The customer experience (CX) your field service organization delivers is a critical way to stand out from competitors—even more important than the service or product you offer.

Price and quality are critical to your competitive edge, but you simply can’t afford to ignore customer experience. According to a PwC survey, 73% of customers consider CX to be influential in their purchasing decisions—and 1 in 3 of these customers will leave a brand after just one bad experience.

Read on to learn about field service customer experience, why it matters, what customers expect across different industries, and strategies to improve CX in your field service operations.

What is the field service customer experience?

Field service customer experience is the perception a customer forms when they engage a business for field service performed at their business or home. Field service CX includes their interactions with a field service provider before, during, and after the point of service.

An excellent customer experience requires field service operations to be effective, reliable, and personalized. But delivering this level of service day in and day out requires knowing who the customer is, what they need, and how to use that information to create the best possible experience for that customer. 

This is a complex task for any field service operation. It requires a sturdy foundation of data capture, technology, and field service management to make it happen:

• Capturing the right data for improved customer interactions and post-service follow-ups  
• Segmenting customer groups to improve personalization at scale 
• Implementing mobile-friendly tech to empower frontline workers with the context of past service and experiences 
• Deploying automations and AI-driven optimization tools to streamline field service workflows

This applies not only to the field service workforce, but also to the IT, administrative, and management teams who shape field operations. Improving field service CX should be a collaborative effort that balances people, processes, and technology.

The financial impact of field service customer experience

Field service workers are uniquely equipped to shape the customer experience. They are the faces of your company and represent your value proposition to customers in every interaction. Depending on how informed, capable, empowered, fast, friendly, and effective they are, field service workers can meet, exceed, or fall short of customers’ expectations.

The benefits of excellent CX are clear: a top-notch customer experience not only nurtures customer engagement and loyalty but also delivers competitive advantages such as increased profits, revenue growth, consumer confidence, business reputation, and market share. 

Happy customers spend more and stay loyal. Customers are willing to spend up to 16% more if they know they’ll have a great experience, and 97% of customers say the field service experience informs their brand loyalty. They’re more inclined to try additional products and services, and they are more willing to provide data if it means future experiences will be even more personalized to their needs. A great experience can turn a customer into a brand ambassador who posts positive reviews and recommends your service to others, multiplying the revenue impact of optimal CX. 

Unhappy customers measurably harm your business. Unsatisfied customers are more likely to tell friends and family about their negative experience than they are to share feedback directly with your business. While businesses often have to solicit positive reviews, emotion is the primary driver of negative reviews, making them unprompted and unflattering. Given that 95% of potential customers read reviews before making a purchase, a poor customer experience can cost field service businesses significantly and erode brand reputation.

What field service CX looks like across the marketplace

Field service experience varies by industry and sector. Customers prefer different communication styles, choose providers in different ways, and expect different levels of self-service depending on the type of field service they’re seeking. And each industry’s unique CX informs business outcomes differently: some sectors depend heavily on word-of-mouth referrals, some rely on positive online reviews, and others need to cultivate long-term, repeat customers.

Let’s review some prominent field service verticals:

• Healthcare: As healthcare becomes more distributed, the demand for home health and mobile clinics is scaling rapidly. 77% of patients study online reviews when choosing a provider, and they expect personalized, responsive care. CX in healthcare has serious implications for patients: better experiences drive patient engagement, and engaged patients tend to have better health outcomes. For providers, patient satisfaction directly informs the provider’s reputation and improves adherence to treatment plans. 
• Energy, utilities, and telecommunications: With rapidly evolving technology and regulations, these industries face complex customer expectations. Consumers not only want responsive, mobile-first interaction with these field service providers, but also expect them to pay attention to the social and environmental factors associated with these industries. Customers have evolved from mere service subscribers to what Deloitte calls “prosumers” and “transumers” who expect a holistic, forward-thinking field service experience.  
• Residential services: The average US household spends $5,000 a year on field services like plumbing, electrical, landscaping, pest control, and other home contractors. 70% of these customers prefer to self-schedule services online. Customers expect a response within a few hours, and 90% of customers prefer texting field technicians rather than calling or emailing. Word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers are the primary driver of growth for businesses that deliver B2C residential services.  
• Construction: In this volatile industry, CX is critical to business stability: it nurtures long-term customer loyalty and bolsters brand reputation through a mix of reviews and referrals. Contractors who invest in field service CX earn 4-8% more revenue on average versus the competition. Construction customers expect a personalized, punctual, and transparent end-to-end experience, and a robust digital experience has become table stakes for construction clients.  
• Real estate – This industry is currently at an inflection point regarding the business consequences of unmet customer expectations. Top-performing companies create compelling, tech-driven, personalized experiences that earn new tenants, cultivate renewals, and close deals faster. Field service customers in this industry expect a very agile, mobile-first experience: 66% anticipate a same-day response, and 43% want to hear from a provider within the hour.

