What is field service management?

What is field service management?

Let’s say you are an internet service provider offering broadband, wifi, and satellite connectivity services with customers spread out across a large geographical area. Some customer problems such as spotty connectivity, and modem issues can be solved only in person. You’ll need an easy way to schedule visits with customers so your field technicians can go out and solve problems. You’ll need to manage their schedule so they don’t have too many or overlapping appointments. You’ll also need to ensure that your field teams have easy access to all relevant customer information.

That’s where a field service software can help you.

A helpdesk software helps you communicate with customers, get information about their problems and manage multiple channels easily.

A field service management software helps you communicate with your field teams, distribute customer information as necessary and manage visits and appointments easily.

So let’s say some customers email you saying their internet is down. Some others call your helpline to report broken modems. As a service provider, you can use a helpdesk to ticket all of these problems and find out which ones need a field technician visit and which ones can be solved remotely. With a field service management software, you can create service tasks for problems which need a visit, and assign it to a field technician from your team. Good field service management software also allows you to schedule appointments at a time that is convenient for both the customer and the field technician. After one problem is solved, a good FSM software can route your field technician to the next customer’s location automatically.

By combining a helpdesk software and a field service management software into a single unit, you can simplify your workflows between helpdesk and field teams to deliver a better, more seamless field service experience to your customers.

Small and medium sized businesses providing field support have very similar requirements. Their helpdesk and field teams are often one and the same with helpdesk agents assigning tasks to themselves, prioritizing problems as necessary and also venturing out into the field to solve problems directly. Helpdesk automations help such teams to focus purely on answering the tickets and attending appointments while taking care of all the routine helpdesk tasks. Mid-sized businesses need a solution that scales rapidly with their team, without overcomplicating their workflow as the teams grow larger.

One simple solution which combines the ticketing and omnichannel capabilities of a helpdesk with the scheduling and service task handling capabilities of a field service software can be incredibly beneficial to these teams by keeping the workflows simple and the costs low.

• The helpdesk can automatically tag, categorize and prioritize incoming requests and assign these queries to your agents based on your requirements
• The field service module can help you maintain service tasks associated with each ticket and a record of who is responsible for solving each task.
• You can easily monitor every field technician’s daily workload - the number of appointments they have per day, every customer’s problem, and more.  
• You can setup SLA policies to ensure your agents honor deadlines for solving customer problems and appointments are attended punctually. In case deadlines aren’t met or appointments aren’t attended, helpdesks can also automatically escalate tickets to managers.
• A good helpdesk will ensure that multiple field agents don’t schedule appointments with the same customer for the same problem

Enterprises require their teams to coordinate closely and work together without impacting efficiency. Their goals tend to simplifying workflows, streamlining the flow of information across teams and try to improve communication between teams as well. A good helpdesk software with stellar field service management capabilities can help enterprise teams with these goals

• An enterprise-grade field service management software can help you intelligently manage field technician availability across shifts, location, existing schedules and more to route service tasks to the right field technician for a quick solution.
• A versatile field service management software can integrate with other tools such as CRM software, billing and payments systems to help teams manage warranties, provide free service, keep track of entitlements and so on.   
• A good field service management software brings your helpdesk and field teams together so they can coordinate service delivery better.
• Any good helpdesk or field service software needs to be compliant with industry standards for data protection like TRUSTe, ISO 27001:2013, SSAE - 16 & HIPAA, SOC I, II, III and so on. Make sure the software you choose has data centers across the globe as well as enterprise class in-product security features to help you manage your data security challenges.