Do you think that you have the system capability to provide the right solution to the right people at the right time?
If not, it’s time to think twice and review your field operational practices. Certainly, there is no doubt – a right field service management solution can be a proven boon for your business.
While each field service may comprise a different set of challenges and need to overcome them, in accordance with, requires a specifically molded field service management solution especially when your field operations are continuously heading toward growth expansion.
Thus, considering your growing pains in field service operations, we decided to come up with this practical guide wherein you will get to know how you can overcome your field service management challenges.
However, many of you who are reading this blog, have already been experiencing challenges while carrying out your day-to-day field activities.
Probably, many businesses who deal in field operations face challenges either in the early stage when they instantiate their field operations or when they seek out solutions to raise their continuously growing field operational needs.
Now, you can relate to any of the above-mentioned situations where you are lying. If you can do so, you are heading toward the right path through this practical guide.
With this inclusion, getting directed toward the potential field service management challenges along with ways to overcome them.
Overcoming Challenges in Field Service Management
Scheduling Visits
Scheduling field representative visits manually may involve potential errors or inefficiencies such as overlapping events, duplicate booking, time management, etc. Thus, it becomes challenging for field or territory managers to accurately and efficiently schedule visits. This in turn affects the overall brand reputation and productivity.
To overcome this challenge, there is an imperative need to automate field scheduling. Here, either you need to include a field service management module in your existing LionO360 system or need to implement a fully dedicated Field Service Management Solution.
LionOBytes’s LionO360 Field Service Management solution enables field managers to effectively automate and streamline field visit schedules. Thus, your field representatives can perform hassle-free visits to customer locations.
Our solution eliminates manual scheduling which in turn impacts your field team’s productivity and overall field performance. Using LionO360 FSM, Field Sales Managers can define field visit schedules and automate the same for each field representative associated with their team.
Here, it is needed to understand how seamless and efficient our LionO360 FSM is wherein your Field Sales Managers can create and automate schedules using the LionO360 web version and further, which can be followed by your field team using the LionO360 mobile version.
Route Planning
The next most effective step is route planning in the field operations which is again a challenge for organizations that deal in field operations. So, let’s understand how unmanaged routing can affect your overall field operations and customer experience.
When your field executives need to move from one location to another, it requires adequate route planning. If you lack in offering such, it can impact in consumption of additional time and fuel costs and eventually a dissatisfied customer experience.
There could also be a possibility of road blockage or traffic conjunction wherein there is a crucial need for rerouting or else it can lead to delays to the scheduled customer visits.
Thus, to overcome the challenge of route planning, LionO360’s Field Service Management tool can help whereby your Field Sales managers can easily select multiple visits and create an effective route starting from the customer location which is nearby to the field executive’s home and ends in the same way
Utilizing this way helps achieve the most efficient route time saving, minimizing fuel costs, and eliminating the potential delays to the customer location. Thus, empowering your field representatives to follow the best optimal routes with real-time data and automated schedules defined in advance.
Managing Nearby Visits
Serving Nearby available customers can save time, fuel, and field team efforts if carried out efficiently. So, this is the next field service challenge that many of the field operational hubs are facing these days. If you are one of them, it’s time to overcome this field service management challenge.
Certainly, implementing LinoO360 can help as our system is equipped with a ‘Nearby’ feature. This feature enables your sales team to identify and locate the nearby available customers.
Further, you can schedule visiting and automate routing starting from the very nearby available customer location to another, and so on. Leveraging this way, your sales team can efficiently carry out visiting all the nearby available customer locations.
Check-in/Check-out
The next inevitable challenge that lies in field operations is tracking and monitoring the field performance in real-time such as tracking your field representative's check-in to and check-out from customer location.
Apart from this, once the field executive submits the data while being in the field, it becomes challenging for Field managers to access the same in real-time.
In the LionO360 Field Service Management system, we have deployed the check-in/check-out functionality wherein field managers can easily track their field representative’s check-in and check-out at the customer locations.
In our system, field executives can check-in only upon reaching the customer location or under the defined radius of the location. Thus, you need not worry about your field operational performance as using LionO360 FSM, you can monitor your field team’s performance with real-time efficiency.
Moreover, you do not need to wait for the end of the day reports or data, as our system allows you to access all the field data in real-time enabling you to make informed decisions in real-time.
Customer Satisfaction
Gaining customer loyalty depends on how optimally you serve your customers. Here, acquiring customer feedback is vital indeed as it can help you identify the shortcomings and improvements in your field operations. Thus, performing customer surveys is the potential way to understand your customers' concerns and their anticipations.
Again, managing this whole using a manual way may not help you achieve the right customer feedback as you won't be able to let things happen in a strategic way and in real-time. Here, tracking and monitoring the process will also remain as a question mark.
Now, the concern is how to strategically implement such. So, LionOBytes can make it simple via Survey Management functionality. Yes, the LionO360 FSM system is equipped with a Questionnaire Management feature that lets your sales managers create questionnaires from the backend which can be prompted once a field representative reaches the customer location.
Even if you want your sales team to perform multiple surveys during a single visit, it can be effectively done. Here, sales managers can also schedule the sequence of questionnaires wherein once the very first questionnaire gets submitted, the questionnaire will be prompted to be filled out and submitted.
Or there could be another use case wherein a field executive needs to visit multiple customer locations and fill out questionnaires at every single location.
Here, once your field executive checks out from one location and checks in to the next location, the next scheduled questionnaire will be prompted to be filled out by the next customer.
Overcome Your Field Challenges with LionOBytes!
Depending on your different field service operations, your field service challenges can also be different. Moreover, you may require reinforcing your growing field operations. Thus, this is the time when you need to implement a new system or upgrade your system capabilities.
All you need to share your field service challenges that are interrupting your current business growth. At LionOBytes, we can help you overcome challenges in your field service operations by upgrading your system capabilities with LionO360 Field Service Management. Talk to our experts to overcome your field service business challenges.
