Flex It, Smart It, Mine It: Delivering Greater Value in Field Service

The technician arrives at your home without the parts needed to do the work. The technician misses the appointment completely. The technician falls asleep on a customer’s couch! It’s the stuff of YouTube and the blogosphere, and we all have our own stories to tell.

Operators, in general, seem to be having trouble delighting customers. Forrester Research shows that customer satisfaction with Internet and TV service providers hovers just above 50% and lags behind every other industry in their research set.

Importantly, customer satisfaction trends lower among Generations X and Y, the very people adopting new technologies in the Connected Home. According to Forrester, in 2010, 46% of U.S. households were networked – up about 40% from 2009. The majority of U.S. households have Internet/Broadband, PCs, and HDTV. Add growth in eReaders, netbooks, and DVRs, and consumers’ demand for integrated services inside the home should increase – putting even more pressure on operators’ field service organizations.

I recently experienced a little of my own frustration with our Internet and TV service provider. My husband and I are expecting a baby, and we have to do some room shuffling in our house. Of course, this involves moving/installing some communications devices – namely the modem and phone line.

The whole experience got me thinking that it could have been even better for everyone...for us and the operator. Why?

1. The first available appointment was 4 days after my call.
2. They came late in the appointment window.
3. They were missing parts to complete the work, forcing them to leave and come back.
4. Once they finally left our house, we had to reconnect all of our devices – Blu-ray, printer, PCs, etc.

So, the operator did not fully satisfy us on 1, 2, and 3. On 4, they missed an opportunity to wow us and potentially make a little extra on a cross-sell. Indeed, operators’ legacy service delivery models may be the root cause of a lot of dissatisfaction and lost opportunities.

The problem is operators’ field service delivery models are not inherently built for flexibility. They may have limited availability of specialized technicians, limited hours potentially stipulated by collective bargaining agreements, mindsets closed to the art of the possible, and a need (albeit legitimate) to control costs. Would it surprise you that, according to Gartner, for one cable operator, 20% of their installations did not happen on time? Would it further surprise you, as it did one quad play, that because of their new service offerings the operator lacked the number of technicians required to complete work orders by 20%?

Operators need to re-vamp their views of field service delivery if they are going to come out of the customer satisfaction abyss and begin to take advantage of new revenue streams. There are a few concrete actions to consider:

1. Flex It. For example, some operators successfully supplement the existing field service team with outsourced providers and other field specialists.
2. Smart It. Be more aggressive in building a technician pool that can work in the Connected Home – the technicians become a profit center and growth engine. More Geek Squad, less transactional technician.
3. Mine It. Leverage social networking and the blogosphere to capture even more customer feedback.

Operators who recognize the need to transform field service delivery can help delight their existing customer bases and create a revenue opportunity. I would be among the first to take advantage.

Leslie Parker is a Principal within the Communications and High Tech Practice at A.T. Kearney.