Don't forget mobile

With so much focus on disruption and delivering a superior digital experience, it can be really easy to overlook something obvious - mobile technologies and the experience that a user, customer or employee will have of the technology that's in their hand!

Customer service, and more importantly the customer experience, is becoming the objective for field service organisations. We all know that failure to put the customer first puts you at a competitive disadvantage. This is true of all areas of business but especially so for service-focused teams, where they require the best tools and information to deliver on service promises.

It’s very easy when dealing with technology to get caught up in cool new features and functions, however, these should be considered in the light of the importance to the customer experience.  

Let's just step back and consider some statistics:

• There are an estimated 2.7 billion smartphone users around the world
• In 2018, 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones.
• 78% of adults in the UK own a smartphone and 29% are exclusive mobile internet users. This amounts to approximately 12.5 million adults.
• There were around 194 billion app downloads in 2018 worldwide

‍‍As the above stats show, more people than ever before are using their mobile devices over traditional computers. It’s not a great leap to consider that customers expect the same level of engagement with mobile from their suppliers and retailers alike. A recent survey suggested that 44% of customers dislike waiting for a service technician to arrive and another 43% dislike being put on hold as they find it incredibly frustrating.

Towards a mobile CX strategy

A well thought out mobile CX strategy helps you to meet customer demands and to give them a successful service experience. Customers ultimately want precise job times, to be updated on their job’s progress, and to have a simple and straightforward way to book appointments.

Customers want to feel that an organisation understands their personal preferences by giving them options for how, when and why to communicate.

The good news is that there are solutions available to help you alleviate these frustrations, and when it comes to mobile solutions, the benefits that these solutions bring are plentiful.

Solutions that can help

Service organisations of all sizes must seriously consider investing in field service mobile and CX applications. Because, without these tools, empowering field workers to efficiently perform, providing real-time access to customer and job information and the ability to communicate with customers in real-time is a near impossibility.

Here are the most important elements we believe you should include in your mobile strategy to ensure that you keep your customers your number one focus.

Personalise the experience

‍By ensuring that your field technicians have access to all the information and history of both the customer and the work on their mobile device each customer can receive an experience tailored to their individual situation. Importantly the personal experience needs to be delivered in a consistent and frictionless way across you various interaction points and channels. Where customers interact with your organisation make sure it is tailored to their needs and use segmentation to reflect back clear service or sales information to them.

‍Provide real-time customer feedback

‍A quality mobile application can connect a customer directly with your business providing them with instant information. Your field workers communicate directly with customers, creating more precise ETAs and accurate wait times. Your customers can also communicate directly with their assigned field technician reducing the need for frustrating phone calls to your contact centre. This has the added benefit of reducing your cost of service delivery.

In addition there are amazing real-time tools like Merged Reality that lets your technicians provide real-time service, or give instant help to each other in the field. Merging two  real-time  video  streams allows one of your experts to virtually  reach out and touch what their service technician or customer is working on. This ability to be “hands-on” from a remote location accelerates and simplifies the way knowledge is exchanged and problems are solved.

Streamline communication

‍Mobile allows customers to receive job status updates, billing information or even ask questions in real-time without having to spend hours on hold. This makes communication easy, accessible and cost-efficient for both parties. Most field businesses we work with use applications like uBook to allow the customer to self-service their appointment and engage in a digital-first communication experience.

Use location in real-time

‍With today’s connected mobile solutions field employees no longer need to call the office to access the information that they need. They can have real-time instant access to work order information, parts availability and customer history. Some solutions also give employees the option to collaborate with a colleague if they require on-site assistance or advice. This enables your field teams to increase their first-time fix rate and increase your customer satisfaction.

Use technologies like On My Way to allow your customers to see all the information they need to know about their service appointment including the location of the technician visiting their home in real-time via their desktop or mobile device. On My Way is highly configurable, responsive, fully interactive and built with security from the ground up. It is designed to help reduce contact centre traffic, minimise wasted effort from customer no-shows and to deliver a more effective customer experience.

The key, when creating your strategy, is to demonstrate to budget holders, the importance that return on investment from technology - but specifically mobile technology - shouldn’t just be from how much you will save but also the impact and the value that the technology provides to your field service team, the organisation as whole, but most importantly your customers.