👨🏾‍🤝‍👨🏻 ♀️ 🚃 Field Service Management: what is it and why do service companies need it? 🙇🏾 👩🏼‍🏫 🛀

FSM and our life

Good afternoon! I am Daria, a product analyst at a domestic service desk system, and I want to talk about what Field Service Management is.

Every day we buy goods in vending machines, withdraw cash from ATMs, pay for purchases through payment terminals, use intercoms, air conditioners and elevators, rent cars or transmit meter readings to a management company. All this is just the tip of the iceberg, visible to the end user. Digital technologies are integrated in almost all areas of the service market.

In the meantime, the foundation of any successful company in the services market is the painstaking work of organizing effective field service for “field” devices, which are the “heart” that ensures the performance and quality of these services.

Consumer loyalty, reputation risks, as well as efficient use of resources depend on the quality of the service process — all this directly affects the financial performance and growth potential of the company. Therefore, nowadays, in order to successfully compete in the service business, it is not enough just to respond to incidents on time - you need to act proactively, reducing the downtime of providing the service to a predicted minimum and eliminating the cost of field service as much as possible. The market situation has shifted towards post-sale competition. It is not enough to win the client, it is much more important that the consumer receives the service at the right time and in the same quality.

Payment terminals, access control and video surveillance systems, print services, electronic queues, coffee machines, climate systems - this is not a complete list of devices that require timely and high-quality service. The larger the fleet of equipment, the more difficult it is to efficiently allocate resources to support it and the higher the chance of increasing costs where they can be avoided.

As a result, best practices for field service management have been compiled and described in the Field Service Management concept (FSM for short). Unlike Enterprise Service Management (which governs back-office processes in general), FSM principles include the specifics faced by the company managing the repair and maintenance of various remote sites, and therefore employees who are constantly moving.

Modern, leading companies have come to the need to use software that solves the problem of automating field service. Among them are various industry adaptations of HelpDesk, Service Desk, BPM (Business Process Management) systems and specialized FSM (Field Service Management) solutions. The latter will be discussed in our article.

Difference of FSM-systems from classic HELPDESK

Let’s try to figure out why in the field of outbound services the “classic” HelpDesk-systems are not as effective as specialized FSM-systems and that has led to the need to create highly specialized solutions for implementing the service support strategy. Why do companies step on the rake from time to time introducing non-core systems that do not fully comply with the specifics of field service?

Everything is very simple - the terms HelpDesk and ServiceDesk are more established, they are simply more "by ear" than younger profile solutions. In this regard, quite a few people understand the difference between Help / ServiceDesk, Field Service Management and Work Force Management System (WfMS, which is described below), this leads to erroneous product implementations that are simply impossible to use. And the differences, in a large cage, are quite simple. HelpDesk is a straightforward process. A mouse has broken - a new one is needed - hold a new mouse. ServiceDesk - a solution to the issue with coordination and a tree of options. The mouse broke - the right new one - do we buy or take from the warehouse? - buy - coordinate the purchase - hold a new mouse. Field Service Management - there are remote objects, tasks for them requiring an executor,whose location and employment is known.

Example. A mouse broke on Lenin Street - need a new one - Igor will go - do we buy or take from a warehouse? - buy - coordinate the purchase - hold a new mouse.

WfMS (Work Force Management) - FSM evolution with an emphasis on more efficient management of performers considering its work schedule, responsibilities, skills, available materials, geographic location, etc.

For effective field management, it is necessary to understand:

a) where field employees are territorially involved;

b) the availability of free resources;

c) a schedule for both scheduled and urgent work;

d) In addition, there should be a complete register of serviced equipment, with full information about it and formalization of standard “check lists” for its maintenance. The latter is particularly useful for improving the adaptation of new field staff.

d) the solution should have the ability of end-to-end analytics - this will reveal the shortage (or excess) of resources in a particular service area, as well as show problem areas that require special attention.

An example of such zones is equipment for which in the short term too many requests have been recorded, or employees are not performing their duties efficiently enough. Everything described is extremely important to support the corresponding SLA, non-compliance with which threatens the business loss of customers and reputation.

Thus, the familiar ServiceDesk does not have the flexibility required by the specifics of the service business. Some issues are solved by the development of specialized modules, the refinement of Help / Service-desk systems, or simply ignored, this makes them ineffective in the era of digital transformations. So, the industry class of IT products entered the market adapted for field service tasks - Field Service Management (FSM).

Who will help the implementation of FSM?

First of all, to everyone whose business depends on a distributed network of devices that require maintenance.

Manufacturers of equipment that provide its service. These are the aforementioned vending boxes, and security systems, including video surveillance, and access control systems, refrigeration equipment for restaurants and hotels, air conditioning services, cash registers, ATMs, professional and corporate coffee machines, slot machines in amusement parks, and other systems requiring constant field service.

Another niche for using FSMs is field service companies. Cleaning, repair, “husband for an hour”, trucking, on-site computer assistance, a private clinic with a call to doctors or foot couriers.

Both specifics imply the need to manage dozens of specialists who are constantly on the go, especially if it involves the need to monitor the status of remote equipment. Therefore, classic ticket systems, even adapted to the needs of field service, are not entirely suitable for productive management of “fields”, giving way to FSM solutions. The latter, in turn, must constantly evolve and evolve towards WMS (Workforce Management System), which allow for a greater number of factors to be taken into account when building processes, such as: employee competence, schedule, location, availability of specialized equipment or stock of materials. All this will allow optimizing the on-site service processes built up in the company.

