by Ian Stewart | May 31, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
Your dishwasher stops working. Or maybe it’s the air conditioner. Or the cable box. What’s the first thing you do? It turns out this is a pretty complicated issue, actually. While the more DIY-inclined among us may immediately reach for a screwdriver and a...
by Darren Weiss | May 31, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
The home services market is getting a little more crowded these days, but the players getting into it aren’t the ones you’d expect. Recently Comcast and AT&T launched home automation services aimed at dominating home services on all fronts — a complete...
by Sean Lyden | May 30, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
In many cases, field service technicians make a company’s first impression on a customer — and that first impression goes a long way toward whether they’ll be repeat customers or not. If technicians put customers at ease with their professional appearance...
by Field Technologies Online | May 29, 2012 | Mobile & Tech
The following article first appeared in Field Technologies Online, and is re-published here with permission. For years, voice recognition technology has been used in conjunction with mobile technology in applications such as warehouse management where speech-based...
by Derek Korte | May 25, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Training is a topic we cover frequently, and one that’s a pain point for many service managers. But an abundance of free or inexpensive online tools and the increasing number of technicians carrying a mobile device can alleviate some of that pain. Below, we’ve...
by Ian Stewart | May 24, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
When does a repair call begin? Is it when a customer picks up the phone to dial customer support? Or is it when they first buy the product? Or does the service call actually start much earlier, when a customer first encounters your brand? For that matter, when does it...
by Sean Lyden | May 23, 2012 | Strategy & Leadership
For field service organizations, time is the most precious resource. There are only a certain number of technicians to serve customers and generate revenue, and a finite amount of hours in a week to do it in. So, when a client is abusive to your staff, fails to pay on...
by Darren Weiss | May 23, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Now you don’t have to be David Hasselhoff to be able to talk to your car. Nuance Communications, the folks behind Dragon Speech Recognition software, on Monday announced Dragon Drive, a voice-command software program for cars that lets drivers use a 3G or 4G...
by Corey Lewis | May 22, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
Kevin Benedict, a mobility blogger for Sys-Con Media, posted an interesting, short video about what he calls “field service velocity.” Basically, it’s an abstract term for how well an organization can coordinate the various competing factors needed...
by Field Technologies Online | May 21, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
The following post first appeared in Field Technologies Online, and is re-published with permission. Also, be sure to check out SmartVan writer Darren Weiss’ quote near the end! GPS, geo-positioning, and mapping applications have become increasingly common in...
by Corey Lewis | May 18, 2012 | Field Service Spotlight
A couple weeks back, we ran a pair of stories that started from discussions and presentations at the Service Council Executive Symposium in Chicago — one about empowering employees on the lower rungs of an organization, and another about the pain points of training...
by Ian Stewart | May 17, 2012 | Customer Experience
Every once in a while, it’s reassuring to know someone smart sees things the same way you do. Seth Godin, the best-selling marketing author, blogger, and founder of Squidoo, wrote on his wildly popular blog recently about the incredible position customer service...