Field service customer experiences used to be simple. If the job was completed quickly and in full, it was a success. If the delivery driver or repair technician wasn’t too late and didn’t have to come back, customers considered it a success, too. Customers didn’t typically expect a perfect experience because they accepted the limits of technology. A lot could happen between point A and point B, and most customers understood there was no way to coordinate field service teams while they were en route to a job.
That’s no longer the case, as advanced communication and team collaboration tools have made field service management a real-time experience. Companies, field service teams, and customers can now immediately update each other of any important development in the field.
With better collaborative field service management tools come new levels of field service customer satisfaction. With the right team collaboration tool, all communication is driven by a specific focus and all stakeholders have immediate access to relevant information.
Field Service Without the Right Collaboration Tools
Intuitive field service collaboration tools don’t just connect companies to field service teams; they also create a lifeline between workers in the field and the customers who depend on them. This elevates customer satisfaction in ways that are new to the field service experience.
For example, imagine a cleaning service receiving an urgent call for mold remediation on a specific floor of a building. While the team is in transit, the office building’s facility manager discovers that the extent of the problem spans multiple floors and is far worse than initially reported.
The facility manager calls the cleaning company’s central office, which then calls additional teams to converge on the building. They’ll need to supplement the smaller original team to compensate for the additional work, but what if additional teams are unreachable or are already assigned to other jobs? Or what if they can be reached but communication and information are disjointed? They won’t know what to expect at the site or where to find their point of contact on-site.
The customer will feel the friction and frustration of not being able to connect directly with the field team. They may start questioning whether the job will be done to their satisfaction.
What Better Field Service Customer Experiences Look Like
This used to be a common and expected field service customer experience, but consumers have grown less tolerant. In an ideal scenario, the building’s facility manager would be able to connect with the cleaning company’s headquarters and field teams from the very beginning — all within a shared digital space.
In this digital space, a customer can submit an initial work order with relevant photos and information that everyone in the space can see. If updates need to be made, they can send new information to all relevant stakeholders instantly. If additional teams need to be assigned, they can be looped in immediately, with important location and job details right at their fingers.
Most importantly, both the customer and the company can ensure that everyone has the information they need before they need it and can communicate and coordinate seamlessly with each other. Coolfire was built specifically to provide this level of collaboration to field service management and their teams in every industry.
Our field service collaboration tool allows field teams, managers, and customers to communicate instantly within our unique Sessions feature. A Session is an extended, shared digital space where all stakeholders can easily disseminate information about a job to the right people, at the right time, and in the right place.
Anyone with a desktop, smartphone, or tablet can now interact with the entire network of stakeholders in real time to optimize field service customer satisfaction. Customers can provide frontline workers with information they need to complete their work, and workers can access all maps, sensor readings, historic data, and other relevant information.
Sessions also make it easy for teams to extend their communication to people outside of the organization and optimize their ability to collaborate effectively. This improved communication between field teams and customers is the key to succeeding in the field and ensuring that the customer has an excellent experience in the process.
