Building Service Resiliency in a Recovering Economy
When analysts talk about the current state of the economy, they often use the term "the new normal." In field service, the new normal looks to be a mix of traditional field service operations—such as in-person visits—and technology-enabled operations that include automation and new ways to connect.
But the need for resiliency is the most important trend impacting the field service industry today. After two years of disruption, field service organizations are searching for ways to make their operations less prone to risk. To accomplish this, they'll need new technologies, but also new processes and ways of thinking.
What is Service Resiliency?
Field service organizations that aren't resilient are more susceptible to disruptions. But although the term resilient might be synonymous with strong, resilient field service organizations are anything but tough and rigid. The most resilient field service organizations are agile and flexible.
Service teams that successfully adapted to the conditions brought on by the pandemic continued to deliver exemplary service to their customers in 2020 and 2021. When the pandemic hit, these companies took stock of their surroundings and immediately searched for ways to change.
Often, this required them to shutter entire working models, such as in-person technician appointments, in favor of nontraditional ones, such as virtual visits. Sometimes, it also required them to adopt new technologies and integrate them into their workflows at scale.
Being Open to Transformation
However, more important than anything was a willingness to transform operations to meet the needs of customers and the demands of the situation at hand. This has been true in numerous examples throughout the field service sector.
For example, several Salesforce field service customers prioritized their essential duties during the pandemic to ensure customers always had the support they needed, but they were also open to new approaches to service. This openness to change helped them develop innovative protocols and policies in the face of unique challenges.
Fike Corporation, an organization that offers solutions that protect industrial companies from threats like fires and explosions, successfully leveraged Salesforce to develop new ways to share knowledge.
The company started a remote training program to help technicians near service locations handle emergency calls. The company even shifted to a scalable ERP system that connected their scheduling, capacity planning, and financial data. As a result, Fike successfully managed 167,000 assets and 100 service technicians across the globe during the pandemic.
Similarly, Australia-based WBP Group leveraged Salesforce to provide customers and technicians with virtual meeting capabilities, expanded its capacity, and increased transparency.
WBP Group offers independent property valuations and advisory services that typically require an onsite inspection. Using virtual visits, the company was able to provide customers with step-by-step guidance and video conferencing tools to help them make a valuation of a property remotely. Now, it only takes WBP Group 2 minutes to confirm a new appointment, and its administrative team can handle 100% of its bookings instead of just 50%.
Implementing Changes with Urgency
Of course, openness to change wasn't the only characteristic that drove resilient field service organizations. When a situation is changing rapidly, successful organizations gain a sense of urgency and use it to drive changes at the operational level.
To create a resilient field service operation, leaders must be prepared to commit to changes as quickly as possible once they are finalized. Before the pandemic, concepts like touchless field service, self-service, and virtual service were still in the idea stage at many organizations. Those companies that jumped on these ideas when they became integral to their operations remained resilient when the pandemic was at its worst.
Now that the economy is beginning to recover, field service teams should continue the paths they started on during the pandemic. Automation, touchless service, and self-service saw widespread adoption and massive success, and they led to significant breakthroughs on KPIs and cost-savings. Moving forward, organizations should continue investing in their next-generation field service capabilities and stay open to what may be necessary to meet the next big challenge to the industry.
Learn More at the Next Field Service Conference
Resiliency in field service requires leaders to identify both the challenges and triumphs of the past few years, then work to apply the lessons they've learned to create a more adaptable field service function. This is no simple feat. It will require innovation and the collective knowledge of leaders across the industry.
To learn more about how to make your field service organization more resilient, don't miss the next Field Service conference. It's happening from November 16th to November 18th at the JW Marriot in Palm Springs, California.
Download the agenda today.