It can be difficult for field service organizations to balance immediate service requirements with a long-term strategy for future growth. It literally is a balance – think too far ahead, and customer experience in the present suffers. Don’t think ahead and growth could stall; you may find yourself lacking customers to serve in an ever-changing industry.
To maintain the levels of customer service they have built, while also growing business through new revenue streams, many organizations are taking an approach called the Growth Horizons Framework. This framework encourages a focus primarily on the current customer experience, while also keeping an eye on the future for potential new revenue streams. It’s the 70-20-10 approach; combined with a field service software, it keeps customers satisfied and opens new avenues of revenue.
70% – Expanding on the core
It should be obvious, but you must keep repeat customers happy and expand on the services you offer them. That’s why 70 percent of your time needs to be spent on the business you’re good at. Ensure that your core customers are satisfied, and that the service being provided to them is the best quality service you can offer.
If you add a field service software to your organization, that 70 percent becomes streamlined with plenty of automation for preventative maintenance contracts and fast invoices produced through integrations with accounting systems such as NetSuite, Microsoft GP, and QuickBooks. It also ensures that your dispatchers have the tools needed to quickly dispatch technicians to a job site, powered with a mobile field service app to remove the manual administrative work from field service.
The core idea here is that most of your time has to be spent working with the customers you have today instead of the ones you might have tomorrow; your current customers’ needs have to be met quickly and efficiently. That’s the perfect reason to adopt a field service management software, so you can ensure nothing is ever missed while you look towards the future for new potential customers.
20% – Expanding the core
While most of your time is being spent on customers’ equipment and parts that are vital to their business, 20 percent of your time should be focused on expanding the services you provide to your core customers. That could include setting them up on a recurring maintenance schedule if they aren’t already on one, or using quoting functionality in a field service software to upsell them new technology, including new HVAC units, internet and server systems, or new equipment for their field work.
The great part about this percent of your time is that while it is still spent focused on your core customers, it finds new ways to make their business more efficient. One of the newest services is offering predictive maintenance with Internet of Things (IoT) technology. This sensor technology will allow you to monitor the equipment and parts your customers value the most and offer service calls when they start to fail. This avoids any emergency shutdowns that could lead to costly downtimes.
10% – Transformational growth
With your core customers satisfied, that leaves some time to look towards the future and how you want to transform your service delivery, add new products, or go into new industries. It can be costly to go into new industries or offer new services, but with subcontractors and tools to manage their activities, you can move into new industries or take on different jobs to see if there is value to your business.
With subcontractor management tools, you can find someone who can fix equipment your technicians don’t have the ability to fix or move in to a new geographic area that you haven’t been before without hiring on a full-time technician until you know it is a secure source of revenue. Work orders for these jobs are produced through the field service software and pushed to the mobile field service app just like they would for any in-house technician. This makes it easy for the service department to dispatch subcontractors, keep standards high, and still get the information back quickly for billing—all while growing a new stream of revenue.
Use Field Service Software to Maintain and Grow Your Business
Field service software offers tools to maintain the customers you currently have, which should be the primary focus of your organization, but also to help you grow your business into new industries. Your organization needs to be as efficient and reliable as possible before they can consider growing, and with a field service software and automation, that’s an achievable goal. It allows you to start to take time away from maintaining your core customers and spend more time growing into new industries or services.