Field service should be all about the customer

Field service software is becoming more advanced every day. This provides great opportunity to improve many aspects of an organization's business, including operational efficiency and reduction of costs. However, when implementing a new field service solution, the focus should be on the customers, or more specifically the organization's customers.

Field service software has traditionally been an extension of ERP or accounting software. This provides core capabilities such as products, pricing, inventory and invoicing for managing field service transactions. However, these systems by nature do not have a customer focus. Utilization of field service systems that provide CRM functionality provide a platform to develop customer-facing capabilities, but if those systems are not architected with a focus on the customer, the results can be the same: a system that addresses internal organizational needs, but does little to improve the customer experience with the service being provided.

When envisioning a new solution, organizations should begin by focusing on how to best serve the customer. This can be accomplished by focusing on the Customer Experience (CX). Exercises such as the development of a Customer Journey Map can help in defining objectives to drive a customer-focused transformation. A Customer Journey Map defines the experience your customer has with your organization from the point of initial contact, to establishing a business relationship, to ongoing business interactions. This exercise will help you to understand how your customers are currently experiencing the business relationship and can be enhanced to define the optimal experience for your customers.

This optimized customer journey is used as a basis for determining which software solutions you purchase, as well as providing a roadmap for how that software should be designed and deployed. The delivered field service software solution may include leading-edge capabilities such as IoT integration, predictive machine learning logic and advanced analytics (such as those offered by Microsoft). However, only by focusing on the true priority of the service function –the customer—does the solution fulfill its purpose.