Digital Transformation of Field Service Scheduling and Operations

May 24, 2021

Digital transformation is the process of introducing and incorporating digital tools into a business’s workflows and operations. The process is widely applicable and can modernize just about any area of a business, including customer success, sales, marketing, operations, IT, and mobile workforce scheduling. 

In fact, many organizations aim to digitally transform as many aspects of the business as possible, since the process can drive better business outcomes, like improved efficiency, higher productivity, and better worker retention—all of which can help create a healthier bottom line. 

In this article, we’ll cover why digital transformation matters for field service in general, field service scheduling specifically, and what to look for in smart scheduling tools

Digital Transformation on the Rise

Digital transformation is affecting companies in every industry and around the world. Global spending on digital transformation efforts is expected to hit $3.9 trillion (USD) by 2027. 

This transformation is already well underway in several industries that rely on mobile workers:

  • Healthcare: 75% of those surveyed stated that their organizations had highlighted digital and analytics transformation as a high priority. 
  • Energy and Utilities: 60% of energy and utility company leaders surveyed claimed digital transformation projects were “very important,” with 58% indicating they’re making significant investments in these initiatives. A 2023 survey found 96% of executives said they were discussing AI in their boardrooms.

Real estate: 85% of real estate decision-makers surveyed globally stated they plan to increase their technology budgets over the next three years.

Field Service Digital Transformation

Successful digital transformation is helpful for any organization. But it’s particularly helpful for companies that rely on a mobile workforce to serve customers. 

The on-the-go nature of deskless work means it can benefit the most from technology-driven solutions. But historically, it’s been hard to move away from traditional and manual tools: manual scheduling, paper forms for customers to sign, phone calls between workers and the main office, and a stack of paperwork to file at the end of the day.

Field service software can alleviate many of the chronic issues companies face when managing mobile workers, such as balancing and optimizing employee schedules, reducing downtime, and retaining talent. (After all, preventing mobile workers from being over- or under-utilized improves employee retention in a myriad of ways.) When introducing new technology to field service, scheduling is an impactful place to start. 

The Problem with Traditional Field Service Workflows

Take, for example, a heating and cooling company that sends technicians out to customers’ homes for routine maintenance and repairs, plus emergency repairs. Their technicians have a wide array of experience, from senior techs who can tackle the most complex jobs to rookie hires who are fresh out of their apprenticeships and are best-suited for more straightforward procedures and repairs. 

If a company is still relying on outdated tools, most every aspect of completing an appointment has some sort of inefficiency:

Scheduling appointments: Customers must phone the business and connect with a staff member in order to set up a date and time for a technician to come to the customer—a process that’s cumbersome on both ends, particularly if schedulers happen to be busy when a customer calls.

Assigning a technician: Oftentimes, schedulers end up wasting time looking across various systems for information that’s relevant for assigning the right technician: employee schedules, PTO requests, unexpected absences, workers’ qualifications, customers’ preferences, and more.

Appointment reminders: At worst, schedulers end up calling each customer with an upcoming appointment—a task that quickly becomes a time sink. But even with automated reminder systems that send notifications via email or SMS messaging, outdated tech and data silos can prevent the same system from receiving customers’ requests to change their appointment. 

Access to customer records: Customer records can be vital to ensuring the assigned technician has the right context and background details to successfully complete the job in one visit. Plus, customer records can help schedulers make sure the assigned tech has the right know-how for that job. Often, though, these records are either difficult to find or just inaccessible, leaving staff at a disadvantage and potentially frustrating the customer.

Documenting work done: Good record-keeping doesn’t just apply to the backend of the business. Ensuring field workers have an easy system for noting what work they actually completed on site is critical for keeping everyone on the same page for handling any appointments and needs the customer has in the future. However, many field staff are stuck either logging on a siloed digital system or writing up notes by hand.

Capturing customer signatures: Similar to documenting work done, capturing customer signatures often happens one of two ways: Signatures are stored on an offline digital system that field techs then need to sync once they’re able to get online or get back to the company’s office. Or, customers sign a physical form that field techs then need to file with administrative staff. Both are cumbersome and require staff to waste time on data entry instead of higher-value tasks.

In years past, this kind of taxing, manual calculation worked for companies because there simply wasn’t another option. Now, though, customers expect easy interactions, quality results and fast service. 

How Digital Transformation Helps Adapt to Field Service Trends

To meet these expectations, businesses that rely on field service workers have an acute need for digital transformation that gives them intelligent scheduling and routing systems, asynchronous communication and access to information, and quick and easy note-taking—a tall order, especially if you don’t want a ballooning tech stack. 