Cloud FSM Platform: Benefits of Deployment

Business processes in different companies are always different. It is enough for some to accept applications by phone, register in the system, transfer the employee to work and confirm the implementation. Another is to provide the client with the opportunity to submit an application from a mobile application, automatically distribute it to a suitable employee who has the skills and qualifications for its implementation and receive confirmation of acceptance of the application for work. Next - provide the contractor with all the necessary documentation on the equipment (for example, instructions and error codes) and a checklist of the work. After completion, receive confirmation and assessment of the level of service from the customer.

Therefore, it is imperative that the selected solution has flexibility, as well as functions that are absent in the classic ServiceDesk systems, which, in fact, do not control the process of field service (in contrast to FSM), but organize the basic process of fulfilling requests and collecting statistics.

The classic FSM solution is our HubEx cloud platform. The platform is designed in such a way as to ensure full interaction between three parties: the customer, the head of the service department and the direct contractor.

The path from circulation to execution is as follows: a request for service or repair is received from the customer. Then it gets into the dispatcher’s console, where the contractor is selected based on location and workload. Then the application falls into the mobile application of the contractor with a detailed description of the object, terms and supporting information in the form of technological maps and check lists. After the application is completed, the contractor fills out the act of completed work from the mobile application, adds photos to record the result, and the application is returned to the manager, who confirms the fact of completion in the system. The customer sees confirmation of completion and gives feedback.

HubEx FSM Components

The client part of the platform is a mobile application through which the customer submits an application for service and monitors the status of its implementation at all stages: “new”, “went to the site”, “suspended”, “completed” - this is another difference from Ticket systems. Also, the application can be submitted by the customer without an application, through the browser of any device: simply scan the QR code of the equipment or facility, indicate the approximate cause of the failure and click “send”.

We give a simple example. Imagine an office fully serviced by a service company. The office has furniture, printing devices, coffee machines, other items that need attention and they are all marked with a QR or NFC tag. In the morning, an employee comes to work, presses the “cappuccino” button and instead of a hot drink receives inarticulate sounds from the device. All that an employee needs is to scan the label and write two words describing the problem, it will take no more than 20 seconds. That's it, the application has gone to work.

The next stage, where the application falls after its creation, is the area of responsibility of the dispatcher, where the interaction of all field forces is visually displayed, making it possible to rationally assign employees for execution by territorial location and workload. The distribution of applications can also be automated according to various criteria: in a special console, indicating by what criteria to select the next executor if the person responsible for the object is busy or inaccessible, for example, transfer the task to an employee with certain skills or the closest free one.

The application of the contractor receives service requests, they are displayed either as assigned or not distributed. It discusses and, if necessary, reassigns applications. For convenience, the employee receives all available information about the facility and equipment, as well as a check list for the work. This helps simplify the execution process and accelerate the training of new employees. Through the application, geolocation and construction of routes to objects takes place, in the application itself - communication with the customer and other contractors. After completion of work in the application, an act of completed work is created, which the customer will receive.

Thus, our platform complies with the FSM principles, but also provides more flexible possibilities in the organization of processes; this makes the system an intermediate solution between Field Service Management and Workforce Management Systems. So, in the platform there is no strict separation of responsibilities. Instead, at the discretion of management, individual roles are configured - a set of powers that determine the responsibility for the process of a particular person.

For example, to provide access to work with analytics not only to the manager, but also to the dispatcher, to allow the customer to independently determine the lead time or the choice of the contractor and, in general, to build the platform according to the business processes of a particular company, and not vice versa - to rebuild activities within the company under then as it is written in the system. This feature adds to our platform the functions of a full-fledged BPM system, without reducing its Field Service Management capabilities.

Conclusion

Cloud-based FSM-systems allow you to bring field service to a whole new level. Along with dispatching applications, the platform allows you to control the location of employees and their workload, the quality of tasks, the timing and frequency of repeated calls on the facility and equipment. These data make it possible to conduct proactive analytics, which will not only allow you to control the “correct” amount and distribution of field forces, but also show places at customer sites that require special attention. This is extremely important information that will reduce costs by reducing the number of unplanned departures and increase the level of customer loyalty.

Technological maps of equipment will help to simplify the solution of service tasks and together with checklists will save employees time for standardized work and help to quickly adapt new performers. The capabilities of our platform in terms of customization and flexibility in setting are sufficient to transfer any company’s business tasks to the platform, the specifics of which fit into the concept of Service Management. The capabilities of the system go far beyond the “classic” FSM, combining, along with BPM, the capabilities of Workforce Management Service, allowing you to take into account all aspects of a successful service.

So why should you implement FSM? The answer lies on the surface - you can hammer a nail with a screwdriver, but how much time and effort does the presence of the simplest hammer save? In the field of service, the situation is similar - you need a tool that fully meets the specifics of the tasks being solved. FSM solutions can improve the transparency of service processes at all stages. Using FSM is a win-win strategy, when a customer receives high-quality and timely service, and business receives customer loyalty, cost reduction and other competitive advantages in the market due to optimization and automation of processes.