How To Make Your Field Workforce Truly Mobile

How To Make Your Field Workforce Truly Mobile

by Jen Cohen Compton

From utility and telecommunications professionals, to engineers, retail associates and professional services, field workforce personnel are more than just what you think of in terms of a typical cable person. Field service professionals can work in a variety of industries and because of their offsite work style, going mobile can do more than just provide convenience.

According to the predictions of industry experts, technicians with wireless access to a formal packaged field service management solution in a large enterprise will increase to approximately 50 percent by the end of 2013. This observation is largely based on the spectrum of benefits that accompany CRM and Work manager mobile apps that can reduce costs, boost service levels, and increase service revenue.

If you’re thinking of deploying a Field Service Mobile Strategy, here are ten questions to ask that will help you know if you should make the leap.

• Do you have a portion of your workforce working outside of the office?

• Does your out-of-the-office workforce need to communicate with the back office for projects and service delivery?

• Do your field workers ever get lost or need assistance finding job sites?

• Do your field service workers need to report their time and travel, and submit expense reports?

• Is your field service profitability affected by the rising costs of fuel and/or vehicle maintenance?

• Could your field service workforce benefit from collaboration with those in the office and other field service workers?

• Would specific data collected onsite at projects be helpful to improve your business functions or bottom line?

• Do you need to quickly document projects and provide documentation to the office and end-user?

• Do you currently use a customer relationship management tool (CRM)?

• Would you like to collect instant feedback from clients and completed projects?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may have an urgent need to support your field service workers with a mobile strategy and full-service solution.