Understanding Crowd Service

Transcription

1 SAP White Paper Crowd Service Leveraging the Gig Economy for Greater Field Service Agility and Better Customer Experiences 1 / 8

2 Table of Contents 4 What Matters Most in Field Service: Positive Customer Experiences 5 The Evolution of Field Service 5 The Way It Was: The Analog Approach 6 The Way It Is: The Field Service Management Standard 6 The Way It Will Be: Crowd Service and Predictive Maintenance 7 Crowd Service Technology 7 Why You Need It 7 What It Is 8 Tapping the Full Potential of the Gig Economy 2 / 8

3 The gig economy is growing: the demand for flexible employment is rising and freelancing is becoming a more popular way of working. For field service organizations, the opportunities are tremendous. Now you can use crowd service tools as part of your field service management software to tap into the gig economy and revolutionize the way you operate. Ahead is a new business model that uses freelance service technicians to help you expand operations at will enabling you to deliver first-rate customer service while driving down the cost of operations. 3 / 8

4 What Matters Most in Field Service: Positive Customer Experiences Field service executives have an overriding concern: optimizing the customer experience. When it comes to KPIs, customer satisfaction is top of mind. For years now, field service management software has helped service executives manage time schedules and appointments more effectively. This keeps customers satisfied by helping organizations to dispatch service technicians promptly and speed response time to requests. At the same time, field service management software provides access to extensive amounts of background information including customer history and manuals. All of this has added up to more-effective field service operations. Today, however, customer expectations for speedy and reliable service are on the rise. The question is: can field service management teams overcome growing process complexity and other operational obstacles to meet the challenge? New technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) hold the promise to help organizations dramatically improve customer levels with predictive and proactive maintenance. Customers love this model because it helps keep them running smoothly with a minimum of disruptions. But to make it work, field service organizations need more flexible staffing so that they can meet growing and constantly fluctuating demand. If problems are detected on assets in the field, your organization needs the ability to act quickly regardless of the nature or location of the problem. This requirement is leading to a new challenge: where do you find the technicians to meet growing demand? The search for answers is fueling a new trend toward real-time crowd services, where companies expand their in-house service teams with freelance technicians to support customer requests on demand. In a growing gig economy where it is estimated that 40% to 50% of Americans will work as freelancers by 2020, the real-time crowd service model opens up significant new opportunities for field service organizations to deliver what matters most: positive customer experiences. Service Executives Must Join the Rest of the Business in Enhancing Brand Loyalty Percent of respondents, n=139 58% 51% 27% 39% 35% 32% 27% 26% 27% 24% Service Executives All Respondents Improve customer satisfaction Increase brand awareness and loyalty Retain existing customers Increase number of net-new customers Increase top-line revenue Source: State of Service 2017: Lead With Customer Experience, and Efficiency Will Follow Aberdeen Group, February / 8

5 The Evolution of Field Service As the digital economy has evolved, so too has field service management. What used to be an analog process of collecting and sharing information about customers and devices has now become automated and digitalized. This has helped organizations streamline processes. Field service management software helps you ensure that everyone is on the same page: your company, your technicians, and your customers. Here s a closer look at the development of field service management. THE WAY IT WAS: THE ANALOG APPROACH When a device malfunctioned in the analog days of field service, the customer called a hotline, explained the issue, described the device, and provided an in-depth history of any previous issues related or otherwise. If telephone assistance could not resolve the issue, the customer received an appointment for a service visit. Once on-site, the technician would once again go through all the same questions with the customer, run a repeat check of all the test parameters, and most likely arrive at the same diagnosis the customer service representative arrived at on the telephone. The service technician would then begin the real work. Ideally, the technician would have all the background information, tools, and components needed to resolve the problem. If not, repeat visits were needed. Forward-thinking field service executives realized long ago that this was no way to operate. Customers expected more. The answer was field service management software. With customers now accustomed to prompt and expert service, demand for field services is going up, and organizations need a bigger pool of technicians from which to draw. 5 / 8

