Improving Field Service performance

The Aberdeen Group recently published a report entitled "Service on Time: All the Time" that examines the impact of optimizing field service by scheduling field service calls, parts availability, technician skills, and service technician location in a real-time operation system. Making these variables available on a real-time basis yields the following improvements, according to the report:
1. Customer retention increases by 33%.
2. Service profitability increases by 21%.
3. 80% of the best-in-class companies have a senior executive overseeing the service operations.
4. 79% of the best-in-class companies have processes in place to update schedules in real time.
5. First call resolution increased by 18%.
6. Daily mileage per technician was reduces by 21%.
7. SLA commitments were improved by 25%.

The bottom line is that there is room for dramatic improvement in service operations if you can integrate technician skills, spare parts inventory and technician location into a real-time system. This is something we have always known but did not have the capability to do in the past because of software and computer power constraints. Thank goodness we finally got the computer power and software to make this a real possibility.