How did your mobile workers respond to the idea of deploying a fleet management solution? Did you run into any challenges, and if so, how did you handle them?

Well, there was a lot of skepticism involved, especially with some of the older drivers that we have in our fleet. Not being familiar with smartphones, many of them scoffed and said, ‘This awful, this is terrible, I’d rather write out the ticket like I always have.’ The younger drivers were a little bit skeptical, but they knew how to use the phones.

The older drivers got used to it. Some of them complained about the buttons being too small, so I got a stylus for every driver to use, so they can tap on the keys easier.

There was a little bit of concern about the location tracking. The field is growing and moving so fast, it’s hard for the map companies to keep up with the new roads. Every month there are new lease roads created for new wells that aren’t mapped yet. It’s gotten better. The companies are pretty good about getting us GPS coordinates, and by having those the drivers have been able to get to the locations with less difficulty.

This Q&A was previously published on Field Technologies Online, and is reposted here with permission.

The post Love It or Hate It? What Mobile Workers Think About Fleet Management appeared first on SmartVan.

But heads up, killjoys. Field service could be just one of several industries Google Glass will impact in the years ahead — and unlike office-bound professions, field service is better suited to put the device to work in more immediate and practical ways.  Gadi Eichhorn at Realise Data Systems – a U.K.-based field service technology firm — offered his take on how that might break down. Here are some additional insights for service managers to consider:

Better Training, Monitoring & Research

What makes Google Glass so cool — and so scary for privacy and security watchdogs — is its voice-activated video-recording capability. It’s intended to allow for hands-free video recording anywhere and at anytime. For field service, however, this will vastly improve training, writes Eichhorn. Service techs will be able to create training videos based on real encounters in the field. Video will also allow field service outfits to monitor employees’ work and conduct research and development, he says.

Live Support & Remote Collaboration

Next, Eichhorn predicts that the ability to use Google+ Chat through Google Glass will enable field techs to contact HQ from anywhere. Google Glass combined with Google+ Video Chat will also allow technicians who encounter an unexpected problem at a customer site to reach out to other company experts and, if necessary, receive step-by-step instructions on the proper fix remotely.

Fail-Safe Directions & Fewer Fines

Google Glass promises to deliver 3-D directions, literally, right before your eyes. This should reduce missed turns and other driving errors that can cost service organizations time and money. Hands-free GPS will also allow techs to call company dispatchers without losing track of where they are going or breaking traffic laws.

Self-Service & Remote Repairs

These areas may just be the beginning of the changes in store for field service, courtesy of Google Glass. Think about it: how could a hands-free, all-encompassing device for repairs not be a hit in an industry that is, by definition, totally hands-on? Customers could receive step-by-step repair instructions talking with a remote service tech via video chat. The cost savings could be enormous.

Better yet, what if a Google Glass-wearing customer could show a technician the precise problem before an on-site visit? Given the need to improve ‘first-time-fix’ rates and to always focus on enhancing customer service, the answer to the question of whether Google Glass is good for field service seems obvious.

The post Google Glass in the Field? No Joke — 5 Ways It Could Impact Your Business appeared first on SmartVan.

But his opinions touched off a nerve with some service techs, notably Scott Molinari, general manager of Germany’s Adduco Digital e.K. who argued passionately that in-house technicians give service outfits an incomparable advantage. Others read their debate here and weighed in.

We thought it would be useful to recap the discussion and let you decide which hiring model works best. First up: Cannone’s claim that independent contractors are an increasingly attractive option for companies looking for more flexibility in their staffing. With temporary workers, companies don’t have to spend the time and money, hiring, rehiring and retraining full-time workers, says Cannone. Instead, they can adjust their staffing levels according to current customer demand, thereby achieving a better balance between revenues and expenses.

It didn’t take long for Molinari to counter. In Molinari’s eye, there’s a high price to pay with the “rent-a-tech” model – in terms of time, professionalism and competitive advantage – and that too many service firms fail to recognize the return on investment in their technician workforce. “The service team is the cherry on your (hopefully) high-quality product pie land to make sure that cherry is really sweet,” insisted Molinari, “you must invest in your service team and stop looking at them as costs.

Cannone offered a rebuttal, in which he one more highlighted the benefits of outsourcing. But he also noted that neither model is “superior.” In fact, he argued, many companies are blending the two methods to create an optimal workforce, he wrote.

Now cue the SmartVan community. “John,” wrote that Cannone and Molinari both make good points, but that both models work depending on the company and its specific culture and needs. He then described which model works best for different types of businesses.

