Field Service Management and Salesforce

Is it magic? No, it’s Field Service Management!

Imagine if you could know in advance your customer’s mood before you arrived on site?

How about knowing exactly where your team is working and, importantly, how far they have progressed in their work without one single phone call or text?

What about guaranteeing that your rep who fears heights will never get assigned a job beyond the 2nd floor?

It’s not magic, this is a reality, and it’s called Field Service Management (FSM).

Smart businesses managing physical assets out in the field are moving to digital operations, using Salesforce and Field Service Management. This data-driven approach allows them to better serve their customers, empower their workforce and drive profitability.

Field Service Management: A Case Study

Let’s take a look at a true story about a construction supply chain enterprise and how they are transforming their service operations with Field Service Management.

This business has a lot of big machines out on-site at all times. Above all else, they need their workforce to be able to quote for and service their customers while out in the field and deliver a great experience.

It all starts with a 360-degree view of the customer. No matter who is looking at the customer account, whether that’s the sales rep in the field, the service engineer on site, or the customer success team back at HQ, they all need to see the exact status of the account. That means location, equipment on loan, service history, quotes in the pipeline, and financial status..for starters.

Having Salesforce as the central point of data, AKA the single source of truth, means every single one of the business units is connected. That’s when the magic really begins.

No more phone calls from the engineer on site to HQ, asking for warranty information and/ or other equipment data. No more manual updating of job status into Smartsheet. No more cross-referencing map data with site addresses to determine the best deployment of resources across multiple locations.

Instead:-

• Engineers begin their day by downloading all the data and (virtual) ‘paperwork’ they need for their service visits, with a pre-planned route between locations to make the best use of their time.

• In combination with territory data, every service professional receives jobs they have the skills and experience to complete.

• No wifi on site? No problem. Everything they need is accessible offline, all to be updated as soon as they are back in a network.

• HQ needs an update? Already done. The engineers’ progress is logged directly back to Salesforce in real-time for the customer and/or team back at HQ to access at any time

• Need to know where the account is at with billing? It’s all there for those who need access.

There is more, though.

When every element of a customer relationship, every interaction, gets logged; every single important update on machine health and status; then things get even more magical. When everything is reportable, then patterns start to emerge. This kind of granularity is powerful.

• Is there a specific component that keeps faulting across the whole fleet?

• Is one of your service reps an absolute wizard when it comes to installing a specific component?

• Are there certain customers that could potentially lapse but would respond to a little TLC and a discount?

It’s all there in the data.

Making the commitment to a digital future is an undertaking not for the faint of heart, that is for sure! Implementing new technology presents real challenges, even with a great partner at your side. Your team will need to embrace new ways of working, and your customer will be engaging with you on brand-new channels. 

What is guaranteed, however, is that this is the most powerful thing that organizations can do to future-proof value. Today’s customer expects a seamless service delivery; to make this a reality, it all starts with a platform you can rely upon to house and effectively manage your data.

If you’d like to learn more about how Endiem works with the construction supply chain, please visit our industry-focused webpage here and browse our case studies.

Want more Salesforce expert content for machinery dealerships?

If you’d like to know more about how Salesforce can save time and cost with processes that scale, then take a look at our guide for Heavy Equipment dealerships.

Want to talk to Endiem about implementing excellent Salesforce solutions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.