Managing service delivery is one of the toughest challenges of any field service organization. It is perhaps the most important aspect of the industry, right after the actual repair and maintenance. Field service scheduling software has been at the foundation of many companies that want to deliver exceptional service to their clients. It’s imperative that they get their technicians to job sites quickly, meeting all their scheduled appointments, without keeping customers waiting, while also ensuring a high first-time fix rate. It’s why many field service organizations are turning to field service software. This also comes with Business Intelligence analytic reporting tools to measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure service is constantly running at its peak efficiency.
Scheduling with whiteboards and using Outlook just isn’t getting the job done for enterprise-level field service delivery. With field service mobile app technology becoming such a common tool, adding a field service scheduling software to your organization will help get the best technician to the right job site, while also giving you the tools to monitor the KPIs that are important to you.
So, what KPIs should your organization be monitoring when it comes to scheduling and dispatching field service technicians. Quite simply, the ones that affect your customer experience and the ones that could have the greatest impact on your service delivery today and in the future.
1) First Time Fix Rate
One of the main objectives of any field service organization is to have a high first-time fix rate. That means simply, your technicians are going to a job site and leaving the customer with a resolution, without needing to return for a second repair. There are many reasons first-time fix rates can be high or low, and field service scheduling software can play a large part in that.
To successfully have a high first-time fix rate, you’ll want to make sure you get the right technician with the right skill set to respond to the right call. Plenty of times, technicians must walk away from a job because they don’t have the necessary skills to find a solution. This can leave customers frustrated that the proper technician wasn’t sent in the first place. Field service management software comes with skill search functionality, so you can narrow down your technicians to just the ones who have a set of skills, removing any possibility that the wrong technician will be sent on a job.
In terms of KPIs, first-time fix rate is one of the most sought-after metrics field service organizations want to track, and with analytical tools, they can monitor their fix rates from an organization level, all the way down to the individual technician. This allows dispatchers to be selective in the technicians they send for emergency repairs and allows them to select the ones with the best first-time fix rate.
2) Service Level Agreements
Preventative maintenance contracts and service level agreements continue to grow in popularity with field service organizations, as the industry continues to evolve into a more preventative or predictive model for service, as opposed to waiting for an emergency call for an already offline piece of equipment.
But with service level agreements comes scheduling and dispatch challenges. Service schedules are produced, and these pre-scheduled maintenance calls need to be properly assigned to the right technician. The last thing any field service organization would want is to miss one of these important calls, as it could leave to devastating failure for a machine or equipment that could cost thousands of dollars to have repairs later.
With these service level agreements, commitments are made that your organization will take care of the work when it comes up and having a field service scheduling software with help to ensure none of these calls are missed through automation. With the pre-scheduled agreements made, work orders will automatically be generated for the service call when it is time for them to be scheduled. They will include any parts that are required and any checklists that accompany the work order for compliance or to keep standards high with recurring maintenance, without the need for the dispatcher to create it for them.
Dispatchers simply drag and drop the created work orders onto the right technician and the service level agreement will be met. Automation ensures your organization will always meet their agreements which will in turn, keep your customers satisfied. When it comes to KPIs for service level agreements, having a strong field service scheduling software will help you keep your commitments and offer tools that can ensure work orders get scheduled, even in the busiest times of the year. With a full calendar view of your technicians’ schedules for weeks ahead, you can rearrange other work orders if needed to fulfill a service level agreement, so no call is ever missed.
3) Response and Travel Time
A major KPI that field service management software allows field service organizations to track is response and travel times. These times can become critical in the field service industry, especially if you are looking for areas to shave time off technician’s response times, or to be able to schedule more calls in a day.
If it’s taking technicians too long to respond to calls, customers will be kept waiting. The dreaded 9 to 5 window is not something customers want to hear, but with slow response time to calls, especially emergency ones, it’s difficult to give them a narrowed downtime. At the same time, traveling to a job site can have its own challenges, as technicians could be traveling back and forth across a large geographical location, or must deal with unfamiliar routes, road closures, and slow traffic.
Field service scheduling software gives tools for dispatchers to alleviate many of the problems in slow response times and long travel times. When an emergency call comes in, dispatchers can search for the closest technician to the job site on a map and assign the technician who can respond the fastest. In a critical emergency, they can move technician’s other work orders and clear their schedule to address the issue, resulting in a fast response time, and less travel than other technicians would need.
These important KPIs can be the difference in being able to schedule technicians for one or more calls a day, and coupled with a high first-time fix rate, will increase the bottom line with the ability to take on more calls.
Investing in Field Service Scheduling Software
Many organizations are investing in a field service scheduling software, especially when they have more technicians than they can handle with manual practices on whiteboards for scheduling. Coupled with advanced scheduling tools, work order automation, and Business Intelligence to track KPIs, field service organizations will start to make scheduling and dispatch one of the easiest parts of their job, with full confidence that their customers are benefitting from a scheduling software solution.