Client satisfaction is more and more crucial in the manufacturing sector, just like it is in consumer-facing industries such as retail. Customer demands are rising across the board, and manufacturers are requiring higher responsiveness and additional visibility into the service of their equipment as they strive to maximize uptime. Customarily, improving customer satisfaction has come at a price, but new technologies that improve the customer experience have the additional advantage of actually maximizing the efficiency of the service organization and minimizing the cost of service.
 
There are three main steps through which field service organizations can both enhance efficiency and improve customer satisfaction:
 
Planning
 
Seasoned field service professionals realise that effective execution on the day of service is the result of careful planning for days, weeks, or even months ahead of time. Establishing likely levels of demand for service, and ensuring the right sources are established to meet that demand, are essential to meet the required standard of customer service. Having suitable resources in the right locations with the right skills means that on the day of service, field technicians can lessen travel time, increasing resource utilization and allowing a faster response time for customers.
 
For manufacturers, data about machine performance is a key element in this process, helping planners to know the likelihood of particular machine failures. This not only helps adjust resources with demand, but also helps proactive service to avoid downtime altogether and eliminate any SLA penalties.
 
Execution
 
Even the best-laid plans are subject to disruption due to external factors like traffic, extreme weather, or customer cancellations. Even though there is always a gap between the plan in theory and the execution in practice, organizations can decrease this by capitalizing on ‘actual intelligence’. This is the thought of constantly leveraging real-time information to optimize the way in which service resources are allotted and making sure there is effective communication with consumers. Starting with the initial service level agreement committed to the customer, through to successful completion of service and follow-up, each and every step in the process offers an opportunity to delight customers and outpace competitors.
 
Diebold Nixdorf is the largest worldwide manufacturer and servicer of financial self-service equipment, such as ATMs, and anyone who has ever experienced an out-of-order ATM understands the necessity for quick response times. To meet these service level agreements, the company implemented technology to automate scheduling and improve operational visibility and control. As well as meeting customers’ high expectations, the company also improved scheduling efficiency and reduced mileage and travel time for technicians. After implementing field service management software, Diebold Nixdorf saw a reducing in total travel distances by more than 300,000 miles per year and a 33 percent increase in the number of calls per day per technician.
 
Delivering value through improved efficiency, that also enhances customer experiences, is increasingly a center part of manufacturers’ strategies to be noticeable from the competition in the eyes of the customer. In the execution phase, improving and automating technician scheduling is where much of this value can be realized’ combining sophisticated algorithms with actual intelligence and practical input from dispatchers, managers, and field personnel increase operational visibility and ensure a tightly run schedule that meets both business and customer needs.
 
Analysis
 
Real-time analysis of performance data towards key business indicators not simply demonstrates how a service operation is doing versus its goals but also delivers a blueprint for improvement that can be incorporated into the planning phase. Up-to-date business performance indicators enable manufacturers to better manage what is measured and either make real-time adjustments (e.g. reallocating resources to a different region) or make more wide-reaching changes in the future (e.g. increasing training to deal with a particular service challenge). With a stream of operational performance data available at their fingertips, business managers have the right data at the right time to make the right decisions to drive service excellence.
 
Planning, execution, and analysis represent a common sense model to consider a service operation as a strategic asset that supports competitive differentiation in the manufacturing industry. As data grows rapidly, and enables both proactive service and real-time responsiveness, organizations that can effectively incorporate this information into the framework will not just reduce the cost of service and also improve customer contentment levels along the way.
 
This article is originally posted on tronserve.com