6 THE WAY IT IS: THE FIELD SERVICE MANAGE- MENT STANDARD About 10 years ago, companies started integrating field service management software into their operations. The goal was to secure future earnings and achieve sustainable growth. With field service management, software companies have been able to: Track KPIs and customer successes Provide 24x7 omnichannel service access for customers Monitor service status from start to finish Enable access to service manuals and videos Minimize the risk of technician errors with the use of checklists Perform preventive maintenance with greater effectiveness Streamline scheduling to ensure the best technician for the job Consolidate and share relevant customer and device data These capabilities have enabled organizations to reduce risks, increase real-time response rates, boost first-time fix rates, and dramatically improve the service experience. But as always, one thing leads to another: with customers now accustomed to prompt and expert service, demand for field services is going up, and organizations need a bigger pool of technicians from which to draw. THE WAY IT WILL BE: CROWD SERVICE AND PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE As increased demand for field services strains existing operational and human resources, pioneering organizations have already come up with a solution: crowd service. Leveraging the availability of freelancers in the gig economy, companies can create an ecosystem of qualified service technicians that helps counteract a dearth of qualified service technician employees. Whether or not you re moving toward new predictive business models powered by IoT technology, your customers now evaluate you on your ability to respond to real-time service requests. Certainly, as the trends toward the increased prevalence of connectivity and intelligent devices continues, customer expectations for fast, efficient service will increase proportionately. Organizations that find themselves with a lack of service technicians to tackle repair and maintenance could see real harm to their profitability and reputation. 6 / 8

7 Crowd Service Technology WHY YOU NEED IT Crowd service-enabled field service management powered by emerging technologies such as the IoT is just one example of digitalization that is occurring across industries. According to a 2017 IT trend report by Capgemini, 82% of CIOs in German-speaking countries feel digitalization is changing their industries and 75% think that a digitalization overhaul is a top priority. High on the agenda is finding talent with IoT know-how. CIOs labeled this as their biggest obstacle to digitalization. 1 Finding the right talent, of course, is not the only obstacle to digitalization. CIOs are also coming up against organizational and structural roadblocks. Old hierarchies die hard this is as true for field service as for any other line of business. When it comes to reducing hierarchical tiers and shifting around management structures, many companies are unwilling to budge. WHAT IT IS A crowd service is a pool of skilled, freelance service technicians available to respond to service calls when needed. These crowd service technicians possess the necessary know-how to address various technical issues. Thanks to field service management software, they also have access to internal company manuals, tutorials, and videos, as well as to customer specifics and device specifics for getting the job done quickly and effectively. In the end, crowd service equips your organization with a sizable and knowledgeable team of technicians a team that can keep pace with rising customer expectations and enable predictive maintenance models. In addition to solving the problem of an insufficient and oftentimes inadequately trained workforce, the crowd service model can also help circumvent obstacles regarding the internal restructuring of company hierarchies, enabling the quick implementation of new digital strategies. Finally, a crowd of freelance workers means that your field service organization pays for services delivered, thus alleviating you of the annual expenditures associated with full-time employees. 1. Studie IT-Trends 2017 Capgemini, / 8

8 Tapping the Full Potential of the Gig Economy The evolution of technology has propelled us into digital transformation. It has changed the way we interact with technology and also the way it interacts with itself. It has shifted social expectations of service needs and norms. We are on the brink of countless new innovations. However, if we cannot keep pace with this technology, we will severely impede the potential for development and transformation. The only way forward is one that uses the same game-changing innovation that has resulted in the IoT and artificial intelligence. Crowd services, which implement groundbreaking software with the revolutionary concept of the sharing economy, is the 21 st century answer to a 21 st century problem. Companies not investing in digitalization across all corporate levels will fall behind. Having technology that can save customers time and frustration by anticipating potential problems is useless if companies cannot respond to repair and maintenance requirements. It is akin to having the latest gadget with the oldest version of the software. It renders the latest and greatest technology ineffectual. LEARN MORE To find out more about how crowd service can help your field service organization keep customers satisfied while driving down costs, visit us at 8 / 8

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