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Fast, connected and personalised. Ensuring your service agents are empowered to meet these customer expectations is key to differentiating your brand. But what about your mobile workers? 

Mobile field service is nothing new, but connected technology is making it a more connected experience for customers and companies alike. 

And, as 80% of the service decision makers surveyed for our State of Service 2019 report will tell you, mobile service is a significant driver of revenue. What’s more, 79% say it’s a valuable source of new revenue streams.

But how are service organisations empowering their mobile agents to become brand ambassadors, and what do agents want more of to help them deliver better service? 

Let’s investigate.

 

Why empowerment matters

The smartest service organisations are empowering their service agents with a complete view of the customer, enabling them to make service fast, context-aware and personal – every time. 

Without the same capabilities, mobile workers are in the dark as soon as they leave the office. First-time case resolution relies on meticulous preparation, and even then, unexpected variables in the field might require a return trip to the office or multiple phone calls to find the right person, with the right information.

This slow, disconnected way of working is a source of frustration for both your mobile workers and your customers. And when we consider that 89% of service decision makers say the experience a customer has with a mobile worker reflects on their brand, it’s clear having mobile access to the right technology and resources matters. A lot.

 

How to empower your mobile workers

Four-fifths of the service decision makers we surveyed claim to provide their mobile workers with all the technology and resources they need to do their jobs well. 

But their mobile workforces fail to share this optimistic view. 45% cite outdated and accurate job information as a significant timewaster. Likewise, 49% say they must toggle between mobile screens to find the information they need to do their job.

There’s also a gap between high-performing (rate their company’s customer satisfaction as excellent) and underperforming (rate their company’s customer satisfaction as average or below) service teams when it comes to mobile capabilities. 

However, this gap can be used as an indication of what capabilities you need to be empowering your mobile workers with to succeed. For example, mobile workers from high-performing teams are more likely to say they can:

 

  • Proactively understand customer issues before an appointment (85% vs 58%)

  • Alert customers about delays to their appointment (80% vs 46%)

  • Easily tell if a customer is under warranty for a part or service (72% vs 38%)

  • Access offline knowledge bases on their mobile device (61% vs 39%)

  • View connected device and internet of things (IoT) data (59% vs 41%)

  • Gain offline mobile access to customer and case information (61% vs 37%)

 

While high-performing service teams command a clear lead over underperformers in terms of mobile capabilities, there remains room for improvement, particularly when it comes to extending the office to a worker’s mobile device. However, changing customer expectations have had a clear influence on service spend with proactive case awareness and communication being the most common investment by high performers.

 

The mobile investment gap

When 82% of service decision makers say their company’s customer service must transform in order to stay competitive, it’s evident that this needs to include mobile service too. 

Thankfully, service decision makers have made, or plan to make, significant investments in supporting mobile workers. But like the mobile capabilities gap, there’s a similar chasm between high performers and underperformers when it comes to mobile investment. 

Service decision makers from high-performing organisations are more likely to say ‘we are making significant investments in mobile workers’ (87% vs 49%), and ‘we expect to increase our mobile worker headcount next year’ (63% vs 40%).

To further cement the idea that investment in mobile workers has a positive impact on customer satisfaction, high-performing organisations are 2.3x more likely than underperformers to have hired more mobile workers last year.

Transform my mobile workers

It’s time to turn your mobile workers into brand ambassadors. The kind of field service team that flies your company’s flag by delivering the fast, connected and proactive field service your customers expect.

To learn more about how organisation’s like yours are meeting customers changing expectations, and taking advantage of new technology to deliver a single, connected view of the customer – anytime, anywhere – be sure to explore our State of Service 2019 report.