Uberization: fad or fiction?

Field Service in the early decades of the twenty-first century is an increasingly tricky beast to tame. Customer expectations are hurtling forward at breakneck speed to what some companies view as almost impossible standards to reach. In the past things were expensive and people were cheap. Service was an afterthought as a way to support the sales of products. But now is the age of uberization with customer expectations of frictionless, transparent last mile communications.

Uber blew the ceiling off what last mile interaction should be. Their disruptive influence has had a massive ripple effect across industry verticals far, far away from mere private transportation – including field service.

Customer expectations 4.0

The customer of today is not only better informed than ever before, but via the widespread amplification of social media, more powerful also. With the power in their hands they are using technology to its advantage to demand better service experiences from every organisation they engage with. 

As poor customer service is costing businesses more than $75 billion a year it merits the question:

what exactly does service look and feel like today, and perhaps more importantly, how is it delivered?

Customer Experience 4.0 is the logical evolution of how we have connected with our customers historically:

CX 1.0 was an arrival knock on the door from the engineer - no communication at all. 

CX 2.0 was a direct mail notification of the engineer appointment.

CX 3.0 was disconnected SMS and email improved customer communication.

Many field service companies have still not embraced CX version 3.0 even today; such is the current poor state of last mile communications within field service. These methods of communication are already outdated as we move firmly into the fourth iteration of customer expectations of last mile customer communications – real-time mobile experiences.

‘The Radical Age of Uberization’

Localz worked with Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief of Field Service News, to create a paper digging into ‘The Radical Age of Uberization’ in the field service sector. 

Download to take a look at what the new challenges of modern field service are and how your organisation can adapt and thrive in this brave new world.