I was struck the other day how challenging Coronavirus continues to be for the kinds of field service companies we work with. Critical maintenance and repairs are still being carried out on the UK's water, telecoms, energy and other network infrastructure. To keep energy flowing this means that  employees may need to visit properties and work in the road.

I know from experience of accompanying field engineers during their maintenance visits and indeed whilst observing a gas company working to repair a gas leak in my local area recently, that conditions are often far from ideal to allow for social distancing between field employees.

Network operators are currently focused on keeping customers and colleagues safe and of course keeping critical network services flowing, whilst also supporting the most vulnerable customers.

Engineers should look to avoid entering customer premises where possible. A large amount of the work can be completed outside and utilities are tending to follow the approach that they will not complete any work inside a customer property unless it would leave a vulnerable customer with no form of connection.

There is an evident challenge that certain types of infstrastructure, particularly telecoms, mobile broadband and fibre broadband networks are under strain as a result of greater home working across the UK and other countries. The UK Government has asked telecoms providers for example to continue extending and upgrading the network to rapidly add greater capacity and deliver more reliable broadband. Improving and upgrading the network will be a real benefit to home working staff right now, but it clearly puts more field workers out in the street needing to deliver work and potentially at greater risk of exposure to Covid-19.

In various service industries it's also worth noting that SLA commitments remain in place. In some industries, response times need to be even shorter due to the need to continue to deliver critical services. For example,  medical technology suppliers need to be able to resolve issues immediately to ease the pressure on medical professionals.

Companies also working with limited resources. Some technicians are sick or in isolation, while others may face severe travel or mobility restrictions. Fast implementation of new tools and technology is also important at this time to ensure that field workers are safe and able to do as much of their job as possible remotely.

Businesses will be familiar with conducting risk assessments and in some ways the risk of Covid-19 is no different. The risk of Covid-19 spreading should be assessed and appropriate control measures should be put in place.

The Health and Safety Executive is clear that employers should follow the relevant government guidance and this includes specific guidance published for specific industry areas including the transport, residential care, education sectors as well as for businesses more generally. Industry specific regulators have also published guidance for their particular companies. If this relates to you then please visit the relevant websites to take a look.

At this time trust and communication supported by thorough and robust safety protocols will be essential so that field services that need to keep delivering critical services can do so at a reduced level of risk to their staff and of course to their customers.

What to do next?

We'll keep writing blogs on topics that concern field service and operations during this critical time. Leadent Digital loves developing apps that transform customer experience and help you deliver a more frictionless service experience across all of your contact points and channels. Why not get in touch to find out how we can help at this critical time.