KPIs to help field service management keep up with changing times

“At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next ten years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies.” — John Chambers, Cisco

While this quote might seem ominous, it’s the inevitable truth. Day-by-day organizations are struggling to keep up with the ever-changing technological landscape. And the shiny new software of today might be worthless to the industries of tomorrow.

The field service industry is no exception in this regard.

What are field services and field service management?

Any service that requires its agents/employees to work outside the organization’s premises is considered a field service. This could include construction workers, door-to-door delivery personnel, or sales representatives. The monitoring and management of these employees and their tasks are called field service management.

You might ask, “Why does an industry that has minimal reliability on technology need to take these precautions?” The relative lack of dependency on technology is why field service organizations need to be more prepared than ever. We're well into a very digital era, where most tasks rely on automation, artificial intelligence, or plain old technology to get the job done. If you can’t keep up in this digital race, there’s a high chance you won’t even be able to participate in the years to come. This is where KPIs can really help.

What are KPIs, and why are they important?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurement values that organizations use to determine and predict whether they are achieving their business goals. So why is this important? KPIs are considered valuable to an organization for many reasons. Here are some:

• Setting goals and targets: Once you set a goal, your KPIs can be used to measure the progress you've made toward the target. Monthly/quarterly monitoring of the achieved tasks with respect to the KPI can define your teams' capabilities and efficiency in meeting their goals.

• Accountability: Individual/team-based KPIs can help keep yourself accountable for your work and help measure your individual strengths and weaknesses.

• Staying ahead of competitors: Research on competitor KPIs can ensure that you stay at the top of the game. Prices and reviews are two essential KPIs for competitor analysis.

• Gathering insights: You can get comprehensive insights as to what initiatives work, or don't, for your organization. KPIs can always be altered to accommodate the organization's capabilities and situation.

• Measuring customer satisfaction: Measuring customer satisfaction can take the form of NPS surveys, reviews, and ratings. This helps with both customer retention and improving the feedback received.

KPIs for field service management software

• Single-time service rates: This KPI can help monitor the efficiency of the service professional/field service technician and the success rates of their first field visits.

• Travel distance: Travel distance can aid in both fuel purchases/stock, being aware of the average distance traveled by a technician, and figuring out the locations of your audience.

• Customer satisfaction: Reviews, ratings, and feedback can always help you identify pain points or customer problem areas. Improving operations consistently based on this KPI can increase customer retention rates.

• Employee allocation: Dispatching customers can be a big task. Allocating certain professionals to specific services can be made easier when they're tracked and automated.

• Dispatch time: Once an order/booking is placed, the amount it takes for the field technician to be dispatched matters to both the customer and the organization, so that they can ensure punctual services with no hassle.

Once you have these KPIs in place, you’ll be prepared for the digital journey in no time at all. But how do you house all these KPIs? This is where low-code platforms come into play.

Low-code and Zoho Creator

Best-in-class field service organizations ensure a customized work experience by optimizing jobs and work orders. But how do you ensure client and employee satisfaction? Through custom field service management software on a low-code solution.

Zoho Creator offers you various prebuilt applications that you can customize, specifically for field services. This includes supply chain management, logistics operations, inventory management, and much more! 

Interested?

The development team at Zoho Creator is experienced in building custom applications and working with organizations that have complex environments. Put your field services on the road to advancement and start a conversation with our development team now!