Many companies are already seeing the benefits of weaving AI-powered field service management (FSM) tools into their workflow. For example, Common, an accommodations company that provides co-living communities in urban areas, saw the number of tours of their living spaces climb by 37%, while their time-to-schedule plummeted by 97%—due to implementing field service management software.

Among field service businesses specifically, 78% of self-reported high-performing field service organizations are already using AI in their workflows, while 83% have already implemented some form of workflow automation. 

Why Scheduling Matters to Digital Transformation

For businesses and organizations that rely on field service employees to serve customers, scheduling is one of the most critical business operations—it’s also an area that can see remarkable benefits from digital transformation. 

The right software or scheduling platform can significantly streamline scheduling processes and can remove many of the blockers that often bog down scheduling workflows. There are a few main ways that intelligent scheduling software makes these processes easier.

Scheduling software captures useful data

There’s a dizzying amount of data that informs smart scheduling practices: Staff availability, customer availability, travel time between job sites, the details and complexity of the job and how that matches the experience and skill of available staff, and more. 

Leaving schedulers to account for all of these factors on their own not only leads to high time-to-schedule, it also makes it more difficult to fully utilize your field staff. Plus, this information is often siloed or scattered across different data-storage locations, putting an even bigger burden on schedulers. 

Modern scheduling software eases this burden by integrating with other systems and pulling all of these scattered data points in one central location and automatically updating it in real time. This means everyone, including field service workers, has easier access to up-to-date details such as customer service history, job notes, historical data on travel time between sites, and more. With this sort of data transparency and centralization, schedulers have all of the information they need to spot any potential errors or outliers quickly and easily, and mobile staff have accurate job details while they’re on the go. 

Job matching greatly affects service quality

Perhaps one of the trickiest aspects of scheduling is finding the right worker for a job—particularly as field service management faces an impending aging workforce crisis and the resulting fallout (including a lack of knowledge transfer and talent shortages). Sometimes, there are complex jobs that only more seasoned workers can handle. Sending out a technician who doesn’t have the right technical knowledge can lead to not only low first-time-fix rates/high repeat visits and unsatisfied customers, but frustrated workers who don’t feel they have the right tools to succeed.

Not only do schedulers have to account for staff skill level, they must also juggle availability disruptions, which is a problem most companies experience. A 2023 Skedulo survey of mobile workforce leaders showed that almost everyone (86%) has to modify their original schedule at least occasionally, and nearly two-thirds of those surveyed (63%) have to modify the schedule at least somewhat frequently. This makes job matching even more complicated.

Intelligent scheduling software helps ensure the right mobile workers are assigned to jobs that fit their skills and availability. Automated scheduling reviews massive amounts of scheduling data to avoid errors like double booking or miscalculated travel time. This sort of quality scheduling helps companies keep employee satisfaction high and give customers an excellent experience. 

Manual scheduling is time-consuming

It’s complex to pull and analyze all the relevant data points that go into field service scheduling; it eats up a lot of time and can hold back operational efficiency improvements they’re after. Because of the human element in manual scheduling, you can end up with mistakes—especially when surprise scheduling changes, like cancellations and employees calling in sick, crop up. 

That said, given how critical scheduling is to a field service business’s success, it’s an obvious point of focus for digital transformation.

By introducing an advanced tool that improves scheduling quality and efficiency, companies not only improve operations and employee and customer satisfaction, they set the stage for better scalability. In fact, some customers who use modern field service scheduling tools have seen a 64% boost in the number of jobs they’re able to schedule and complete. 

How to Use Scheduling in Your Digital Transformation Strategy

Arguably the most important thing to know about how scheduling and digital transformation intersect is how to actually weave the right technology into your scheduling processes in a way that works for your staff and your customers. There are a few key considerations to ensure a successful digital transformation.

Use an automated scheduling system

The right automated scheduling system makes a huge difference for field service. Look for features like robust integrations and automated scheduling, so that staff schedulers don’t have to worry about manually inputting details into spreadsheets. Instead, the tool should connect all of the relevant data that’s siloed in other parts of the tech stack, pulling it into a central location and automatically generating an optimized schedule. When the schedule is updated, it’s automatically pushed to all relevant employees in a single platform, reducing the risk of human error or miscommunication.

The most sophisticated scheduling tools boast automatic AI-informed decision-making that companies can tailor to their needs and workflow, allowing schedulers to prioritize certain factors—i.e. location or worker certification—within the scheduling engine. 

