As a service provider, you must have confronted ‘A complaining customer’ or customers many times. You may think stuff like why the customer always has to be so demanding, why can’t he make adjustments with inevitable issues like service delay, or random communication gap, etc. As a service provider, your perspective is understood that you serve many clients at a time, so it happens that sometimes your technician may run late for a particular job; he might get caught in traffic congestion, or there can be any kind of emergency operational challenges. You expect your customers to understand such operational challenges without complaining.
But if you see from the customer’s perspective, why should he be concerned about your operational challenges. He chooses you as his service provider over others. And at that point itself, he puts his expectations on you, and when you fail to match up that expectation. The customer regrets his decision of choosing you, thus he vets out his dissatisfaction by complaining.
Understand the key loopholes in business
So, the righteous way to deal with a complaining customer is by never giving him the chance to complain. For this, it is important to assess the nature of your business and understand the key loopholes in business processes. That usually provide your customers the scope to complain. This blog is referring to those services that operate through field services. So it attempts to provide resolutions for the operational loopholes of field services. So that the customers complain about those loopholes can be controlled. Now, the word ‘loophole in business operations’ is being used from the customer’s perspective, if you view it from the service provider’s perspective then these can be called an ‘operational challenges.’
How to Overcome Field Operational Challenges in Field Services
When a customer deals with a field service technician. Then what displeases him can something major like the attending technician is a poor skill. And doesn’t know how to fix the problem, or it can be something minor like the client asks the technician some additional info like the quote for an additional service. And the technician for lacking that information asks the client to wait so that he can connect with the back office and retrieve the asked information for the client. Now, new-age customers don’t take such a response as professionalism. So, for a field service provider, it is important to have a complete understanding of what customers expect.
Well-informed Technicians:
Customers want to deal with skilled and well-informed servicemen only. For this, it is important that the servicemen have real-time access to enterprise data. So that they don’t need to depend on any back-office employee for accessing information. Equipping the servicemen with mobile field service management software is a way to ensure. That your field technicians always have access to data or information at the time of need. The software functions as a cloud database that stores all the enterprise data at a common centralized location, and using the field service management mobile app. And valid access permission, the on-the-move servicemen can access the information they want.
Rightly Skilled- Technicians:
To ensure that it is important that the servicemen match the right technician with the right job. Field service software is an intelligent tool to identify which technician is the right fit to do a job. Whenever there is a service request, the software automatically checks the availability of the technicians by checking their other schedule commitments. Also they assess their location proximity by tracking their current location and travel time to the job location; they assess their skill set, and this way identify the nearest available rightly skilled technician for a job. This ensures first visit effectiveness and the best possible quick turnaround time.
Online or Digital Provisions for Field Operation:
The field service software functions as a digital platform for a range of field operations. Such as invoicing, communication, data collaboration, reporting, self-service, etc. By digitizing all these operations, the software makes them accessible in real-time. And thus helps in making the services function more promptly.
Conclusion
While selecting a field service management software. It is important to rightly assess the capacities of the software and select the best field management software. To choose the best, ensure that you pick up software that can automate maximum field processes. And overcome operational challenges such as job scheduling, route planning, data collaboration, standard communication, invoicing, field data reporting, etc.
