Thanks to the growing number of connected devices and increased usage of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, everyone and everything in today’s world is connected, and it’s having a profound impact on how we live and do work. At the rate we’re currently going, there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2020—outnumbering people 4:1, according to a Gartner forecast.

With all these internet-enabled devices, interruptions in connectivity—even small ones—can cost businesses time and money. When even the most mundane everyday interruptions break employee focus and reduce work quality, downtime and gaps in service caused by broader connectivity interruptions have the potential to really add up.

It’s time we change the service industry approach to meet customers’ needs. By using IoT to streamline workflows and minimize downtime, the service industry can redefine how we view and deliver service.

The idea of “service” used to be limited to simply fixing a broken or ineffective device. As such, service didn’t even start until there was a problem—you had to wait until a device was no longer functioning before bringing someone in to fix it. Then once a problem was identified, the customer would call a service technician, wait for an appointment, go through the diagnostic process, and potentially wait for needed parts. Each time this happened, the techs went blindly into the field without knowing what kind of repair was needed, leading to sometimes costly and ineffectual service visit results.

Thankfully, those days are gone.

With IoT now enabling a more proactive approach to service, you can anticipate needs and identify issues before a device goes down. Connected devices could identify servicing needs prior to failure, communicating the problem to a technician before a field service appointment is made. By using mobility, cloud technology, and big data to optimize predictive maintenance, service is now proactive—often anticipating problem before a device stops functioning.

The results are happier customers, faster technician visits, and less downtime waiting for devices to get back online. By limiting interruptions and streamlining services, you can create better relationships with your clients while increasing productivity and, ultimately, your bottom line.

Redefining service is just one of the things covered in our latest eBook. See how IoT is already impacting the field service industry, discover how it will impact your business, and learn how to integrate it in our eBook, Leading the future of field service: Connecting field service management to the Internet of Things.

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Oftentimes, focusing on keeping costs down while improving customer service relationships can be difficult for organizations in any industry.

But with exponential potential to improve the field service industry by providing real-time insight, increasing efficiency, and reducing costs, Internet of Things (IoT) technology can also drastically improve customer service.

IoT provides a way for field service organizations to achieve their cost-cutting, service enhancing goals. Explore 4 of the ways that IoT can improve your field service company.

1. Automation

Before IoT, lack of context and communication led to delays and customer frustration. Automation and IoT represent a huge breakthrough in customer service, enabling organizations to create lasting relationships.

Now, instead of a multi-step convoluted and cumbersome process, IoT lets you streamline workflows. With IoT, when a device needs service, it independently contacts the field service agency providing specific diagnostic details, which enables the technician to arrive with all the necessary parts to immediately solve the problem.

2. Inventory management

IoT-connected devices now signal operations teams and warehouses when they need a new part. Thanks to mobile technology’s connectivity, technicians in the field can connect to the warehouse directly in real time for accurate inventory insights.

According to research by the Aberdeen Group, mobile technology adoption in the field has resulted in a 33% increase in response time to unexpected events. Additionally, organizations’ ability to tackle more service requests increased by 29%, with a 65% overall increase in improved customer service.

3. Reduced inspections

Did you know that, for 75% of service calls, technicians need a return visit either some or all the time? And the number one reason for those return visits is that the technicians don’t have the right tools/parts required.

Conversely, devices enabled with self-diagnostic capabilities report on performance, reducing the need for in-person technician inspection visits. When a service visit is warranted, technicians arrive with exactly what they need, eliminating the unanticipated need for a return visit.

4. Redefine “Service”

The term “service” used to refer merely to fixing a broken or ineffective device. But with IoT focused on a proactive approach, it can also help anticipate needs and identify things before they become an issue. By utilizing mobility, cloud technology, and big data to optimize predictive maintenance, “service” is now evolving to provide help before an issue is identified.

Learn how to integrate IoT into your field service business, how the future of IoT will impact your business, and gain insights and additional data on how IoT is already improving the field service industry in our eBook, Leading the future of field service: Connecting field service management to the Internet of Things.

The post 4 ways IoT is improving the field service industry appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

If you’re running — or helping to manage — a field service organization and you’re still doing a ton of paperwork and having to constantly answer customer service phone calls, it might be time to change it up. Field service management solutions, also known as FSM software, are transforming the field service industry. If you’re new to the idea of buying one of these solutions, what do you need to know? Here are five key considerations:

1.     What Are Your Priorities?

Different FSM software solutions prioritize different things. Ultimately, whatever you choose should be a tool that integrates the different aspects of your business. If the FSM software interface is intended for your decision makers to provide guidance, then it needs to support what’s important to them. Will it be easy to use? Then you should prioritize a system with the best interface and is the most intuitive to use, even if it’s not the most souped-up system on the market. If your senior leadership team wants quick access to data, then look for a FSM software solution that can pull up and sort data quickly and visually. What you’re looking for here is basically buy-in from senior decision-makers: you want to know what’s important to them and then make sure whatever FSM software solution you choose maximizes that.

2.     What Can You Integrate?

You don’t want to be running from one screen to the next and then to a third screen to get your work done and keep things moving smoothly. You want everything in the same place. This should include:

• Customer data
• Sales information
• Technician contact information
• Scheduling
• Dispatching
• Inventory
• Invoices and billing
• Your e-mail
• Any task management systems you use
• Anything else important to your specific organization

Not every FSM software solution will give you 100 percent integration of everything you use, but you want to get as close as possible to that number. As long as the system is easy to use, you can have a seamless integration of software and business operations.

3.     Can You Easily Deploy The System?

If you can’t get 100 percent of the way on integration, you will at least want a solution that can be implemented without too much effort. Many solutions market themselves as easy to use, but that’s not always true. This is where your research comes into play. Look at all positive and negative customer reviews. If you know others in your industry or vertical, talk to them about which FSM solutions worked (or didn’t work) for them. Research is vital; you want to make the system work for you. Almost every field service management solution in the market today will preach that their solution is easy to implement. Use your time wisely and pick the best FSM software solution for you.

4.     Is Your Solution Adaptable?

Business needs and revenue models can shift frequently. Because of the constant change in the business world you need to understand the adaptability of a system. Decision makers should expect their software and technology to pivot as quickly their business models require. They don’t want to acquire and deploy another system

5.     How Will You Collect, Present, and Report Your Data?

Most companies are trying to gain valuable consumer and business insights from the data they collect. In order to successfully present the data you need a field service management solution that can do the following things:

• Capture data accurately
• Present it in a way where you can assess its accuracy
• Make it easy to scrub messy data
• Provide multiple options for analyzing and visualizing the data to others

Data means nothing to a business unless it leads to better decision making or business growth. Otherwise, it’s just information – the data is not serving any purpose. Senior decision makers in many organizations have long admitted that they value data, but aren’t always sure what to do with it[i]. In order to make decisions based on data you should find easy ways to contextualize and present information. This involves having personnel who understand data analysis and can create effective presentations. It also involves having a system that allows for easier capture and organization of that data. Otherwise, you create a cluttered mess of information that senior leaders can’t drive decisions from — and that probably means you’ll be reinvesting in a new solution soon.

What other factors or considerations would you list?

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If you were to make a list of all the concepts involved in successful field service management, what do you think would be at the top?

Let’s run through some potential choices:

• Efficient scheduling
• Sufficient inventory
• Qualified technicians
• Customer support
• Data usage
• Positive customer experience
• Effective mobile technology
• The Internet of Things
• FSM software
• Cloud-based solutions

Each has a case for being the most important single feature in field service management.

Yet each represents a significant part of the overall field service picture. Scheduling is one aspect of field service. Inventory is another aspect. Data usage and incorporating the Internet of Things are separate aspects as well.

If you want your field service management operation to run smoothly, you need all of these elements to work together.

That brings us to our choice for the most important concept in field service management: integration.

Unless these various moving parts are working together, your customers won’t be satisfied. When they’re not happy, you lose referrals and repeat business.

The proper term for field service management integration is “end-to-end field service management,” which refers to a complete, holistic customer experience through every stage of the field service operation. This includes:

• Knowing equipment down-time
• Having the ability to track the status of an appointment
• The technician arriving with the right information and parts
• Seamless invoicing processes on-site via mobile devices

End-to-end field service management is absolutely crucial to a positive customer experience. Without end-to-end field source management pain points begin to arise. For example, let’s assume scheduling and dispatch aren’t integrated. This can lead to shoddy appointment planning, which means each customer is waiting longer than he or she has to. Or let’s say customer support and inventory aren’t integrated with the field techs. A tech will then show up on-site to address a customer need and lack the crucial parts to do it. That means a second trip back out to the customer. This hurts your bottom line, it annoys the customer, and it might cause your tech to eventually look for a new field service organization that communicates and integrates effectively.

In the modern business world, where mobile technology is dominant, the way to build an effective end-to-end field service management process is to focus on:

• Integration of all necessary components of customer experience
• Subsequent integration of those components with mobile technology

Besides focusing on mobile technology, you need to construct your end-to-end field service management process around your unique business model. For example, your focus might be self-service. Your focus might be workforce scheduling. Your focus might be app deployment. It will vary by business and the value proposition of that specific business.

