Field Service Automation: 5 Practical Applications

In the next three years, as many as 49% of workers will leave field service to pursue other opportunities. Why? Per the Service Council’s 2024 survey, they have difficulty engaging and advancing in their careers. They report their least favorite parts of the job are wading through admin work, hunting for information, and keeping up with process changes. These slowdowns keep them from the work they enjoy most: solving customer problems, completing the job itself, and learning about new tools, techniques, and technology.

Field service automation is the use of technology, data, and centralized systems to streamline or even eliminate certain administrative tasks within field service operations. When done thoughtfully and with the right technology, automation gives field workers more time for the most fulfilling aspects of their job, improving job satisfaction and productivity.

Field service management platforms empower skilled workers to be more prepared and engaged in their jobs, and thus more likely to delight customers with excellent service and high first-time fixes. Field service automation improves utilization and efficiency, which grows the revenue base that top-performing field services providers need to scale.

Let’s look at five practical applications that deliver the benefits of field service automation to employees, customers, and the bottom line.

1. Scheduling optimization

Automated scheduling coordinates customer needs, job details, employee qualifications, workforce availability, and other data points—sorting in seconds what takes hours or even days to plan with spreadsheets or paper. Integrations with HR, CRM, and ERP software bring together all the data points needed for effective field service scheduling.

Schedule optimization software helps field service companies:

• Coordinate complex field work - Smart scheduling technology handles the complexity of field service scheduling with agility and significantly reduces administrative workload. From a single view, it can organize sequential or multi-stage jobs, assignments that require workers with specific credentials or expertise, unique scheduling requirements, team-based work, and collaboration with other vendors.
• Schedule for business needs - Each field service provider has specific business objectives, workforce constraints, customer preferences, and geographic footprint that influence scheduling. With smart scheduling optimization, field service providers set custom parameters and settings for the scheduling engine to follow as it matches workers to jobs. Based on the recommendations and results, tweak as necessary to achieve the desired business outcomes.
• Adapt to changing conditions in the field - Change is constant in the field: in a survey of Skedulo customers, almost all respondents (86%) say they have to modify their schedule at least occasionally, and more than one-third (37%) have to change it “very frequently or all the time.” Smart scheduling software is better equipped to handle real-time changes than traditional scheduling methods. Dynamic, real-time assistance from AI finds the best scheduling fit under the (new) circumstances and speeds up the company’s response to last-minute changes and delays.

With automated scheduling, field service workers engage more effectively in their work. Better job matching enables field technicians to be more productive, delivering the attentive service and first-time fixes that customers expect.

2. Status updates from workers in the field

Field service automation software saves time by keeping field workers, dispatchers, and customers informed during the service workflow. Consider these simple but powerful ways that automation simplifies everyday communication:

• When there is a significant delay or change, automatically send the technician’s updated ETA to the customer
• Remind customers about an upcoming appointment a certain amount of time beforehand
• If a customer requests to cancel or reschedule a job, automatically notify the assigned technician to avoid unnecessary travel
• Automatically send estimates, bills, job summaries, and other documents to the customer ASAP
• Reschedule jobs to the next available time slot that meets the job criteria
• Notify worker(s) and customers of revised appointment times

Field service automation’s real-time, responsive communication benefits everyone. It keeps workers safer on the road by reducing the need for texts or calls in transit, and customizable, automatic safety check-ins keep supervisors informed of workers’ location and progress. It also minimizes customer disruptions by proactively informing them about the status of their job requests, service history, and upcoming appointments.

3. Troubleshooting workflows

Without timely support and reliable workflows, complex field work can slow down even the most experienced technician. Not only is it frustrating to stop to hunt for information, it negatively impacts customer and end user experience. For example, when a regional clinic’s MRI needs service, the technician must be able to promptly identify and repair the problem without further delaying patient diagnostic services.

Field service automation centralizes resources like manuals and established troubleshooting workflows so that technicians can spend as much time as possible delivering excellent service. It can curate these workflows based on specific job details, like equipment models, service history, work order, or customer-specific insights from CRM. Field workers can access this information immediately through a user-friendly mobile app, and they can chat directly with supervisors or colleagues as questions arise.

When they know they have reliable, accessible troubleshooting resources at hand, field workers arrive confident and prepared. They pass this confidence on to their customers with higher first-time fix rates and improved productivity. And field workers say when they’re well-equipped with FSM technology, they’re more likely to be satisfied in their roles and stay with their employer long-term.

4. Route planning

Field service automation can also generate the best possible route between field service appointments based on job details, scheduling requirements, and real-time weather and traffic data.

This decreases windshield time, increases worker utilization, and improves worker safety. It also improves on-time arrivals, which has a positive impact on customer satisfaction. But it also has major benefits at scale: AI-assisted route optimization can double fuel cost savings, and increased staff efficiency drives up service capacity and revenue growth potential.

5. System and equipment monitoring

Remote monitoring is a significant responsibility for many field service providers, particularly as they move to more proactive service models. Whether it’s managing large system maintenance or tracking individual wearable devices, field service automation integrates IOT-connected tools and other monitoring data to flag concerning trends in equipment performance. Automated monitoring in the field improves safety by escalating urgent or dangerous conditions to the immediate attention of appropriate response teams and technicians.

The remote monitoring capabilities of field service automation not only ensure the safe and sustainable performance of systems and equipment, but they also nurture profitable, long-term customer relationships and referrals by fulfilling proactive service model contracts with timely maintenance. In the healthcare context, remote monitoring can even save lives, triggering the attention of providers to a patient’s condition and securely updating EHR with medical data generated by wearable devices.

Secure the future of your workforce with field service automation software

There’s a shortage of available talent in field service. Can you afford to lose even more of your mobile workforce by 2028? Field service automation software retains top talent by relieving their biggest pain points and empowering them to do what they’re best at: delivering excellent service to customers.

Digitally driven field service teams are more productive, engaged, and experienced—and as a result, their employers are among the most competitive and profitable in their fields.

Skedulo is a smart scheduling platform with intelligent automations built for field service. Skedulo is customizable and extendable to meet the needs of your services, workforce, customers, and business goals. Integrations with Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and many others help create a seamless, user-friendly field service workflow.

Skedulo offers automated job matching, schedule creation, schedule optimization, and communication features that help field service providers stay competitive. Skedulo customers using the optimization engine reported a 17% reduction in travel time and 64% increase in jobs scheduled and completed, according to a 2023 survey.

Book a demo today to see how Skedulo can automate time-consuming steps in your field service workflow and unlock new growth.