To get the customer satisfaction and ROI you’re hoping for, your customers need to be engaged in every step of the process before, during, and after service.
Field service isn’t just about showing up and completing a job — it’s about providing a positive overall experience, and that starts with customer engagement.
Customer engagement sometimes gets left out of the field service equation, but it’s actually the missing puzzle piece to the servitization equation. To get the customer satisfaction and ROI you’re hoping for, your customers need to be engaged in every step of the process before, during, and after service.
Refresher: What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement refers to the communication between a customer and the business from which they’re purchasing a product or service, at every stage of the process — from the time they book an appointment to after service is complete, and everything in between.
Field service examples of customer engagement include appointment reminders, two-way communication between the customer and the service provider, and collecting post-service customer feedback.
When customers are more engaged throughout the process, they tend to be more satisfied with the service they received — and higher customer satisfaction can have big benefits, like increased revenue, increased customer lifetime value, improved reputation, and decreased overhead.
What is servitization, and how does customer engagement fit in?
Servitization is a proactive approach to customer engagement. It’s the mindset that you’re selling not just products and services, but an experience.
Some of the most profitable, mature companies in the world have built their success on this approach — and customers are taking notice and raising their expectations for companies across all industries. For example, 94% of utilities executives believe that customers are increasingly comparing their experiences with those from service providers such as Uber, Lyft, or Amazon.
In other words, servitization is quickly becoming the status quo for customers, and they won’t accept anything less.
The goal of servitization is to provide top-notch customer service from start to finish. Therefore, for your business to achieve servitization, your customers need to feel engaged and heard throughout their experience — and for that, you need an effective customer engagement solution.
Incorporating customer engagement into your servitization strategy
In the case of field service, one way to enhance your servitization strategy is to leverage products like customer engagement software to keep your customers in the loop and ensure they feel supported and heard.
Here are just a few key features you should look for in a customer engagement solution:
- Automated appointment notifications, real-time ETA, and service tracking
- Two-way communication
- Post-appointment feedback capture
- Ample integrations with best-of-breed tools
When it comes to implementing customer engagement solutions, there are a few different options to consider. But in most cases, utilizing a comprehensive bolt-on solution is the most efficient way to go.
With a bolt-on customer engagement solution, you don’t have to start from scratch, build your own platform, or redo your whole tech stack. Some of these solutions, like Localz, are more seamless than you may think, and come with pre-built plug-and-play configurations so you can easily adjust the platform depending on your needs.
Conclusion
The bottom line is this: You can’t fully achieve servitization if you don’t include customer engagement in your strategy.
If you provide an outstanding experience with plenty of communication throughout the entire process, you’ll be rewarded with happier customers, a more streamlined workflow, and operational savings.
