by Darren Weiss | Sep 13, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
With all the latest talk of social technologies, online training, mobile integration, and cloud automation, it’s easy to lose track of what customers really want out of field service organizations: good service. What ticks customers off the most? John Ragsdale,...
by Derek Korte | Sep 12, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
Most businesses have a standard presence on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn these days, but how can field service organizations truly utilize social media to better serve their customers? The SmartVan spoke with the Bob Zukis, author of the upcoming book Social, Inc.,...
by Darren Weiss | Sep 11, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
A yearlong test will outfit 3,000 cars, trucks, and buses with Wi-Fi “vehicle-to-vehicle,” or V2V, equipment, allowing them to “talk” to one another and transmit information about location, direction, and speed. The hope is that this...
by Ian Stewart | Sep 10, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
Developing a solid training program offers field service organizations a lot more than just keeping everyone certified: It allows techs a way to improve both technical and “soft” skills, presents a way to advance in their careers, and, some studies say, is...
by Ian Stewart | Sep 7, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
A common issue facing field service organizations: How to keep a huge, remote, and disparate workforce up to speed on new product updates, releases, and best practices? Training remote techs can be challenging and expensive, especially when companies have to fly...
by Sean Lyden | Sep 6, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
We all know that surveys can be invaluable: They equip companies with metrics to evaluate and improve on performance, and streamline operations. The problem is, most customer survey programs out there tend to fall flat, producing very little useful data. So how do you...
by Ian Stewart | Sep 5, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Over half of field service organizations say they now operate as independent profit centers within their company, according to the preliminary findings of a new survey. The Service Council’s 2012 “The Role of Service Culture in Driving Service...
by Field Technologies Online | Sep 4, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
The following article first appeared on Field Technologies Online, and is excerpted here with permission. There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the role your service techs can play in your sales process. Some companies prefer to think of these roles as...
by Ian Stewart | Sep 3, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Turnover can be high in the field-service industry, largely because it’s a hard task finding someone who has technical aptitude, communication skills and can optimize a supply chain. But it’s not impossible to find the right employee, and smart hiring can...
