Today’s individual economy drives customer expectations for higher levels of engagement, communication, and transparency during field service appointments. Keeping the customer informed of their appointment details and real-time location, sharing a live map view and ETA countdown improves first-time access rates. Connecting customers with support channels allows for personalized marketing offers.
Customers love knowing exactly when the technician will arrive. Instant feedback collection enables repeat business and empowers customers to become social advocates. Relieving customer stress and anxiety during every step of the appointment process reduces customer care costs increasing speed time to revenue.
Connection efficiencies in field services leads to happier, more informed and satisfied field service customers who are less likely to cancel their contract or service, less likely to miss an appointment and less likely to inundate customer support channels looking for answers or apologies. Customers benefit from a less stressful experience and field and customer care teams complete work more efficiently.
Forrester found that 73% of consumers say valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good customer service. Our ICurve data shows that customers don’t like to wait. Many logically understand the impossibility of predicting highly variable field services with precision and so it’s more often a lack of communication that is driving the negative customer experience.
A study conducted by Harvard Business School asserts that customer satisfaction is based on transparency and letting your customers see that you are working on their behalf. When iPads were installed so that restaurant chefs could see their customers and customers could see them too, customer satisfaction went up 22%, and the chefs worked 19% faster. One chef reported, “When [the customers] can see us [make their food], they appreciate it, and I appreciate that. It makes me want to improve.”
The evidence is clear: Operational transparency can fundamentally reshape the ways customers understand, perceive, and engage with the organisations that serve them.
More stats of interest
- 51% of customers say that their biggest frustration is failure of technicians to show up on schedule
(Trimble’s Field Service Index) - 89% of customers are willing to pay more for shorter service time windows
(CSG Index) - 49% of consumers would switch vendors due to poor customer service
(NewVoiceMedia) - This number increases for 25 - 34-year-olds, where 62% of consumers have switched to another business because of subpar customer service.
(NewVoiceMedia)
Verizon Connect Survey, January 2019 US
Time is top of mind for consumers when it comes to service events, and 65% of respondents cited viewing their service provider’s estimated time of arrival (ETA) as the most important feature on a service provider’s mobile app. The survey also notes that 32% want to see their provider’s live location on a map.
The survey says that consumers also listed notifications of job status (54%), viewing online billing (44%), rating and reviewing their service provider (41%), appointment rescheduling (34%) and the ability to make on-the-spot payments (30%) as important features of a service provider mobile app.
Localz is making the day of service awesome with a real-time location platform and solutions; we’re powering proactive notifications, customer-facing “on my way" trackers, two-way communications and an easy to use mobile app that is popular with technicians.