Key Service Management Objectives for Profitability

Blog, Field Service

Last updated May 12, 2022 at 9:46AM | Published on Mar 27, 2017 | Blog, Field Service

Fieldpoint’s Field Service Management System Can Help You Improve Your Bottom Line

Management by objective works – if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.

Peter Drucker

We live in a technology driven age where equipment downtime and failure no longer means losing just efficiency; you now lose money, time and most importantly client satisfaction and risk compromising retention. To deal with downtime, or rather prevent it there are certain capabilities that your field service management system should have. The investment in the right field service management system has become a vital part of business strategy to ensure and promote success.

BI Work Order Summary Dashboard

Improve Your First-Time Fix Rate

Aberdeen research shows that 25% of service calls usually require at least one follow-up visit to correct a reported issue. This could be due to several reasons. The technician may not have the necessary skill set for the task at hand, they may not have estimated the correct time to allocate to the fix, or they may not have had access to any parts or materials needed for the fix. With the application that Fieldpoint offers, there is complete visibility into technician calendars, skill sets, parts and with the advanced analytics reports that you can run on past work orders, you can predict how long the fix can take. The dispatcher can access all this data before scheduling the work order, and the technician will be alerted immediately via their mobile device and can accept the service call. They can then estimate the time needed, use the routing tool to determine the shortest time to travel, and once at the site; they can track any parts that they may need again via the mobile app. This will increase chances of a first-time fix, reduce mean time to repair and you will be able to cater to more calls than you ever could before.

Augment New Revenue Streams with Profitable Contracts

With the intense manufacturer competition, sales margins are getting slimmer and slimmer. How do you optimize your profit margins on equipment? You must make your contracts profitable. Sounds easier than it is, you can sell an SLA, or PM contract at the time of sale, but you must make sure that you meet all the contract requirements so that you can regularly renew them. When you are managing thousands of line items on hundreds of contracts, you need to offer quality service so that you can renew for recurring revenue. Automation is critical here. With Fieldpoint you can automatically generate work orders on a specified customer recurring schedule, the system can create any custom schedule, assign specific skills, technicians, and subcontractors for each contract line. PM work orders have the complete list of parts, tasks, and labor service required for your techs to be successful. Your customers will be delighted with the quality of service, which means recurring service revenues and repeat business.

Predictive Maintenance – The Future of Field Service

What if you knew beforehand that a machine or asset are going to break down before they do? What if the asset itself could tell you what kind of maintenance it needs, and what parts may need replacing? Seems far-fetched – not anymore! With the advent of IoT, equipment and assets in the field will have sensors to monitor anomalies, errors, and upkeep and will be connected to an IoT platform. We are witnessing a shift in the paradigm from reactive/preventative to a predictive maintenance business model. Traditionally equipment has been serviced at fixed intervals as we had no better information available to us. We are now working towards machines and devices can notify us when they are operating outside of normal parameters or predict when failure is imminent, allowing us to provide service before equipment downtime occurs. Technicians only visit sites and inspect equipment when it is needed. This predictive maintenance model results in lower administrative and field resource cost improved equipment uptime and most importantly higher customer satisfaction. Now you can provide better levels of service at lower costs than your competitors.