The global field service market is estimated to jump from $1.58 billion in 2015 to more than $3.5 billion by 2019, according to research firm Markets and Markets.

As is the case with other buying decisions, the consumer is looking for a more personalized experience or something that separates one servicer from another. Companies that provide these services are looking to be Customer Centric and provide broader solutions to differentiate themselves in the market. This needs to be the focus for any Services Solution and Field Service is no different.

Data, Data and More Data

According to several sources, more than 90% of the world’s data has been created over the past two years. Making good use of the data they have and how can it help them make business decisions or attract and retain customers is just one of the questions being asked in the Field Service market. Companies are looking not for technology specifically but more a business process solution or platform that will differentiate them and provide a better experience for their customers.

Think about it - everything being equal with regards to training, equipment and price, what will make you stand out to potential and existing customers? CIO’s and Business leaders are asking themselves and their teams these questions as they look to address the global marketplace for their services.

In Field Service specifically, this means knowing who the customer is when they call and being able to scale the organization, yet provide a personalized experience for that customer. It includes knowing whether there is an open work order for that customer and allowing the agent to immediately communicate that to the customer to determine if the call is a request for status or a new request for assistance. It is having access to what equipment the customer owns and has purchased from them along with a historical record of what was done with that equipment. These sound like very basic building blocks you would expect from any service organization but it is a challenge because of the large amounts of data contained in various legacy systems throughout the organization. Even more challenging, the data may not have been collected or shared by the various business units throughout the organization.

Field Service Lightning

Enter Field Service Lightning, the latest solution in the Salesforce integrated connected service platform that enables companies to connect their call center and mobile employees on one platform to deliver differentiated service.  With Field Service Lightning, companies of all sizes, across all industries can collect, share and leverage that data to quickly book appointments, intelligently schedule resources, and track jobs in real-time on a mobile device. The latest cloud solution can provide additional channels and data to further enhance a technician’s ability to solve problems and provide real value to customers while on-site.

There are basic tenants of support that apply to every business and need to be taken into account. Every organization is unique and therefore, faces unique challenges.  While solutions can address many of their challenges, those solutions many not address 100% of an organization's needs right out-of-the-box. Even those applications that are purpose built for a specific industry aren’t able to solve all of those needs.  This is where a professional service engagement is critical to an organization’s success with any technology implementation.    The goal with any platform should be to build a solution that is robust but generic enough to then be tailored for specific business process. This is critical to understand for anyone looking to transform their operations as it gets them to focus on their specific business needs and not the technology.

Mobility – It’s not just for Customers

We all know it’s a mobile world and we’re just living in it, but have you ever stopped to think about how it has completely transformed our lives?  Just look around you on any given day when you’re out and about. I guarantee you will have a difficult time finding someone NOT on a mobile device of some sort. This translates into a connected environment that needs to be harnessed to be able to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Providing solutions for customers to request immediate access to support or view the Total Cost of Ownership or repair history for one of their assets is a true differentiator. This should be the starting point for the identification and definition of the business process customizations of the solution. Your technicians or mobile employees are regularly interacting with your customers, this is at the heart of their jobs, so , they need the tools and information to provide the customer with the enhanced support on-site. As mentioned, Data is the key component to providing complete personalized customer service and the technician is key to collecting a good deal of it. The data they collect is critical to building the 360 degree view of the customer that the organization needs to deliver a smarter and more connected experience. The technicians also present special challenges to any solution design because they are not always connected and ‘online’ when providing service.  The ability to access and collect information offline is important for any field service management solution.  In addition, tying the work order and referenced assets to an assignment should serve up  relevant articles and information about that asset to the assigned technician.

IOT influence on Field Service

There’s no question that data is powerful and can lead to insights into the customer experience, but what if the equipment itself could report and request service without the customer having to do it? This is the promise the Salesforce IoT Cloud offers for the future. The systems that collect this information need to be built in such a way that a device requesting service autonomously is considered as proactive  channel of communication. .. Any design should anticipate this capability being introduced in the near future and look for ways to leverage this data once it becomes available.

Design principles

Everyone starts out with the idea of creating an easy to use , easy to understand solution but this is even more important in the world of Field Service. Implementing a system that is easy to navigate and connects your agents, dispatchers, technicians, and managers allows your organization to be more efficient, productive and profitable, Acceptance can be achieved if you can prove it will make their lives better and must ring true or adoption will suffer and the roll out will fail. It is crucial to consider change management and end users when designing a field service solution. We have all heard ‘It’s their job, they have to do it or else!’  but the reality is that everyone wins when the technology and systems make the tasks associated with their duties seamless. Salesforce Services and Salesforce Field Service Lightning built on the Service Cloud, the world’s leading customer service platform, is the solution to do just that.

For more on the state of field service in the connected world, check out the interactive infographic.