Comparative Analysis: Customer-Centricity, Technology in Field Service - Global Data and UK Data.
During 2021, Field Service News Research hosted a global study in partnership with HSO that was designed to understand the importance of customer service in field service operations and how the ability to drive improvements in customer success strategies is being empowered by technology.
The study spoke to a sample of over 280 field service leaders from a variety of different industry verticals including manufacturing, utilities, telecommunications, power generation, healthcare, med-tech, security and others.
With such a comprehensive base, the findings of the study allowed us to offer fresh insights on a global basis that built on the trends we have seen emerging across a number of studies, where we have seen a marked shift in the emphasis on the metrics which define success within field service operations.
Traditionally, the critical metrics within field service organisations have centred around operational success. KPIs such as Mean-time-to-Repair (MTTR), Technician Utilisation and First-Time-Fix (FTF) have always been at the top of any benchmarking study relating to this area.
However, increasingly across the last few years of undertaking such benchmarking studies, we have seen Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) metrics become widely cited as critical KPIs amongst field service organisations.
For example, in a previous study hosted by FSN Research, we noted that 51% of field service companies now saw an equal weighting in importance between operationally-focused KPIs and CSAT-focused KPIs. Furthermore, 13% of field service companies went further and stated that they felt CSAT focused KPIs were of greater importance for measuring their business success.
The purpose of our initial study earlier this year was therefore to place our fingers on the pulse of how these trends are continuing to evolve and to understand precisely what CSAT metrics are being tracked. At the same time, we also were also aware that the digital transformation journey our sector has been on for several years has been significantly accelerated due to the pandemic.
Indeed, there has been much discussion of what the new normal will look like for the field service sector.
However, the indicators apparent within numerous studies from FSN Research and beyond suggest many of the key trends that were emerging will be at the heart of our thinking as we move into the brave new world of the post pandemic field service operations.
Three of the key pillars of this future of field service are servitization, digital transformation and customer-centricity. Therefore, the second objective of the initial study was to better define the interplay between these three crucial areas.
Having completed this study on a global basis we wanted to return to the topic with a focus on the UK market. The reason for this was that the UK has been in an increasingly unique position within the last few years. It has always been a relatively mature market in terms of customer-centricity, service strategy and technology adoption. Additionally, post-Brexit the UK is becoming on one hand more isolated and on the other more autonomous in terms of market dynamics – something that has been exposed clearly as the pandemic swept across the world.
While it is important the politics of nations does not influence business decisions, this mix of circumstances makes the UK an interesting subject for further study, as these additional pressures and restraints could add further insight into the future development of forward thinking, customer-centric service design.
With this in mind we focused a second study solely on UK participants and spoke to an additional 130 field service leaders. In this report we will now compare the UK data to the global data.
Comparative Analysis: Customer-Centricity, Technology in Field Service - Global Data and UK Data.
During 2021, Field Service News Research hosted a global study in partnership with HSO that was designed to understand the importance of customer service in field service operations and how the ability to drive improvements in customer success strategies is being empowered by technology.
The study spoke to a sample of over 280 field service leaders from a variety of different industry verticals including manufacturing, utilities, telecommunications, power generation, healthcare, med-tech, security and others.
With such a comprehensive base, the findings of the study allowed us to offer fresh insights on a global basis that built on the trends we have seen emerging across a number of studies, where we have seen a marked shift in the emphasis on the metrics which define success within field service operations.
Traditionally, the critical metrics within field service organisations have centred around operational success. KPIs such as Mean-time-to-Repair (MTTR), Technician Utilisation and First-Time-Fix (FTF) have always been at the top of any benchmarking study relating to this area.
However, increasingly across the last few years of undertaking such benchmarking studies, we have seen Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) metrics become widely cited as critical KPIs amongst field service organisations.
For example, in a previous study hosted by FSN Research, we noted that 51% of field service companies now saw an equal weighting in importance between operationally-focused KPIs and CSAT-focused KPIs. Furthermore, 13% of field service companies went further and stated that they felt CSAT focused KPIs were of greater importance for measuring their business success.
The purpose of our initial study earlier this year was therefore to place our fingers on the pulse of how these trends are continuing to evolve and to understand precisely what CSAT metrics are being tracked. At the same time, we also were also aware that the digital transformation journey our sector has been on for several years has been significantly accelerated due to the pandemic.
Indeed, there has been much discussion of what the new normal will look like for the field service sector.
However, the indicators apparent within numerous studies from FSN Research and beyond suggest many of the key trends that were emerging will be at the heart of our thinking as we move into the brave new world of the post pandemic field service operations.
Three of the key pillars of this future of field service are servitization, digital transformation and customer-centricity. Therefore, the second objective of the initial study was to better define the interplay between these three crucial areas.
Having completed this study on a global basis we wanted to return to the topic with a focus on the UK market. The reason for this was that the UK has been in an increasingly unique position within the last few years. It has always been a relatively mature market in terms of customer-centricity, service strategy and technology adoption. Additionally, post-Brexit the UK is becoming on one hand more isolated and on the other more autonomous in terms of market dynamics – something that has been exposed clearly as the pandemic swept across the world.
While it is important the politics of nations does not influence business decisions, this mix of circumstances makes the UK an interesting subject for further study, as these additional pressures and restraints could add further insight into the future development of forward thinking, customer-centric service design.
With this in mind we focused a second study solely on UK participants and spoke to an additional 130 field service leaders. In this report we will now compare the UK data to the global data.
