More and more service organizations recognize the value their field service professionals bring when they make recommendations to their customers that will help them to be better off. The challenge is to get the field team to embrace this business development mindset and maintain focus over the long haul.

To achieve this, we would be well served by supporting business development by our field service team like any other service we provide. Here are three things we can do.

1. Support the proactive efforts of the field service team with tools and processes.

Imagine that you have decided to offer a new service for your customers.  Would you simply announce the new service and wish your team luck in delivering on it or would you provide every effort to ensure that the initiative was a success?  I suspect that you would not leave anything to chance and that you would make the necessary investments to ensure that the field team was properly equipped and directed to make the new service a success.

Now think about the field team’s proactive efforts to make recommendations of products and services to your customers.  Here are just a few questions to consider:

• Have you made the same level of effort to ensure their success in recommending your services as you have in ensuring that they can deliver upon them?
• What processes and tools have you employed to ensure that your field team can effectively identify and speak to the customer about your services?
• How have you employed your field automation and/or other tools to support the efforts of your team?
• Have you defined clear steps for your field team to take when making recommendations?
• How will the current status of opportunities identified be communicated and updated?

2. Train the field service team on the details of the service that they are about to deliver and the skills required to do so.

Thinking back to the new service offering:

• What training would you provide on that service and how would you explain why it is of value to the customer?
• What would you want the field professional to know about the benefits of the recommended service and the types of problems the new service addresses or avoids?
• How would you equip your service team to speak intelligently about the new service and explain how it will help each customer?
• What skills will you equip your team with to deliver the service flawlessly?

Now consider the business development expectations you have for your technicians:

• How will you equip your field team so that they can explain the benefit of their proactive efforts to the customer?
• How is this different from simply promoting services?
• What specific benefits can the customer expect from the field team’s recommendations?
• How can the field team present recommendations in a manner that helps the customer see the benefit of taking action?
• What specific steps do you expect the field service team to take when delivering on this service?

A field team that recognizes that their efforts are not solely intended for the purpose of increasing revenues, but rather to improve the level of service provided, will be more engaged and enthusiastic in doing just that.  The fact that revenues will rise as a result of their efforts is a secondary reward for their ability to improve overall service levels.  A clear understanding of expectations will also help to engage the team in this important service activity.

3. Measure performance for continuous improvement

Any new service offering will have to demonstrate a return on investment.  Feedback about actual performance against plan will be analyzed and addressed.  Without feedback you or your team would not have a clear view of the effectiveness of their efforts.

The same is true for engaging field teams in making proactive recommendations.  Feedback on their performance will provide insights into what is working well and what is not.  It will give you a clearer view of the effectiveness of the effort and guide steps to make continuous improvement.

An obvious measure is revenue but that is only the tip of the iceberg.  Other related and critical measures are customer satisfaction and retention scores.  In addition, if we are making recommendations that will help our customer to be better off, we should see a decrease in unplanned maintenance and an improvement in overall labour planning.  These are just a few of the measures we can take to evaluate performance.  There are several more.

We Need Ensure that Our Field Team is Properly Equipped

Engaging our field team to proactively identify and recommend products and services to our customers that will help them to be better off is a valuable service.  When we view our field team’s efforts as a service, we can take a step back and evaluate if we are providing the right level of support to ensure their enthusiastic participation and their sustained success.  Like any service we provide, we need to ensure that our team is equipped with the right tools, skills and processes and measure our performance against plan to focus on continuously improving.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“One of the greatest compliments that we can receive is
when our customer tells us that they are better off for having known us”

– Jim Baston

The post 3 Ways to Support Business Development by Your Field Service Team appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Your field service team can add tremendous value to your service relationships when they recommend products and services that you can provide that will help your customers be better off.  They are in a unique position to do this; they have the knowledge of the technology, an inside understanding of your customer’s current processes and equipment and, hopefully an appreciation of your customer’s goals and objectives.  They also have proximity to the customer.  The question is however, if you engage your technicians in promoting your services, do you tell your customers?

Do You Tell Your Customers?

I recently spoke at the Field Service Forum in Amsterdam.  I asked how many of the attendees either formally or informally encouraged their technicians to proactively recommend their services to their customers.  About 60% of the room raised their hands.  I then asked how many of those who raised their hands told their customers that they were engaging their technicians in this way and not a single person responded that they did.  This is entirely consistent with other discussions that I have had.

How about you?  Do you tell your customers?  Do you tell them that you are encouraging your technicians to look for products and services to recommend to them?  If you are not, you are missing out on an important opportunity.

Why Not?

Let’s examine one of the reasons why we seem so hesitant to let our customers know about the promotion of products and services by our technicians.  I believe that underlying our reluctance is that we tend to see the actions of our technicians as a “selling” activity.  And, it’s hard to promote “selling” as a benefit to our customers.

Where is the value for the customer in a conversation that goes like this?  “Mr./Mrs. Customer, I want you to know that we have encouraged our technicians to look for opportunities for us to sell you more services so that we can increase the revenues we receive from you.”  It’s hard to see any value in this statement, regardless of how noble our intentions or those of our field service team are.

Remember, It is a Service

The key is to keep in mind that we want our technicians to use their expertise and proximity to look for opportunities to help the customer and raise these with the customer when they find them.  This is valuable because the actions of our technicians can truly help our customers to be better off and to achieve their business goals.  Their recommendations therefore, are a service.

Yes, as service providers, we do benefit from this proactive activity through increased service revenues, but those revenues are our reward in return for the value of the service that we provide.  By regarding the proactive activities of our technicians through a service lens, it becomes easier to promote their activities just like we would any other service that we provide.

Have this Conversation with your Customers

An excellent way to promote the proactive actions of our technicians is to have this conversation with our customers.  “Mr./Mrs. Customer, we have provided direction and training to our technicians to encourage them to look for opportunities to help you operate your facility/processes more effectively while they are performing the service.  Would you have any objection when they find something that will help you achieve your business goals, if they bring the opportunity to your attention?”

By explaining the actions of our technicians in this way, we are able to communicate the value of their efforts for the customer.

If you formally or informally engage your technicians in business development activities, I encourage you to tell your customers – and let them know why it is of value for them.

Promote their efforts to your customers as a point of difference.  Let them know that you are providing your “heads” as well as your “hands”.  When they recognize the value of these efforts and benefit from the resulting recommendations, they will be delighted that you have engaged your technicians in this way.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

– Woodrow Wilson

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