Mobile Field Service Best Practices

By iAnywhere

Every year, Aberdeen Group conducts a survey designed to measure the mobile technology intentions of field service firms. The results of this year's study confirm the continued interest of service organizations in providing their field technicians with the required tools to efficiently meet customer needs without the hassles of paperwork or back-and-forth trips to the office. In fact, 95% of firms surveyed indicate that mobility is either extremely or very important to their service operations. Furthermore, 45% of firms indicate that they currently leverage mobile solutions, while another 39% indicate that they are actively evaluating technology options and plan to implement a mobile solution within the next 12-24 months. Clearly, intentions for mobilizing the service workforce and connecting them to critical information stored in the enterprise are quite high.

In terms of device adoption for service workforces, firms indicate that on average, 59% of their service workforces are equipped with mobile devices (not counting personal cell phones), with 25% stating that their entire workforce is equipped with mobile devices. These firms indicate that last year, only 49% of their workforces were equipped with mobile tools. More so, polled firms believe that in 12 months, nearly 77% of their workforce will be equipped with some sort of mobile device.

Leading firms are actively looking at their current inefficient paper-based field processes and mapping the workflows that need to be replicated through automation. These workflows could include the assignment of a ticket, creation of a daily schedule, the closure of a ticket, and automated on-site receipt or invoice creation — processes that can be expedited through the use of automated tools that directly link the field technician to the back office. The automation of these processes is only successful if they improve the life of the field technician who may now not be bogged down with hours and hours of paperwork thereby improving job satisfaction and productivity.

Used with permission from Integrated Solutions magazine.