In a traditional setting, managers are responsible for keeping track of employee shifts; ensuring that every gear and wheel of the workplace is working in synchronization. Whenever issues arrive or the team faces bottlenecks, these managers overtake the task of running workflows smoothly.
This sounds like a normal day in multiple workplaces. However, in a workplace with a considerable section of the workforce in the field, this is not as simple as it sounds. For instance, an organization sending representatives for maintenance.
The entire industry comes under a deadlock when these field workers are not managed effectively. Users are unable to receive services and field workers are unable to resolve bottlenecks. Even when the managers step in, the communication gap makes it harder to collaborate.
Field service lightning is a native solution offered by Salesforce for seamless field service management. Let’s discuss the challenges that you may be facing and the resolution for these challenges through AIMDek’s Salesforce-oriented consulting, implementation, and customization support.
Challenges of Field Service Lightning
Similar to multiple other workplace issues, field service management is also plagued with common challenges such as low operational efficiency, legacy system inefficiency, redundant tasks, skyrocketing costs, and increasing customer requirements. Let’s discuss these challenges in detail:
1. Lack of 360-Degree View
In many industries, field service is still disconnected from the sales and marketing teams. This means that despite being customer-oriented, silos still restrict the 360-degree view of customer service.
It is practically not possible to achieve a 360-degree view without integrating or connecting field services to other workflows. Without this, critical business data related to customers may be lost. For instance, the production team missing information on total repairs, parts that were replaced frequently, the time related to asset failure, etc.
Till the time, field service is achieved in fragments, overstocking and miscommunication can’t be mitigated. Hence, operational costs can’t be reduced. In fact, fragmented infrastructure is the reason for poor collaboration – it inhibits communication in multiple ways.
The operational expenses can be reduced and asset management can be improved only with a holistic field service management. A 360-degree view can only be acquired through proper integration amongst every important department of the organization.
2. Rising Costs
There’s no doubt in the fact that multiple organizations still keep using obsolete software units and tools for multiple operations; let alone field operations. These legacy tech units get costlier with time. Due to inefficient implementation as compared to the external environment, legacy tech poses a huge risk to the data and process effectiveness.
This means that obsolete tech can lead to low communication and collaboration between cross-functional teams. This when coupled with data corruption injects potential inadequacies in the system, which magnifies with every step. The low mobility further adds to the efficiency of these systems. Everything slowly restricts the efficiency and productivity of the field service workforce.
As a result, field operations go through a major bottleneck, to cover which you need to spend a lot of money. Multiple resources are put to field services for proper management that is actually a far-fetched dream.
The only solution to this challenge is the implementation of automation, predictive analysis and cloud computing. Together these cutting-edge technologies can help in utilizing a solution that can survive the changing market dynamics and aid company growth in multiple ways.
3. Redundant Tasks
There are two predominant tasks, which are also redundant, in field service management:
- Field resource assignment
- Route planning
While route planning is imperative to reduce service delivery, field resource assignment helps in assigning the right resource to a particular task. If we fail to plan routes including factors like weather, address, preferred time, etc., the costs can increase to a great extent. Similarly, if we fail to assign the right resource, the task efficiency can reduce, thus, reducing customer experience and increasing service delivery time.
Unless automation is achieved, these redundant activities can become inefficient over time. Manual management is already erroneous and the criticality of the situation can simply add to the circumstances. This is why automation is inevitable for strategic resource planning and implementation.
4. Evolving Expectations
We have a new definition of success – consumer satisfaction. This depends on the timely delivery of field service, proper interactions, support, and updated communication. If this communication and interaction are faulty or improper, the pipeline breaks and it is difficult to bring the disappointed customer back. The damage is, most of the time, irreversible.
When you are delivering field service through vendors and partners, miscellaneous complications arrive. This adds to the complexity of the situation.
Achieving real-time updates for the user and proper seamless communication can help in improving the delivery pipeline. Hence, improving customer satisfaction.
How AIMDek Can Help?
Salesforce offers a field service lightning package for improved field service management. It helps in mitigating the above challenges in the following ways:
- Granular visibility of the supply chain
- Field operation automation
- Seamless collaboration across vendors
- Instant updates whenever changes occur
- Cloud management for anytime access
- Mobility for customer and stakeholder delight
- Automation for cost optimization
- Automation for improved productivity and reduced errors
AIMDek is an enterprise software development company equipped with skilled experts and the latest tech, using which we can help you implement field service lightning in your organization. Here’s how:
- Salesforce field service lightning or FSL empowers the whole organization to connect through one medium, which optimizes every management role.
- You can create work orders that are integrated into standard fields such as cases, accounts, etc.
- The cloud implementation offers on-the-go collaboration abilities to the whole team, including multiple business silos.
- The stakeholders can extract real-time updates and insights. Business KPIs can be measured for improved decision-making.
- It is a single tool for comprehensive management. For instance, you can track inventory, using AI capabilities to schedule work orders, etc.
- The Schedule of field service staff is automatically updated based on location, time, skills, and other similar factors.
- We can help you customize the solution for an end-to-end service organization. You can achieve complete management including team, technician, and territories with skills and location.
- You can customize workflows to automatically check service contracts and warranty.
- It is possible to ensure preventive maintenance tasks to update the technicians beforehand. This can lead to fewer breakdowns.
- You can retrieve previous related invoices to generate new invoices. These invoices can be modified in real-time.
Case Scenario
A client of AIMDek, a mobile resource dispatcher, who was responsible for making arrangements and scheduling meetings and visits of field staff, was using the traditional technique to achieve correct scheduling. Often our client was caught up in the situation because he had no resource to allocate due to inefficient allocation and low availability of data. At any given time, he was not able to view the schedule and timetable of team members. To mitigate this issue, here’s how AIMDek help:
We implemented a field service lightning application including the mobile application. Using this application, the mobile resource dispatcher was able to analyze the schedule of the team. According to a specific date and time, the dispatcher was able to mention or display the schedule of a particular resource. The client was able to assign one task to the relevant technician based on the technician’s skills and knowledge. This reduced the time of management, decreased the cost of management by 20%, and improved revenue by 15%. The technicians also gained the benefit of this implementation as they were able to manage their inventory and routine accurately. There were no delays and issues with the schedule.
Conclusion
Your field agents are the true spokespersons of your brand because they are in immediate contact with the customer. Proper field service management can ensure proper management and improved communication.
If you want to utilize field service lightning but you are unsure of the implementation process, we can help. Reach out to us for a quick demo and consulting session. Let’s get on a call.
