Your customer service staff aren’t the only assets in your business who can contribute to a great, unforgettable customer experience. So can your other customer-facing assets, such as your e-commerce website (if you have one) and your field service... Let’s focus on field service for a moment. It’s not the post-sale, resource-draining obligation that you might think.
It can actually be one of your best opportunities to engage with your customers, improve relationships and boost overall revenue. Here’s how your field service engineers shape your brand.
Machine downtime means lost revenue for your customers so it’s important to avoid this and efficient field service can help. If your business can keep your customers’ machines up and running and downtime at a minimum, you can boost customer satisfaction.
Now, if you can accurately predict when your customers’ machines might break down or cause any downtime, you can promptly send field service engineers out to resolve the issue. This means you can boost satisfaction even more which can have positively impact trust and loyalty.
It’s about anticipating your customers’ requirements, ideally even before they realise what they need! Technology, like Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning, can help you stay steps ahead. For example, you can build predictive and proactive maintenance models, making it easier to monitor machinery and fix issues before they become problems.
This helps you become more customer-centric, ensuring that your company is a trustworthy partner that your customers can rely on.
Field service engineers are perfectly placed to up and cross-sell services and equipment. Think about it.
Who else will know your customers better than the engineers who monitor and go to fix their machines? Who else will earn your customers’ trust better than the engineers who go onsite to fix their machines, quickly and successfully?
And for those reasons, whose opinion/advice will your customers trust more? That’s how your field service staff can help boost revenue by opening additional streams.
Just keep in mind that it’s not about making a sales pitch. It’s about understanding your customer needs and recommending further, relevant products and services that will provide them with more value. That’s how you can ensure your team’s upsell and cross-sell efforts are successful.
Your field service team are walking, talking, live representatives of your business. They have the chance to leave a positive association of your brand in customers’ minds.
Your customers are constantly expecting excellent service and experience - that not only includes a machine that runs faultlessly but how quickly/efficiently you respond to such issues. So, while they’ll be disappointed if it breaks down but if you can successfully amend the problem (e.g. fixing the machine or replacing it), you can turn that emotion around.
It’s even better if you can catch the machine before it breaks down and resolve the issue.
One company who successfully implemented Dynamics 365 Field Service is Carter Jonas, a property management firm.
Columbus helped them update their old on-premise CRM solution, Microsoft Dynamics 2011 CRM, to the up-to-date D365 Customer Engagement (CE) version.
In doing so, they could align with their cloud first strategy which automated and streamlined their field service processes. By moving their disparate information into one centralised location they were able to improve the collaboration and efficiency between teams and benefit from technological improvements.
These included:
You can read more about Carter Jonas’ journey to the cloud here.
Once, the concept of customer service meant one touchpoint - a call centre. Today, that old concept of customer service is actually just one part of the overall customer experience picture. It’s not just about answering customer queries quickly and effectively; it’s about anticipating their needs and resolving issues before they arise.
This is where the right solution comes in. A solution, like Dynamics 365 (D365) Field Service, can ensure your engineers are equipped with all they need to offer excellent service, build trust and loyalty, successfully up and cross-sell, and best represent your brand.
And an intuitive solution like D365 Field Service can help. Find out more about D365 Field Service in our comprehensive factsheet. Grab your copy via the button below.