Do You Need Field Service Management Technology?

According to recent research, 52% of field service organizations are managing field service operations manually. If you’re among those 52%, you might be wondering if you need to take the initiative to automate your field service operations. Here are the reasons why you should, and how the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service technology can transform your business.

Improve Scheduling

It’s difficult to schedule service calls manually, especially as your business grows. You need to consider so many factors, including the skill sets of your technicians. You need to consider routing your technicians to minimize travel time, ensure that they have the right parts, and more.

Now consider how much more effective scheduling would be with the Field Service technology. It’s AI-enabled, and it can consider a long list of criteria to make the right scheduling decisions. You can even evolve to fully automatic scheduling as your experience with the system grows.

Provide Technicians with New Tools

The mobile app for Microsoft’s Field Service technology is built on the Microsoft Power platform. That means that you’re getting the latest technology and you’ll be taking advantage of the power of Microsoft as they continue to enhance the system.

Your technicians will have a mobile app that allows them to manage their work from anywhere. They’ll have work orders at their fingertips, the work orders can have knowledge articles attached to them to give technicians an onsite guide to complete their work. They can even look at 3D models of the equipment they’re servicing.

When they need advice, the technicians will be able to chat with other experts in your company to get insights from others who have faced the same problems or who are more experienced. They’ll also be able to document problems and fixes by taking photos or videos on site. That documentation can be accessed by other technicians faced with the same challenge. The Field Service technology is focused on being able to fix a problem on the first call.

Complete Invoices Faster

Your business depends on cash flow. With Microsoft’s Field Service, you can reduce the time it takes to produce invoices, which means you’ll get paid faster. If your technicians are using paper invoices, there’s a good chance that the technician will put off the “paperwork” part of their jobs. Information can be lost and payments are delayed.

With Field Service, when the technician has completed a visit, they mark the Work Order as complete and it is available for others in your organization to review, add to if necessary, and transmit to the customer. The invoicing process starts as soon as the work is completed.

Improve Responsiveness

With the Field Service technology, you’ll be able to schedule visits when it’s convenient for the customer. You’ll also be able to communicate with the customer to let them know more exactly when the technician will arrive. That frees your customer to get things done rather than wait for the technician.

Get Customer Feedback

Getting customer feedback is always a challenge, but you need it to determine how your systems and employees are performing. Field Service provides the capability to automatically send customer surveys asking them for feedback on their service experience. It doesn’t take any additional time on the part of managers, dispatchers, or technicians.

Improve Based on Analytics

The Field Service technology saves your managers from spending time trying to gather and analyze data related to your Key Productivity Indicators (KPIs). The system automatically gathers the data and presents it to your managers in an actionable format.

You’ll know if the number of work orders are increasing or decreasing, and you’ll know how many of them are being completed within the promised timeframe. You’ll be able to track customer satisfaction trends and get insights that may indicate you need to add new knowledge articles for your technicians or coach specific technicians who aren’t meeting their goals.

Reduce Costs

Forrester Consulting prepared a total economic impact study of Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Field Service technology. They found that Field Service eliminated the need to send a technician to a customer site for more than 10% of all work orders due to improved customer communication. In addition, the study found that companies could reduce the time technicians spent driving by 50% due to the advanced routing that Field Service makes possible. You can get an estimate of your savings using this calculator.

Improve Customer Satisfaction and Your Competitive Advantage

The quality of customer service is critical to your customers. It’s often how they choose the businesses they work with. In fact, recent research indicates that 95% of customers will stay loyal to a company that provides excellent customer service.

When you use the Field Service technology, you’re making it easy to work with your company. You’re scheduling accurately, fixing things the first time, communicating effectively with your customers, and making your company stand out from your competitors.

How Can Datavail Help?

Whether you’re just starting to implement field service technology, you want to improve how well you are using it, or you would like to upgrade or migrate to the cloud, Datavail’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service experts can help. We can provide end to end assistance or extend your internal staff to do the planning and implementation. Learn more about Field Service by downloading our white paper “What You Need to Know About Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service Module,” or contact us for more information.