Posted by The “uberization” of service is pressuring any service organisation’s teams to fix field service problems the first time. Failing to put in the right resources in place not only increases costs but could also lead to customer attrition. Hence, it is advisable for your organisation to analyse on first-time fix rates and strategies to increase them if you feel they are falling short of your standards.
When you focus on improving First time fix, it’s like pulling a lever that can simultaneously increase customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs and create new revenue by freeing up technicians to handle more jobs every day.
What Causes Poor First-Time Fix Rates?
Lack of spare parts: The technician arrives at the jobsite and realizes he or she doesn’t have all the parts on hand required to fix the issue.
Lack of skills: The technician who doesn’t have adequate knowledge or the proper training to solve the problem. Or if a technician takes too long trying to fix the issue and needs to schedule a call back to finish the same job.
Poor communication or planning: When any part/equipment has been moved to another location, but that transfer of the part is not communicated to the technician prior to dispatch.
No matter, you fall whichever jeopardy situation, consider these three best practices of high-performing service organizations:
Enhance inventory visibility: Give your technicians access to real-time inventory information and the ability to order parts from the field. This will reduce technicians’ tendency to stockpile irrelevant parts in their vans, while ensuring that the right parts are available at the right situation.
Improve dispatch: Equip your dispatchers with the all the information they need, in real time, to assign jobs to technicians who have both the appropriate skillset and parts on hand to resolve the customer’s issue by the first time itself.
Facilitate collaboration: Give your techs remote access to the collective knowledge of your entire company through real-time social and collaboration tools. This helps them get the answer to their questions quickly to fix the problem during their visit.
In A Nutshell
First-time fix rate is critical for customer experience; after all, who wants to deal with a second, third, or even fourth visit around a broken machine? Assuring you have a plan and metrics around first-time fix rate is a great way to begin to tackle the idea of delivering good customer experience, which determines the quality of service these days. If you are keeping your first-time fix rate solution rates high, then you are sure to inspire your customer’s confidence and stay profitable.