Tell us what you think. If you are a field service operator, how are you hiring these days. If you’re a service tech, do you prefer the flexibility of the independent-contractor model or does full-time employment work best for you? Post a comment below.

The post Reader Roundtable: Hiring Contractors vs. Full-Time Technicians appeared first on SmartVan.

A New Zealand-based electricity distributor, Counties Power, is reportedly looking into the use of drones, a.k.a. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for emergency repairs. When power poles and telephone lines are damaged, the need for a rapid response is critical. Counties Power isn’t looking at mid-air repair jobs using laser beams; rather it is contemplating the use of drones for aerial images so that techs arrive on the scene of a disaster debriefed on the fix required and armed with the necessary equipment.

The payoff: faster restoration of power and minimal damage control. ”We thought it was a bit ‘pie in the sky’ at first, but now we’ve looked into it we’ll probably do it,” said Richard Deihl, systems development manager of Counties Power.

As an example, Deihl cites a car crashing into a power pole. “We could launch the drone, send it to the GPS coordinates of the pole, have it circle around, take pictures and video and send them back well before anybody could get out there,” said Deihl.

The post Coming Soon: Drones Working in the Field? appeared first on SmartVan.

The survey backs more evidence that the field service sector is growing aggressively. In March, U.S. employers added 221,000 more field service jobs than it did in the year-ago period — making it one of the hottest hiring categories in the United States. The unemployment rate in the sector — an enviable 4.8 percent in March.

Service Calls as New Business Generators

It’s hardly news to us that field service is a critical component of any organization. Techs don’t just fix equipment; they are valuable revenue drivers and the most visible face of a company. Some 73% of the business leaders surveyed by Forrester said “acquiring and retaining customers” was No. 1 on their to-do lists for 2013.

And who plays a pivotal role there? You got it: service techs. We can rather easily connect the desire to acquire and retain customers and the resulting investment in sales, customer service and field service. Companies are viewing these departments as the best way to achieve their goals.

The link between mobile investments and field service is another no-brainer. With efficient, easy-to-use mobile tools, service techs can do their jobs faster and cheaper — all while impressing customers. With the right mobile tools at hand, service techs can tap new revenue streams that are out-of-reach to all other departments. It appears companies are finally realizing this and are more willing than ever to invest the money necessary to make mobility pay off for them.

Do Forrester’s findings mirror what you see happening at your company? Is field service a top priority and, if so, why?

The post Survey: Field Service Software a Top Investment Priority for Global Execs appeared first on SmartVan.

I used to be a service technician and I’m now the General Manager and Owner of my own company and what Peter Cannone says is actually a mistake many companies make. I feel you should not “swap out” technicians for the sake of cost savings, especially when their work is on very technical products. Training technicians or service reps to be very good ones takes time and a decent amount of money and both are much better spent on your own “in house” technicians.

You Can’t Buy Loyalty

A “rent-a-tech” approach means when you first start with those “contractors,” time is often lost, professionalism is often lost and if you finally get them up to speed on your products or services, your invested capital in their knowledge could disappear overnight and even worse, to your competition — and this is a much greater risk than if you have your own good, well-paid and dedicated technician workforce. Sure, this could happen with your own technicians, but if you are dedicated to them and their accomplishments for the company, they are much more likely to be loyal to you, than the “rent-a-tech” guy or gal.

The real issue is — very few companies see the return on investment in their technician workforce and only see them as “costs.” That’s a very, very bad way of viewing the one team of people who see and deal with your customers directly the most! From my experience, the service team has, on average, about 60% more customer contact than both the sales and marketing teams combined — who, by the way, too often get much more money to get their jobs done. With 60% more contact, the service team has a much greater impact on your customer relationship, than anyone else.

Yes, there is a cost to having a good service workforce. But the cost does yield a great return. It is the “Wow!” effect customers get, should your product just happen to have broken or need maintenance for the first time and they get quick and professional service from your service team. The service team is the cherry on your (hopefully) high-quality product pie and to make sure that cherry is really sweet, you must invest in your service team and stop looking at them as costs.

It’s Not About Cost Savings

I believe the “let’s just rent some techs” comes from a fallacy many managers have with setting goals. I feel that financial numbers (such as costs) are results and not goals. But, much too often they are used as goals — as in, “We need to lower costs by 10% this year.” I used to get a chill down my spine when I heard lowering costs as a “goal.” I think this kind of goal setting happens because managers may not have any other ideas about what else to concentrate on — and since most costs are hard facts on paper, they’re the easiest to try to change or improve.

