Knowing the KPIs to measure in field service can be difficult. A good place to start is with your service delivery and customer service. Here are 5 key KPIs to measure.

For a field service operation to thrive, service managers need to have a firm grip on how their field operations are performing at all times.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can help companies understand how aspects of their operations are performing over a period of time, but then there is the question of what you do with that information.

Reporting of these KPIs should allow service organisations to review their performance metrics and act where improvement is needed – to provide better customer service, for example, to make technicians more productive, or to reduce business costs.

KPIs in field service can be wide-ranging in terms of what they are attempting to measure, and what they tell you about the operation.  As a result, it can be difficult to decide on which ones to focus your efforts.  Clearly, not every organisation has the same requirements, and KPIs will, and should, vary depending on the nature of your business, the service level agreements in place, and the company’s goals or targets. We believe that a good starting point for service managers is to focus on service delivery - efficiency and customer service – as these have a direct impact on each other. For example, if you focus on first-time fix rates then you will likely become more productive (due to increased number of service calls) and profitable (only one visit per customer per fault), while also increasing those all-important customer experience metrics.

Listed below are our top 5 KPIs, that we believe service organisations should be measuring today, and we’ve given our top tips to help you meet them.  Of course, each business will need to think about the applicability, relevance and relative importance of each KPI to their organisation, but if you are covering these off, you should have a very informative view of your operational performance:

1.    First Time Fix Rate
Do you know how often your technicians resolve a customer’s problem on the first visit? If you do, it not only helps you to understand your field technician’s productivity levels but also how long it takes employees to complete certain jobs which will allow you to identify where problems occur and what steps you can take to fix them. Sending a technician to the same customer site multiple times is inefficient and can cost thousands of pounds a year. It is important to remember that first-time fix rates have a direct impact on your customer satisfaction metrics too. The most common reason for a re-visit is the field service technician not having the correct tools, parts or skills to fix the issue.
Our Top Tip: To improve your first-time fix rate, use field service software to enhance the visibility of inventory, better match technician to a job, improve dispatch and facilitate collaboration between field teams.

2.    Average Travel Time
By identifying where routing can be more efficient and reducing the amount of travel allows field workers to spend more time on productive work, tackling more work orders and resolving issues faster.  You should track the average time it takes to get from site to site, the average distance that your technicians are driving and the average cost; such as fuel costs and the wear and tear on vehicles.
Our Top Tip: Field Service Software with GPS can schedule the closest, most qualified technician to a work order to reduce travel time, distance and cost.

3.    Technician productivity
Knowing how productive your field techs are, can help to identify if more training is required; if more technicians are needed or even possibly whether the team should be restructured. Measuring which technicians resolve issues the quickest or which tasks take the longest to complete can help you to identify issues, such as if enough time has been allocated for a particular job.  Measuring the number of jobs your technicians complete in a day gives you a critical metric for planning future job allocations. By measuring the time, a technician is on-site vs their working hours can show where resources could be better assigned.
Our Top Tip: An all in one field service management system can help to improve the productivity of your field teams by eliminating paper and data duplication and improve team communication.

4.    Customer Satisfaction
This is one of the most important (if not the most important) KPI to measure. Field service operations rely on satisfied customers for future growth and profit and need to use customer satisfaction and experience as a differentiator in order to excel. According to an Aberdeen Research report, companies that have a high level of customer satisfaction also have an 89% customer retention level and experience a 6.1% growth in service revenue and a 3.7% growth in overall revenue.
Our Top Tip: Understand what it is that your customers really value and then organise your operations to focus on those aspects.  Ensuring you react quicker and more flexibly to issues that really matter to customers can put you way ahead of the competition.  Field service software can help you to organise yourself around key business rules and priorities.

5.    SLA Compliance
Service Level Agreements or SLAs are common within field service, generally addressing response time frames, appointment windows, resolution speed, as well as scope and quality. SLA compliance is important for several reasons, for example, it can highlight an issue within the field service business (such as an error in scheduling technicians). SLA compliance directly impacts your customer service which can lead to a larger customer churn and missed SLAs will often incur penalties which will directly affect your bottom line.
Our Top Tip: Ensure everyone in the field service team is aware of customer SLAs.  By equipping your field technicians with a mobile field service app, they can always access the SLA information for every customer they visit.

If you are using (or thinking of investing in) a field service management system that has analytical capabilities, then use this to your advantage and generate reports regularly to measure the KPIs that you set.  Share the reports with your team, to keep everyone in the loop and motivated to improve continuously.

Without a doubt, new field service technologies have made it easier to track and measure field service KPIs.  These technologies have given service managers the ability to set goals, track performance and make informed decisions to improve their overall field service. But more than just giving you access to the information, a truly optimised field operation will result from paying attention to the actions required when things aren’t working as well as they should. To do that, you need a clear view of past and current performance, customer expectations and field force capacity/capability. This holistic perspective is what will take you from average to excellent.