Don’t Touch That Dial, Salesforce Makes Field Service Coordination A Breeze

Nowadays, everything is automated. We can speak to our phones to do everything from setting an alarm, searching the internet or even to adjust the temperature of our home. This was not always the case.

Television became widespread in the mid-and-late-1940s. But it wasn’t until the mid-50s that the remote control saw development and use. That means for nearly a decade, those with TVs had to manually change stations.

The remote control was a leap forward because it allowed TV viewers to do something from afar that they traditionally had to do manually. In other words, it allowed them to adjust on the fly. As technology developed, just about any information a viewer might need — the time their favorite show airs, intended audience, program description — became available at their fingertips.

Despite the world becoming increasingly digital, there are still analog things that need tending — power lines, pipes, parking lots, landscaping. Adjusting such things on the fly used to be a hassle because they are difficult to manage remotely. But now, with Salesforce’s Field Service (formerly known as Field Service Lightning), adjusting on the fly and having all the needed information in a central place is easy.  

Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Field Service is a Salesforce add-on, and as the name implies, it allows managers to coordinate work that needs to be done out in the field. Typically, this work will be done by tradespeople like electricians or plumbers. With it, managing work orders or scheduling when a particular worker should show up to a job site is a snap because all the relevant information is in one easy-to-navigate hub.

Customer service agents can take work orders and assign jobs, based on relevant skills, to the right worker. Finding the right person for the job based on skills, location and any other rules specific to the business increases productivity. With Field Service, service agents can create work orders or adjust existing ones in real time in one place, giving more immediacy to resolving issues with jobs.

Furthermore, if some jobs require regular maintenance — be it monthly, yearly or quarterly — Salesforce will automatically schedule that maintenance promptly and without conflicts.

Channel Surfing

Service agents are able to manage orders by instantly viewing relevant articles or compliance requirements for the job. With just a click of a button, assigning the most immediately available qualified technician is a no-brainer.

Inventory tracking ensures that those assigned to the job have the tools they need. The same feature keeps track of bigger assets like trucks or even crews. Integration with Google Maps cuts down on confusion in finding the site, ensuring everyone is on the same page and knows what needs to be done.

With the Einstein Vision function, users can take photos from a mobile app to eliminate confusion about which part needs replacing and even gain access to step-by-step instructions for technicians.

With complex projects, communicating by phone or email may create lags because of the sheer volume of messages being exchanged. Field Service streamlines communication by corralling it into one central hub. This in turn cuts down on that lag, which means jobs get done faster. And that always makes customers happy.

And Now a Word From Our Sponsors

For Field Service to work correctly, it needs to have the correct data imported into it, also known as correct resource configuration. Knowing whether a company can field any given request requires it to understand its capabilities — how many available employees with what qualifications, what equipment is at its disposal and so on.

Field service operations are robust and complex. Making sure the correct data is imported and a company is keeping up-to-speed on any updates, licenses or changes to Salesforce can be a bit tedious, albeit necessary to keep quality of service high.

This is where an experienced partner comes in. An expert in Salesforce’s Field Service knows how to stay updated and work around things if something needs tweaking. So get Field Service and kick back on the couch — metaphorically, of course — and make managing field service work as easy as channel surfing.