by Tiffany Kaiser | Oct 17, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
Our recent post on best practices for evaluating field service technicians sparked so much discussion in a handful of LinkedIn groups that we culled together some of the highlights from a few folks around the industry: On-the-Job Evaluations Philip Blakemore, a...
by Sean Lyden | Oct 16, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Fleet managers, write this down: A single commercial van with an effective exterior “wrap” operating within a major city can generate up to 16 million visual impressions per year, according to an oft-cited study from the American Trucking Association....
by | Oct 12, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
Every week we run across dozens of interesting news items, blog posts, tweets, white papers, market data and trends — all tied to field service in one way or another. We don’t have time to cover them all, so we’re starting this weekly roundup to help...
by Tiffany Kaiser | Oct 11, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
Asplundh Tree Expert Co., a nationwide clearance-services company, manages over 16,000 fleet trucks but has no permanent garages — relying entirely on overnight parking lots near job sites. So how does it keep track of its nationwide fleet and ensure trucks are...
by Ian Stewart | Oct 10, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
The go-to technology for everything from wireless inventory tracking and logistics to counting casino chips — radio-frequency identification, or RFID — is stepping up to help service businesses manage more complex equipment and maintenance operations. Computer servers...
by Ian Stewart | Oct 9, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
Customers’ biggest complaint: waiting for a service technician, or worse, having a tech arrive late. It’s a failure of smart scheduling, route optimizing and dispatching, back-end organization, and, most importantly, customer service. How do you avoid this...
by Marisa Wong | Oct 8, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight, Strategy & Leadership
Friday marked the end of National Customer Service Week, and it was no less applauded than on Twitter. CEOs, service representatives and customers alike weighed in on what makes for top-notch customer service. [View the story “The Key to Customer Service? The...
by Ian Stewart | Oct 5, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
We’ve covered Machine-to-Machine and remote monitoring technologies and how they’re reshaping the way manufacturers and service organizations deliver maintenance. But M2M tech can get complex pretty quickly. Mobile Enterprise published a white paper this...
by Ian Stewart | Oct 4, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
Nearly 40 percent of field service organizations say they don’t have a clue what their service techs are up to out in the field. That’s according to a survey of 120 service management professionals conducted by Service Management Magazine. Asked about the...
by Ian Stewart | Oct 4, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
It’s one part field service, one part Lumberjack World Championship, and one part X Games. Ladies and gentlemen, the 29th Annual International Lineman’s Rodeo is about to descend on Bonner Springs, Kansas. The Lineman Games test apprentice and journeyman...
by Tiffany Kaiser | Oct 3, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
Tablets have quickly turned from personal media consumption tools to business workhorses, with stronger computing power and more and better business-related apps. Just how is the field service industry benefitting form the tablet revolution? Here’s a look: Cost...
by Darren Weiss | Oct 2, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Keeping employees motivated and engaged is a tough task in the office. Doing the same for the field service workforce is that much harder — and just as important. Leadership expert and author Kevin Eikenberry blogged recently about ways to keep front-line workers in...
