Field service technicians are the face of any organization. So, after hiring and training a team of talented and qualified technicians, it’s imperative to the success of the host organization that they are equipped with the tools required to appear their best in the playground.
Twin features using Twilio
Customers have a wow experience when they use Doordash, Instacart, Lyft, Uber, or may other apps on their phone. This is mainly because they know the exact time when the services would be rendered to them and also can provide feedback on the encounter. After the pandemic year 2020, the bar is set high and these features are now considered a basic package. As a panel member for VOC (voice of customer) for Salesforce FSL in Q32020, I rated it as a #1 feature that delivers CX!
How is this accomplished? Well, Twilio provides a simple entry point into the telephony world, and helps your business avoid many of the traditional complexities. Developers can quickly get worldwide connectivity by interacting with Twilio using common internet protocols and simple markup.
Location sharing
The new Tech-Track feature, when enabled through the service provider’s mobile app, allows the customer to view the real-time location sharing of the technician’s route to the site. The recipient is then able to efficiently plan for the visit and ready for service.
The link may be delivered in a text message, an email, or embedded in the web portals used by customers. Tapping that link launches an interactive map and an interface that shows a photo of the technician, name, and other details about the service order. The map frequently updates his location and his estimated time of arrival (ETA). And more! The en-route technician will also be able to notify of any unexpected delay or schedule change.
Star rating
Sounds familiar….each of us have used this feature countless times. Soon after the service is delivered, a prompt appears “How did I do?” A star rating along with additional textual input allows organizations to derive simple yet powerful insights.
Field service technicians are aware of the power at the customer’s fingertips and ensure that customer is happy by the time service is completed. Organizations often recognize high performing technicians with a 5-star badge or a cash bonus! At the same time, the feedback may be used for identifying technician behavioral issues and mitigated using remedial training.
Analytics for betterment
The events collected on the mobile app when using Tech-track provides insights on time spent on travel. This data feed could be leveraged to dynamically re-route the technician to other jobs either by administrators or using AutoML.
The millions of lines of textual input from the 5-star ratings are classified into topics for sentiment mining. See my next article on NLP for more details.
Constraints
GPS tracking failure will occur when either the technician or the customer has no service on their mobile device. If customers live in rural America, this may happen often (possibly as much as 50% of the time). When this happens, the GPS locater displays the technician’s last transmitted coordinates, prior to the technician or customer losing service. It will update as soon as service is restored.
