Field services: making the shift from cost to profit center

Field services: making the shift from cost to profit center

Customer centricity is the key to winning in the market these days. This implies much more than delivering high-quality products or solutions; customers expect superior service, too. By ensuring better and faster field services, you are sure to spur customer delight, boost efficiency, cut costs and even increase revenue or win new business. The right processes and solutions can help you make your services run like clockwork.

Field services are services – installation, (preventive) maintenance, repair and others – carried out 'in the field', i.e. at the customer’s premises. McKinsey research states that "By transforming your field service operations through fresh thinking and innovative technology, you will reduce costs and differentiate your brand."

Five reasons to invest in first-class field services

The days when field service personnel tasked with installing, maintaining or repairing equipment at a customer site only carried a phone, paper and the tools/spare parts they needed are over. More and more companies understand the need to empower their people with solutions that help streamline workflows both in the field and at the office. Here’s why:

Raise productivity and efficiency: smart solutions help your planners in the office schedule field tasks efficiently, while assisting your field team in reaching the customer site quickly and finishing their tasks quickly and successfully.
Save costs and boost profits: efficient scheduling, first-time fixes, clear insights into warranty and SLAs and prompt, correct billing help you save costs. Even more, service, when done well, can be a huge profit center.

Delight your customers: your reputation for fast, efficient and high-quality field services – and all things related, such as invoicing – is a guarantee for happy, loyal and even more customers.
Strengthen your brand reputation: world-class field services will not only affect initial product purchases; it will also impact the value of your brand and keep customers coming back again and again.
Win new business: if handled well, field services can evolve from reactive to preventive and even predictive maintenance. Alternately, your field service people – who know the customer better than anyone – can become sales reps or consultants.

although the adoption of smart apps will move faster in B2C, their added value is equally high in B2B

Connected Field Service will help you improve your Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Connected Field Service is based on Dynamics 365 Field Service and IoT. It will smarten up your maintenance, as it gives you more first-time fixes and less downtime. It will also help you lower your costs and boost technician productivity. All this will result in a higher customer satisfaction.

Solutions and features: pick and choose

Service management requires software solutions that integrate with your company’s existing back office systems. While ERP and CRM systems alone don’t address the explicit needs of field services, there is a wide range of dedicated solutions available. Your company’s goals and needs will ultimately determine what type of solution is best and which features are essential.

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Possible features include:

Field services team

Check jobs/receive service requests on the road
Smooth, efficient navigation to customer sites
Visibility into parts needed, service and customer history, warranty details, service level agreements, etc.
Ability to view manuals and/or communicate with colleagues for assistance
Easy reporting: time logs, parts usage, etc. lead to correct billing

In the office

Efficiently assign and schedule technicians in the field (based on skillsets, location, etc.)
Manage worker activity (driver logs, time tracking, job status updates, etc.)
Reduce inventory

From analysis and advice to implementation

Based on many years of experience in field services, delaware can provide you with a step-by-step plan to a successful field service management transformation. We will assess the current state of your organization, recommend the solution that best meets your needs and implement it.

The future starts today

Moreover, we’re keeping our finger on the pulse of brand-new technology, researching the possibilities of augmented reality HoloLens and machine learning to help you boost your field service organization.

Why choose delaware?

We offer a structured approach
We offer end-to-end solutions
We collaborate closely with your team
We have over 15 years of experience in business transformation in numerous industries