But, in fact, there are other actions and factors that can be dealt with, which will lower costs and they should be the goals — like actually investing in the service team’s technical knowledge, so they have better one-time repair rates (an important service KPI by the way). Technicians traveling much less often to solve problems mean lower costs.

Oh, but wait — training technicians costs more money… right?

Well, you should always strive to achieve goals, which will mean happier customers, who will then be very satisfied with your service performance, which will lead to better customer relationships, which will inadvertently lead to more sales, which means more success for your business. That is the right direction. Unfortunately, a lot of managers have a hard time putting their finger on those customer oriented goals and that is why the main goal — a happy customer — usually gets lost in the “results.”

Think About Your True Goals

Ask yourselves these questions the next time you set a business goal around your service workforce. Ask yourself, “Will this impact my customer base positively, if we achieve the goal?” Then ask yourself the next question, “Will this impact my workforce positively, if we achieve this goal?” If the answer is “no” to both of the questions, the goal you’ve just come up with won’t be a useful to anyone who really matters and thus, you end up making unsound decisions, like renting technicians in the name of “cost savings.”

The post Why the ‘Rent-A-Tech’ Model Fails in Field Service appeared first on SmartVan.

Aberdeen’s Field Service 2013: Workforce Management Guide further reveals that 25% of all service calls aren’t resolved on the first visit, and some not even on the second.  And of course, that’s a costly oversight — the need to dispatch field techs a second or third time adds an estimated $200-$300 in operating costs per visit. In a larger service organization with 100 added calls per year, that’s a whopping $25,000 slashed from the bottom line.

Added service calls can also wreak havoc and disrupt successful service with other clients and jobs — forcing cancellations and the like. The lesson here? The study shows that field organizations that can hit an 80 percent first-time fix rate for clients saw 6.5 percent boost in service revenues over the previous 12 months, while those that didn’t only gained an extra 1.6 percent.

What can your organization do to clean up this costly act? Here are three basic strategies to consider:

1. Get the Right Parts to the Right Job

The top reason that hinders field technicians from a “first time fix” is unavailability of parts, which causes 51 percent of second or third visits.

2. Train Your Techs to Handle the Task

Lack of experience and training to resolve customer issues is another achilles heel of field service — 25 percent of second and third visits can be traced back to inexperience.

3. Be on Time

This is the cardinal sin of field service. No surprises here, either: 13 percent of second and third visits were caused by technicians running out of time needed to complete the task.

The post Is Your ‘First-Time-Fix’ Rate Killing Your Business? appeared first on SmartVan.

Once your business has identified the most important metric for tracking your fleet, you can make effective improvements to the areas of your choice, including but not limited to: delivery times, operation costs, and safety.

Routing Data

When you have one driver, one truck, and one delivery location, you may be able to work out the most efficient route from point A to point B, on average. You may even be able to determine which route is most efficient during the morning rush hour as opposed to the mid-afternoon. However, once you start adding in more trucks, more drivers, and more routes, the work necessary to analyze all of your incoming data can take up the entirety of your time. These multiple streams of information coalescing within a single system have come to be known by the term “big data.”

Your GPS fleet tracking system automatically tracks the routes your drivers take to get from point A to point B and collects several different types of data: delivery time, speed, distance fuel usage, and idle time, to name a few. When analyzing these analytics, you can find the A to B route that is the fastest, the shortest, or the one that uses the least amount of fuel.

• This knowledge can help you plan your routes according to the needs of the day – making the most number of deliveries possible, saving the most fuel, or a mix of both depending on the time of day and multiple other factors.
• You can also plan and test new routes for your deliveries and see how they stack up against the ones you’re already using.

Driver Records

GPS fleet tracking software isn’t limited to tracking the movements and routes of your vehicles – it also helps you schedule, monitor, and assess your drivers more effectively.

• Time and attendance: The system tracks when your drivers begin and end their delivery routes, and how long they are asleep, pulled over, or sitting idle. Upon comparing this data to your drivers’ time sheets, you can determine who is over- or under-reporting their hours. You can then make changes to your processes to ensure everyone is being paid accurately – and that your business isn’t losing money to time fraud.
• Driver efficiency: The analytics can determine which drivers are the most productive. This can be a hard assessment to make without the big data provided by your tracking software, because driver efficiency can become confused with the efficiency of the routes they are assigned. Your software can pull apart the data and give you an accurate assessment of your driver’s performance – independent of the routes that they are assigned to.

