tabsON! Service software definition

Field service or workshop provision for domestic or industrial equipment, white goods and home electrical equipment under warranty, office, warehouse or plant machinery, even vehicle breakdown, is time critical.

Customer demands do not occur at the convenience of the company; the company needs to respond to each call quickly and with adequate preparation in terms of engineer skills and stock.

Generally speaking, the nature of the service offered by a field service company, whether for its own or a third party product, is that the more the customer pays, the quicker the response time.

The service company enters into a contract with the customer which guarantees a response to service calls within a set time.

Typically this may be four working hours, eight working hours or next day (which in practice means before the end of the next working day). Working hours are defined by the service company, dependent on their own ability to cover evenings, nights and weekends. The company may also provide a proactive service of routine maintenance and installations as part of its contract provision.

Margins are tight and companies fight both to secure new business and renew the contracts of existing customers. Price is not the most important factor when it comes to renewal; one missed call or ill-prepared engineer on-site can mean the difference between the customer signing on the dotted line when the invoice arrives or opening the field for rival tenders.

Anything that helps the company ensure that all contract times are met and that the engineer arrives equipped with the correct spares for the job and at the necessary standard of expertise to deal with the problem — the company is very much at the mercy of the quality of information the customer is able to give it at the time of the call — therefore gives that company an operational advantage over its competitors.

There are many ways in which a company can strealine its operations and improve customer service. These include continuing generalised or focused training of its engineer fleet, intelligent spares holding, careful scheduling and allocation of engineer and vehicle provision, real-time remote communications for data share with the despatch centre or warehouse.

One of the most cost-effective measures is to automate the operational structure using local or networked field service software.