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The first gas stations began appearing in the United States around 1909. By 1929, there were about 143,000 across the country — and in virtually every one an attendant would fill up the tank for the driver. It wasn’t until 1947, 39 years after the first gas stations, when the first self-service option opened in Los Angeles, courtesy of a man named Frank Urich[i]. The benefits were obvious immediately: the gas retailers were saving money because now they needed far fewer people to service the incoming drivers. Self-service stations also provided an incentive for people to fill their own tanks. In most cases, it was cheaper to pump your own gas than ask an attendent for help. This saved time and money for the customer, enhancing their experience at the gas station.

Similarly, Piggly Wiggly is credited with inventing self-service grocery store options[ii] just after World War I. But self-checkout didn’t begin to ramp up as an option until 1992[iii] — today they are an expected feature in major stores.

Gas stations and grocery stores recognized the importance of self-service options. They were empowering their customers to check out or pump gas on their own. Today, industry leaders in field service organizations are seeing the benefits of providing self-service options for their customers.

Developing self-service portals is of crucial value to field service organizations for a couple of key reasons:

1. The changing mindset of customers and clients: The omnipresence of the internet has led to an interesting psychological situation: when we research online we often think of ourselves as smarter than we probably really are[iv]. This has led to a rise in customers and clients who want to do things independently as opposed to being guided through a process; this is already having major implications in B2B sales and marketing. Many of your customers believe they can do things on their own and will only contact a service/help/contact function if absolutely necessary. This shifted mindset has led to a ramped-up need for self-service portals within field service.

2. Transparency: This also ties to customer mindset. In general, customers will want to know:

• Where their assigned technicians are
• When their appointment windows are
• What their invoicing and customer data look like

They’ll want this information on the devices they prefer, be it desktop, tablet, or mobile device — and they’ll want to access it without having to call a help line or get put on hold at HQ. Essentially, they want the ability to track and monitor the status of their appointments and know where their billing stands — including being able to sign the invoices from their tech’s phones. In past years, these have all navigated from “nice to have” options in field service to “need to have” options. Customers expect these features, and customer experience drives growth more than anything, especially within field service operations.

Self-service portals, therefore, are an important value play for field service management organizations: by empowering the customers to research, select, and monitor service options themselves, you’re increasing the customer  experience. That’s only going to benefit your bottom line and growth potential in the long run.

How you enact self-service portals can take several forms. You can begin with a basic library (PDFs, videos, and other documents) that customers can use for research and selection purposes — essentially to better understand the value of the service you provide. You can also use logistical databases, where they can login to their accounts and access key information about technicians, past services, and billing information. The most compelling is the app, where all this information is integrated one thumb push away on their phones. That’s the easiest and most logical option for many customers, and that’s going to yield the highest level of customer satisfaction.

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Let’s say you work in a field service management role. (We’d hope, because that’s the ideal audience for this particular blog.) You’ve talked to colleagues, read some of our posts, and understand that Internet of Things (IoT) is a major factor in field service moving forward. But you still need to convince the ultimate decision-makers of its importance and benefits for your organization.

Where do you start?

Well, luckily, our team at FieldOne, from Microsoft, gives presentations all the time about IoT and field service management — so we have a couple of ‘cheat sheet’ resources you can use to sway the final decision-makers on your team.

For example:

This comes from a presentation we gave at Microsoft’s Converge EMEA Conference in November 2015.

It can be best used to answer the question of “Why now?” from a decision-maker in your field service organization. After all, business is all about competing priorities and the need for resources. Why make an investment in IoT now, as opposed to three years from now?

If you work in a very bottom-line driven organization (as many rightfully are), consider those final two bullets. You can lower costs while seeing potentially enormous economic benefits.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Now consider this:

‘Machine learning’ is a specific form of IoT, but the benefits on this slide can apply to IoT adoption questions as a whole. You can use this to help a decision-maker answer, “What’s the value proposition for us here?”

Consider some of the major concepts that jump out:

• Increase customer satisfaction
• Have better analytics
• Reduce service costs

Again, who wouldn’t want this for their business?

Now look at the value proposition for another subset of IoT, machine-to-machine:

Again, some similar concepts pop out:

• Increase customer satisfaction
• Have better analytics
• Have faster response times
• Reduce service costs

These are all typically things that decision-makers and senior leadership in your field service organization will want.

You’ve already taken a strong first step by reading this blog entry. But what’s next? Glad you asked. We have you covered there too:

One of the easiest ways to truly move forward with IoT is simply by contacting us; we have experience in the market (second-to-last bullet) on solutions in this space. We can help you with ROI, measurement, and vision as well.

IoT is a big step forward for your field service organization. There will be challenges and growing pains — as with anything worth doing in business, yes — but the potential bottom-line value can be tremendous.

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