grow revenue. Eighty-four percent of mobility experts identified this as a top business priority for 2015, with only 51% of the other segments recognizing this as being a high priority. Field service enablement. To better support employees out-of-office work activities, mobility experts typically offer more mobile applications and tools, developed both inhouse and by third-party organizations (see Figure 4). The study also highlighted that a third of mobility experts update or release new versions of smartphone/tablet applications for field service that they developed in-house at least every month. experts recognize that fixing any bugs and adding new features and functions to mobile applications is critical to enable field service workers to conduct their tasks efficiently and effectively. FIGURE 4 Experts Offer Many Mobile Applications To Field Service Workers How many smartphone or tablet applications has your firm deployed for field service workers? Developed in-house No apps 9% 19% One to 10 apps 11 apps or more 15% Note: don t know responses not shown 33% 56% 60% experts Developed by third-party mobile app developer No apps 7% 7% One to 10 apps 11 apps or more 36% 24% 53% 63% experts MOBILITY EXPERTS LEVERAGE PRODUCTIVITY AND COLLABORATION APPS FOR FIELD SERVICE WORKERS One of the key initiatives that survey respondents identified to help meet business priorities is the need to increase quality of IT support for field service workers. Almost all (96%) of mobility experts agreed that this is a key enabler to meet business objectives in To explore how organizations are supporting field service workers today, IT and business decision-makers were asked about the tools/applications that are available for field service workers. The survey revealed that many more mobility experts have already implemented applications and tools for field service workers compared with other segments (see Figure 5). Eighty percent of mobility experts have already implemented or are expanding/upgrading their implementation of productivity applications, such as word processing and presentation tools. A further 75% of mobility experts have already invested in collaboration and webconferencing applications. Seventy-three percent of respondents have already implemented or are in the process of implementing servicing (e.g., order management, troubleshooting, etc.) and customer (e.g., customer management systems, dispute resolutions, and delivery tracking) applications. FIGURE 5 Experts Invest In Productivity And Collaborations Apps For Field Service Workers What types of applications/tools does your firm make available or plan to make available to field service workers? (Respondents who selected expanding, upgrading, implementing, or implemented) Productivity apps 80% 48% Collaboration/file sync and share apps Web/video conferencing apps Note: top five responses shown 46% 47% 75% 75% Servicing apps 73% 41% Customer apps 44% 73% experts

6 5 Investing In Solutions For Field Service Workers Leads To Uplift In Customer Satisfaction As the survey has shown, IT and business decision-makers have already made substantial investment in the tools and services offered to field service workers. These investments have yielded significant upsides, especially for mobility experts who have underpinned their investment with a strong mobility strategy that is aligned throughout the business, integrated with a variety of back-office systems, and supports field service workers (see Figure 6). These upsides include: Improved customer satisfaction. Over 80% of mobility experts have seen an increase in customer service/satisfaction through their investment in mobile devices and applications for field service workers. Having the right tools and services available at their fingertips allows field service workers to deliver high-quality customer service by addressing and resolving an issue in the moment and context of need. A field repair technician, armed with a tablet device that shows all relevant technical specifications of a faulty complex machine, will be able to access the information right at the moment of need and engage with offsite support staff to quickly resolve the issue and minimize any disruption to their customer. A security guard patrols a site armed with a smartphone application that processes low urgency faults in the mobile moment without contacting the help desk. This frees up support staff time for more urgent matters that need to be resolved quickly. FIGURE 6 Investment In Field Service Has Led To Improved Customer Service And Faster Resolution Times Which of the following have you achieved through investment in mobile devices and applications for field service workers? Improved customer service (e.g., improved satisfaction) Growth in revenue through increased cross-sell/ upsell opportunities Better brand awareness/ stronger brand 37% 46% 62% 64% 64% Faster resolution times 60% 54% Differentiated products/ services from our competitors Lower operational costs/ improved process efficiency 34% 47% 39% 58% 82% experts Better cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Almost twothirds of mobility experts have also seen an increase in revenue though increased cross-sell/upsell opportunities because their investment in mobile devices/applications for field service workers allows quick access to information on related products and services. Better brand awareness. Sixty-four percent of mobility experts are seeing substantial upsides in their brand awareness through increased investment in tools and devices for field service workers. Faster resolution times. Over half of all respondents have achieved or expect to achieve faster resolution times through their investment in tools and services for field service workers.

7 6 Conclusions: Boost Your Maturity The Forrester Technology Adoption Profile survey revealed that mobility experts are able to offer differentiated mobility services for field service workers and ultimately achieve better business results. To do so, these mobility experts: Adopt a holistic approach to their mobility strategy for field service workers. experts consider data analytics, cloud, and security when executing their mobility strategy. Engage with technology service firms to support them on their journey. Over 70% of mobility experts have engaged or will engage with a technology service firm to support their mobility initiatives (see Figure 7). These firms help address gaps in resources, skills, and knowledge required to be true mobility experts. FIGURE 7 Experts Turn To Technology Services Firms To Help Support Mobile Initiatives Which of the following types of third-party services or consulting firms has your firm hired or expect to hire to support mobile initiatives at your organization? Technology services firm Management/business consultant Digital/interactive agency 47% 40% 47% 34% 71% 65% experts Understand and develop mobile moments for field service workers. experts ensure field service workers can get what they want in the immediate context and moment of need. Organizations should assess and prioritize these mobile moments that have a direct impact on a customer s experience. Define clear key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and measure their mobility investments. Investment in mobile applications and services for field service workers is only the first step. Organizations must then also define KPIs to track and measure the effectiveness (on customers and productivity) of their investment in applications and services for field service workers.

8 7 Methodology This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by HP. To create this profile, Forrester leveraged its Business Technographics Global Telecom And Workforce Survey, Forrester Consulting supplemented this data with custom survey questions asked of 271 IT and business decision-makers with more to explore the business priorities, technology initiatives, and mobility maturity in support of field service workers. All respondents were manager or director level and above. All respondents clearly understood the field service worker strategies at their organization. The auxiliary custom survey was conducted in January For more information on Forrester s data panel and Tech Industry Consulting services, visit ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their organizations. Ranging in scope from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester s Consulting services connect you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting. 2015, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to 1-S64UX9