Field Service Overview
Customer satisfaction is the intangible area where businesses either excel with flying colors or struggle. However, help is on the way and it is now easy to implement technology that can take your current customer service standard to new heights. Dynamics 365 for Field Service enables your organizations’ onsite customer service to diagnose and resolve customer issues in a timely manner. The Field Service application combines workflow automation, scheduling algorithms, and mobility parameters that set your technicians up for success when they’re out in the field, and thus improving your customer service.
This application streamlines your service options through an interactive dashboard that helps dispatchers set clear expectations for technician arrival times. They are able to schedule appointments based on technician proximity, which reduces travel time, helping technicians complete more service calls per week. Not only does this improve your businesses ability to address customer concerns, but it enables you to deliver a level of customer service that will keep your customers happy. Field Services’ adaptability to multiple business processes allows the application to be used in almost any industry, including manufacturing, health care, utilities, and equipment maintenance.
What is GeoFencing?
One cutting-edge feature of Field Service is GeoFencing for Field Service Mobile. A GeoFence is a virtual perimeter around a specific service location that allows users to draw zones around places of work, customer sites, and secure areas. With ample customization features, you can configure the system to trigger various actions when geofences are crossed by a person or an equipped vehicle. GeoFencing creates a circular geographic fence around a work order’s location and compares this to the changing location of field technicians as measured by their mobile devices in the Field Service Mobile app.
When a Work Order GeoFence is crossed by a field technician, an event record is created and the status changes from outside to inside. This change indicates that the field technician is inside the GeoFence and has begun work. Inside to outside triggers can be used to indicate when a field technician leaves the work area. For example, if a field technician goes outside the GeoFence to take a lunch break the work order sub status will be updated to indicate to the dispatcher that work has been put on hold.
Better customer service with GeoFencing
With the GeoFencing feature within Dynamics 365 for Field Service, technicians no longer have to call in and report their work order status. Dispatchers gain increased visibility of technician movement and location through its automated alerts and triggers. If a technician is supposed to be on-site at a certain time and the GeoFence has not been crossed, the dispatcher can then take the appropriate actions. With an increasing demand for precision from customers, this automation technology will enable your organization to provide more accurate arrival times and mitigate customer disappointment.
Field Service has traditionally been used for enhanced scheduling capabilities. However, a recent trend has shifted focus from simple scheduling to more control into the work order life-cycle and a deeper customer engagement model. Utilizing GeoFencing will allow your organization to incrementally reduce operational inefficiencies and provide a higher level of customer service.
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