 Fuel Usage

As indicated above, your fleet’s fuel usage is another important factor to monitor, especially when gas prices rise. Your fuel economy is determined by several different elements: the physical efficiency of your individual vehicles, the driving practices of your employees, and the quality of your driving routes. Each one will have an effect on your overall fuel usage and costs.

• Therefore, making improvements in your route planning and driver behavior will result in comparable improvements in your fuel economy. When your fuel economy does not increase despite the above changes, this is indicative of a need to assess your vehicles for maintenance and repairs.  In this way, you fleet tracking software can augment or even replace your CMMS software.

The data used by your fleet tracking software is extensive, and attempting to perform the same analyses with manual spreadsheets is simply not possible in a fleet greater than one. Make sure your software is tracking the right route, driver, and fuel metrics to help you make improvements to your business’s operations and processes. More on fleet management on SmartVan.

Megan Webb-Morgan is a business blogger for Resource Nation, an online B2B lead generation company. You can follow Resource Nation on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Leverage Big Data for Streamlined Fleet Tracking appeared first on SmartVan.

With so many new fleet management technologies to choose from, how can you know which one is right?

The best way is to integrate what exists already, which is a challenge because a lot of emerging technologies are available for customers. It’s hard, in many cases, for customers to understand the boundaries between software packages. For example, we’re a SaaS company that does GPS-based vehicle tracking. When we get leads, some people think we do work-order management or dispatching. It’s often difficult for customers to see the line between those because they have needs across software boundaries.

Todd Ewing

Integration is a key consideration. Seeing vehicles’ locations in the context of work orders, and comparing the objective GPS information to the information coming out of a work order management system, for example, is very helpful. If planning out for hundreds or thousands of work orders, objective foundational data is needed to determine how long that work takes. For industries such as field service where work orders are somewhat standardized by type, it’s important to leverage objective information as the foundation.

What’s your advice to fleet or operations managers who aren’t using GPS tracking or other technologies?

The best advice I’d give somebody is to definitely get a system in place. But as you’re installing it, prioritize the issues you want to solve. There’s a lot of information in these systems, and it can be a fire hose. You could sit in front of your computer all day and say, “Wow, you should really slow down,” or “Why were you idling?” That’s where the system can turn negative.

People who manage a fleet system well focus on one item at a time. They might focus on idle time, for example, and really develop coaching and positive incentives around that and then move onto something else the next quarter. The people who do this well have a plan to effect the most change.

How important is it for customers to not only focus on specific goals, but to integrate with other systems?

The best solution for customers is to identify the experts and integrate them so they get a best-in-class system. We’ll get to the point over the next few years where there will be so much relevant data, and if it’s siloed, it will be really ineffective. That’s why the trend toward integration will become more and more obvious. People will see these data points in different systems and realize they need to be married for it all to make sense. The choices are either to buy best-in-class systems in each area and integrate them, or accept a system that is good at one thing and tries to do another. That doesn’t work well.

It’s tough for customers because there is technology coming at them from all angles right now. A mistake that I’ve seen made is that people try to put out a monster project to turn everything around. It slows everything down, and you end up not doing anything. Indecision or delay is a big enemy.

These systems need to work together, which is why people need to make vendor selections around integration capability and flexibility. Start where you can identify revenue and cost most easily — even if the system isn’t perfect. I could dream up an amazing back office where everything’s perfect, but it’ll be four years before we get there, and we’ll lose a lot of money in the process. Take it one step at a time and accept that it will be incremental.

The post Fleetmatics’ Todd Ewing: How to Give Your Fleet a Tech Upgrade appeared first on SmartVan.

New hubs of expertise

“Enterprise mobile has turned the usually isolated, individual field technician into a collaborative hub of problem-solvers ready to delight the customer, whether that’s a global supplier of everyone’s favorite soft drink or the world’s leading manufacturer of medical devices for treating cancer.”

New channels for revenue and profit

“If you want to get down to the biggest impact of this new mobile-driven empowerment, in plain terms, it’s money. Not only in the form of better customer retention (think of the attrition that results from a sloppy and disorganized field tech), but also through on-the-spot invoicing … or upselling and cross-selling opportunities.”

New stature for neglected businesses

“For the first time we see this humble white van-based activity talked about in the C-Suite and given attention in the IT budget. The empowerment gains and ability to impact the bottom line have elevated the operation and, with it, the ground-level fix-it guys, to new heights.”

Read more at VentureBeat. 

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