To Ensure Adoption, Frontline Buy-in Is Crucial

Frontline teams are unique from the rest of the organization as they don’t work from a computer at a centralized office. Instead, they work out in the field and directly with customers on a regular basis. As the customer-facing component of your company, they have incredible insight into what delights as well as frustrates customers and can often pinpoint company weaknesses well before those back at the office.

It’s critical that frontline workers leave a positive impression on customers, and one essential part of that is ensuring that proper processes and technology are in place to enable them to succeed. As the digital transformation ripples through deskless industries, executives are making big changes to keep up with the competition and prepare for the future.

In doing so, many companies are forgetting an important step. When considering changes that will affect your frontline, you need to bring those workers into the conversation. C-suite executives have been known to purchase software without ever consulting the very people who will have to use it day in and day out.

This often leads to frustration and more importantly, a lack of adoption. To avoid buying enterprise software that doesn’t meet the needs of end-users, and consequently, never gets used, consult with your frontline workers. Find out which features could make their jobs easier, which features could be frustrating or burdensome, and how they envision using software to improve their workflow.

By listening to their needs, you can ensure you’ve found the right tool and bypass push-back when it comes time to roll out the software. Employees, no matter which part of the business they work in, want to feel valued and heard. For leaders, it’s a win-win to bring deskless workers into the fold when making decisions that affect their workday.

One-Size Doesn’t Fit All

The day in the life of a deskless worker is quite different than that of an office worker. They need mobile-first tools that are streamlined and user-friendly. There’s a reason that rampant consumer messaging app usage is such a problem — easy-to-use enterprise apps simply haven’t been built for this segment of the workforce.

Emergence Capital’s latest research found that only 1 percent of the $300 billion spent annually on software venture capital goes toward technologies for deskless workers. With deskless workers making up 80% of the global workforce, that’s a problem. As one of few technology vendors creating technology specifically deskless workers, we’ve seen first-hand how significant of an impact this kind of technology can make.

With ServiceMax Zinc Real-Time Communication, field service technicians, utility crews, hotel staff and more are more productive and engaged at work than ever before.

Most recently, DISH rolled out Zinc to its thousands-strong frontline field team. After testing different solutions and getting input from technicians on the best one, DISH chose Zinc as the solution to power real-time communication among field teams and their support centers. In addition to improvements in key business metrics, such as job duration, DISH has seen a boost in employee engagement and team camaraderie since deploying Zinc.

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ABOUT Kristen Wells

Kristen is the senior manager of corporate communications at PTC and editor of Field Service Digital. She is passionate about elevating the stories of women in field service and improving communication between the field and the office. Prior to ServiceMax, Kristen held content marketing roles at startups such as Zinc and cielo24. Kristen holds a B.A. in Communication with an emphasis on Professional Writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara.