By: Rabijit Purkayastha, Senior Specialist - Package Implementation

As technology continues to mechanize all operations and processes in organizations, the human touch in customer service remains a crucial success factor. A service organization’s reputation is built on the quality and speed of its response to customer inquiries, complaints, and requests. Especially, if it requires field service.

With the increasing demand for quick and efficient customer care, field service providers must adopt modern technology solutions to improve their operations and meet customer expectations. End customers today expect brands to reach out to them on their channel of preference and ensure that updated information is available.

These expectations can become a unique opportunity for manufacturers operating in a more D2C (direct-to-consumer) or B2B (business-to-business) space. They can benefit from the evolving customer needs, such as

• Streamlining the internal operations to reduce service cycle time.
• Identifying patterns/trends of specific product lines.
• Shifting from a reactive approach to a proactive approach for service management.
• Incorporating feedback mechanism into the product development process.
• Ensuring customer delight by delivering best-in-class after-sales service.

With field service in manufacturing becoming a significant factor in enhancing customer experience, organizations are seeking tools that enable them to capitalize on these unique opportunities.

About Field Service

Field service in the manufacturing industry is a crucial component of after-sales support and customer satisfaction. The manufacturing industry is highly competitive, and companies must continually strive to improve their operations and deliver high-quality products and services. Field service management is an essential part of this equation, as it allows companies to quickly resolve customer issues, prevent equipment downtime, and provide ongoing maintenance and support.

ield service personnel are the mobile workforce of a company—the front-line workers that clients contact regularly. Consumers entrust these experts with everything, from setting up the cable to checking the water meter. Technicians involved in field service operations are responsible for customer issue resolution in the field as well as back-office operations that support the front end.

Issue resolutions encompass maintenance operations, which can be classified as..

• Reactive maintenance: Customer raises a request/complaint through one of the various mediums like chats, phone, website, or mobile app
• Proactive maintenance: Maintenance of a product before the customer identifies the problem
• Asset-based maintenance: Regular and direct maintenance of devices
• Result-based maintenance: Focus on results rather than the traditional methods of break-and-fix

The huge amount of balancing required in the essential operations, such as coordination and allocation of resources, drove manufacturing companies to adopt a field service management system. These systems are either mobile apps or software that help in streamlining communication, handle the schedule, manage dispatches, share real-time data with the field workers and support the team in the office.

The field service segment was already going through a digital transformation over the past decade. The 2020 pandemic accelerated these digital initiatives. As a result, companies benefitted by improving their operations and enhancing customer experience.

New technologies empowered the manufacturing industry to offer remote diagnostics, predictive maintenance, mobile apps and cloud-based tools. Leveraging AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality), companies could provide remote guidance. Utilizing data analytics and artificial intelligence-enabled them to identify market trends and improve overall service.

The Best Fit: Oracle Field Service

As per a report published by MarketsandMarkets, “The global field service management market size is likely to see a growth of CAGR 11.9% and will reach USD 5.7 billion by the year 2026.”

A report published by Gartner mentions “Oracle is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant with its Oracle Field Service (OFS) product. This is a broadly focused offering, with an emphasis on high-volume scheduling, routing and mobile field technician enablement.”

Oracle Field Service has emerged as an ideal cloud-based solution that provides organizations with the tools they need to manage their field service operations. This includes scheduling, dispatch, and resource management.

Oracle Field Service offers real-time visibility into field service operations, allowing organizations to quickly respond to customer needs and ensure that their field service personnel are equipped with the necessary resources to complete their tasks. The solution also enables organizations to manage and track their service inventory, reducing the risk of stock shortages and increasing efficiency.

Oracle CX Suite of applications is another industry-leading bouquet of solutions that can truly enable manufacturers to deliver world-class customer experience. The stack includes solutions that cater to the sales, marketing, and service functions. Oracle CX allows organizations to create a seamless customer experience by providing a single, integrated view of all customer interactions, regardless of channel or touch-point. With Oracle CX B2B Service, organizations can personalize customer interactions, respond quickly to inquiries, and resolve issues promptly.

When combined, Oracle CX B2B Service and Oracle Field Service allow organizations to manage the complete lifecycle of customer interactions and field service operations—right from reporting an issue, classifying the issue, and scheduling technician visits, to ensuring inventory required for repair is available, ordering parts on-the-go, and finally debriefing on completion of the repair.

One of the key benefits of Oracle Field Service in manufacturing is its ability to maximize equipment uptime. The field service management system’s real-time visibility feature facilitates faster resolution, reducing the risk of equipment downtime and improving customer satisfaction. In addition, the solution provides valuable insights into field service operations, allowing companies to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions that drive operational efficiency and cost savings.

The Oracle CX Suite of solutions can be integrated seamlessly to leverage innovations, such as digital assistants, knowledge repositories, and self-service portals through a robust API-driven integration interface. These in turn help manufacturing organizations to:

• Improve operational efficiency
• Deliver detailed customer insights
• Boost competitive advantage
• Reduce operational costs
• Maximize revenue

Conclusion

Various industries have specific needs in terms of business workflows. Oracle Field Service aims to comprehensively help organizations streamline their field service operations, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction. By fusing the power of marketing, sales, commerce and service data, along with automation, businesses can operate with a single vision and commitment toward their growth goal.

Why LTIMindtree?

LTIMindtree offers a comprehensive suite of Oracle Field Service implementation and consulting services to help organizations optimize their field service in manufacturing. Our team of experts works closely with clients to understand their unique business requirements and design customized solutions that meet their specific needs.

Our client success story is testimony to our committed approach and a customer-first mindset. The mindset to do more with less for more, has helped LTIMindtree be better each day to get to the future faster, together.