Steer Go Digital Blog

‘A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all’, remarked Michael Labouef. This is increasingly true for companies in the field service industry. With the cut-throat competition, receding profit margins and customer loyalty is at an all-time low, providing a delightful customer experience is fast proving to be the differentiating factor for companies in the industry. With a pressure to increase efficiency and reduce cost, customer experience is often a factor which is neglected.

The success of the field service business is heavily dependent on the productivity of your field service engineers and technicians. While the statement is true, only a part of it has to do with the skill or the quality of the technician's work. A large part of it still relies on how effectively the jobs have been scheduled, whether the correct technicians have been assigned to the right jobs and whether they have the tools and the knowledge to successfully complete the job in the first attempt itself. Having had the opportunity to advise a number of companies in the field service management space, I am intrigued by the number of companies who still rely on manual techniques to schedule jobs for technicians.

Providing a great service is an integral to building a successful HVAC business. With the advent of technology in the field services industry, the fourth industrial revolution, providing a great customer experience has become imperative to ensuring growth in the field service industry. In fact a recent research[1] suggests that 72% of organizations are prioritizing customer satisfaction in their field services business.

In the shifting customer care landscape where every interaction has the potential to cement or sever a customer relationship, the need to transition to a more holistic approach to customer engagement is critical. However, for a number of years, companies have struggled to calibrate their strategy for customer engagement through service channels. Most still rely on the traditional call center approach while others have chatbot interfaces in an attempt to go digital. This approach has led business executives to believe that they must make trade-offs between two opposing forces: improving the customer experience and managing costs.

‘A brand is defined by the customers experience. The experience is delivered by the employees’, opined Shep Hyken. This statement is more relevant than ever today in the field services management industry where competition is intense, profit margins are receding and customer loyalty is at an all-time low. The survival of your brand depends on providing delightful customer experiences which can only be possible by empowering your technicians and support staff to deliver service standards beyond expectations.

Field service management companies today face a growing demand for 24/7 digital services from customers. Indeed, going digital is no longer an option but is key to survive and thrive not only in the new normal but beyond. Buoyed by the experiences they receive from Amazon and Uber, customers now expect convenient ways to place orders for services and expect to receive these smoothly. In creating a frictionless journey from ordering to fulfillment, having digital front-end solutions is not enough. You have to ensure that the entire operations is connected to provide customer experiences like no other.