What is Salesforce Field Service?
Field Service is the field service management solution built on the world’s #1 platform for service, Salesforce. The platform, formerly known as Field Service Lightning (FSL), was launched in 2016 and is one of the fastest-growing products of Salesforce.
Field Service enables businesses to:
- Quickly resolve field service requests
- Increase field employee performance
- Manage technicians, dispatchers, and agents
- Automate the scheduling of appointments
- Manage work orders
- Get visibility of any operation in real-time
- Improve the allocation of mobile workforce
- Keep clients posted on a regular basis
- Access via mobile
Amazingly enough, 77% of businesses are still using on-premise field service solutions. The result is leaders lacking visibility through all customer touchpoints and insights, that are
critical in developing the panoramic customer view that modern businesses need.
But what is Field Service Management really?
Let’s first clarify the concept of Field Service Management.
Have you ever tried herding chickens? It’s somewhat close to running a geographically distributed workforce without a field service management tool. In a large number of industries, particularly with mobile employees or contractors, field service management is extremely helpful.
It is almost impossible without an automated system to properly coordinate fieldwork like arranging service appointments, mobile workers’ dispatch and equipment, and monitoring of vehicle locations, inventory stock, and appointment status. Though there are still many companies that still manually managing their field agents.
Industries like professional services, retail, public services and transport, vending machine services, telecommunications, waste disposal, financial services, production, childcare, healthcare, and many more, can all benefit from this type of software solution.
Field Service Management lets companies handle job tasks of any kind that need to be done on-site. Field service is a partnership between a number of people, including:
- Customer: who makes the product or service order that needs to be provided
- Agent: takes customer calls requesting a service and generates a work order
- Dispatcher: assigns and manages the service appointments based on schedules, expertise, and location
- Mobile employee: who gets the work order and visits the job site to complete it
As we mentioned earlier, Field Service is built on Salesforce and it offers you a versatile, highly customizable, mobile-friendly field service centre. In a few words, Field Service is designed to create a real-time connection between your customer service agents, your field service dispatchers, and your field service agent.
Not only the data is visually organized and delivered in just one platform but also Field Service gives managers insights into metrics, maintenance plans, and more by using reports and dashboards.
Let’s dive into a business case
Suppose you have a company that provides on-site veterinary services and pet grooming.
Vets and staff travel throughout the day to appointments across the city and there is one single dispatcher who handles their bookings and ensures that travel times are as short as possible.
Most of their sessions are for residential customers that usually don’t require more than 1 hour. However, eventually, they receive requests from special customers that own more difficult pets which will likely need more than 1 hour depending on the ongoing situation.
Not only this would be a lot to manage for one single dispatcher, but it would also be more likely that errors occur because of the possible back-and-forth on vets and staff availability.
Now, let’s suppose there is a couple of vets that are bird specialists or one unique groomer that can handle really difficult cats. That wouldn’t be a problem for Field Service as it gives field service managers the ability to add “assigned skills” to each vet and groomer.
Also, if a pet is not an easygoing one and becomes unexpectedly difficult to handle, probably that appointment will take more time. The result: all remaining appointments will suffer alterations that, if not properly managed, will lead to angry customers.
The result would be a frustrated customer that probably won’t repeat business with the company.
Moreover, what would also happen if a vet or groomer runs out of supplies like medication or grooming supplies? Field Service also takes care of inventory management by tracking supplies at every location like a warehouse, the central veterinary clinic, the vet’s car, etc.
All these variables could have led to a lot of customer dissatisfaction, but when the right technology is used to manage the logistics, your workforce will concentrate on providing the best possible service.
A Final Word
Customers have become used to connected experiences and as a result, consumers demand insightful, tailored service.
According to a survey on in-home customer service by CSG International, 89% of customers want an “Uber-like” tool for technician tracking service.
It can sound difficult to keep up with these astronomical and ever-changing demands. However, with the right solution and the right Salesforce partner, it will not be impossible.
Reach out and we will connect you with one of our Field Service experts to learn how Field Service will help your business.