This sort of powerful, intelligent automation allows schedulers and administrative staff to focus on more pressing issues that require a human touch, such as communicating with prospective customers, answering big-picture capacity questions, and responding to urgent requests.

Offer self-service scheduling

Customers today expect features that give them the flexibility to do things when it works best for them. Self-serve scheduling (and rescheduling) means customers can request and schedule appointments regardless of office hours or the capacity of customer support teams. Self-service scheduling capabilities make your services easier to use and improve the customer experience.

On the field service operations side, staff benefit from smart scheduling tools that allow them to bid for jobs that best suit their skills and availability. Field service workers also appreciate scheduling systems that integrate with HR functions, like requesting time off, to generate better schedules. This sort of autonomy improves the employee experience and staff retention rates.

Whatever field service scheduling solution you choose should have robust self-serve scheduling features, such as:

  • Customer-facing scheduling tool that is pre-configured for worker availability
  • Appointment request form for new and prospective customers
  • Ability for customers to preset their availability or preferred hours
  • Omnichannel scheduling options: request appointment online, via text, by phone, and so on
  • Automated appointment reminders for customers to reduce no-shows and rescheduling

Build scheduling apps with mobile workers in mind

Because field workers are moving from job site to job site, staying up-to-date on scheduling changes can be tricky. Many mobile communication solutions are clunky and separate from a worker’s main source of job-related information; they feel like yet another app or piece of software that staff need to learn and juggle throughout the day.

A successful digital transformation in field service must be mobile-first. Make sure your digital transformation strategy prioritizes an intuitive, user-friendly mobile solution that integrates seamlessly with your field service scheduling system. With this approach, workers can truly benefit from technology working together: they get instant schedule updates, digital work orders and job notes, and ideal routes between job sites delivered to their phone or tablet in real-time. 

Empower managers to find and use scheduling data

With an intelligent scheduling system, managers can access data to help make informed decisions about field service operations and efficiency. Tracking important field service KPIs helps answer questions like:

  • What are the most common job types requested by customers? 
  • What are the most profitable job types that we perform?
  • What staff roles have the highest utilization rate? What roles have the lowest?
  • When workers arrive late to a job site, what are the most common reasons why?
  • What percentage of scheduled appointments are customer no-shows or late cancellations?

Field service managers can use scheduling data to investigate and solve major problems. For example, a telecom project manager sees a spike in average resolution time compared to the previous month. Looking closer, installation teams are reporting higher rates of being overbooked and unable to complete their assigned jobs per day. This leads to more jobs being delayed last-minute. The project manager uses the scheduling software to adjust custom rules that better account for staff working hours: they temporarily reduce the target number of jobs per day and increase the buffer time between workers’ last scheduled job for the day and the end of their shift. This helps field service companies avoid overpromising (booking too many appointments per day) and under-delivering (rescheduling jobs last-minute, which frustrates customers). 

Data transparency is key to reviewing field service workflows to find and fix inefficiencies—as well as ensuring compliance with industry regulations and  service level agreements (SLAs). The right scheduling platform will capture important data points and make them easy for managers to visualize and review regularly. It should capture KPIs like time to schedule, time to first contact, travel time, and schedule adherence. Ideally, it should also integrate with systems that track other related KPIs, like customer satisfaction.

Mobile-First Scheduling Workers Will Love

Now that you know what issues to consider as part of the digital transformation of your scheduling process, it’s time to think about what to look for in smart scheduling software. 

Here are some key capabilities to put on your wishlist: 

  • AI-powered automations that apply to the entire scheduling process, from the customer’s request to a field worker accepting a job 
  • Custom scheduling rules that align your scheduling process with business strategy and high-priority KPIs
  • Robust integrations that centralize data from CRM, ERP, HR, and other parts of your tech stack so everyone stays on the same page
  • Data analysis and custom reporting that provides critical transparency into what’s working and what’s not

Skedulo’s intelligent field service scheduling platform makes it easier than ever to create and optimize schedules for your team. Field service leaders can set custom rules in Skedulo to ensure business priorities, like reducing travel time, guide the overall scheduling strategy. Schedulers and dispatchers can use AI-powered suggestions and automated schedule optimization to cut down the manual effort required to build and adjust staff schedules. When the schedule is ready—or updates are made—back-office teams instantly push an updated schedule to all field workers’ mobile devices. 

To learn more about digital transformation in field service, check out our white paper, Solving the Software Gap for the Growing Community of Deskless Worker.

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