The global field service market value is expected to approach $30 billion by 2031. Customers across industries increasingly expect personalized, prompt responses and the convenience of initiating field service through mobile-first portals. If they don’t get what they want, they’re ready to take their business to a competitor—and once a customer is lost to poor CX, they’re almost impossible to win back.

Strategies to improve the field service customer experience 

Top-performing field service providers combine data-driven customer experience management with field service management (FSM) technology to delight customers. They understand the unique customer expectations within their industry, but they’re also attuned to broader global trends driving consumer behavior.

Three best practices are at the center of every great field service customer experience: track the right KPIs, align KPIs with your unique customer journey, and implement tech and optimize processes to empower workers to deliver optimal service.

Let’s look at each best practice in greater detail:

1. Measure field service CX with the right KPIs

You can’t improve the field service customer experience without getting a clear picture of current performance. A range of field service KPIs helps operations teams analyze the performance of technicians, schedulers, dispatchers, and managers in multiple areas of operations. 

Here are some of the most important KPIs to track field service CX:

2. Map your customer journey

A customer’s field service experience is not just about the service itself, but everything before and after—from initiating the first contact to paying the final invoice. Some experiences are fairly straightforward, such as one-time maintenance or product installation visits; others are more complex, such as home healthcare visits for chronic conditions. 

That makes customer journey mapping a critical step. Each stage is associated with different field service KPIs, so a deep understanding of the customer journey helps pinpoint specific areas of improvement in the field service workflow. 

Consider a few steps of the customer journey:

Scheduling 

Customers in many field service markets want faster responses, more self-service options, and multiple communication channels to meet their preferences. Scheduling is typically their first encounter with these aspects of your field service customer experience. Are they able to go online and schedule their own appointments so they don’t have to wait for a response? If they do expect to hear from someone, how long have they been waiting? Schedule adherence and time-to-first-contact are vital KPIs to evaluate at this stage of the customer journey. Improvements you make here will not only bolster field service CX but also improve workforce utilization, a critical revenue driver.

Service appointment 

As customers increasingly seek more personalized experiences, they expect field service technicians to arrive at appointments well-informed about their personal information and prepared to deliver service promptly and efficiently. Average response time and time to site gauge how quickly workers arrive onsite and how route optimization and administrative simplifications could improve the utilization of your skilled workforce. First-time fix rate (FTF), average resolution time, and rework percentage all speak to the preparedness, productivity, and effectiveness of field workers—attributes that also reflect their ability to deliver satisfactory CX.

Invoicing

At this stage of the customer experience, KPIs emerge that illustrate how effective field service technicians have been and how satisfied customers are likely to be after the field service experience. SLA compliance, mean time to repair, invoice accuracy rate, time to first notice, and invoice processing time are important data points to evaluate at this stage. Are customers billed promptly after service, and are their invoices accurate and easy to understand? Can the billing process flow directly from the service interaction without manual staff intervention? How are rules-based automations used to deliver billing and payment reminders without adding overhead?

Payment 

Customers expect robust, secure, mobile-first, self-service platforms. Invoicing and payment should be as painless as possible for customers. On-time billing percentage and daily sales outstanding (DSO) both reflect the efficiency and accuracy of your invoicing process. Are customers able to promptly respond to invoices or bills through secure portals? Is their customer data secure, and are the details of contracts and invoices transparent? Does the billing system make it easy to pay the way they want, no matter the device they’re using? 

3. Optimize field service operations, processes, and tools

Many of the process improvements identified in customer journey mapping will be unique to your business or industry—but in general, there are a few key process improvements any field service business can leverage with the help of field service management (FSM) technology: 

• Provide self-service capabilities: Customers want more autonomy, greater transparency, and less downtime. A robust field service platform should include or integrate with customer-facing portals for self-scheduling, customer data access, and payment processing. 
• Optimize field service scheduling: Smarter scheduling accommodates customer preferences, but it also accounts for back-office factors they can’t see: intelligent job matching based on workers’ skills, qualifications, and availability, as well as real-time traffic patterns and weather conditions. Empower schedulers and dispatchers to make adjustments from a single screen, with easy access to the workforce data and job details they need. Push updated schedules to all workers at once to avoid confusion due to outdated information.  
• Automate basic scheduling and communication tasks: Automated scheduling systems handle common scheduling tasks according to business priorities and situational logic (e.g. if 3+ workers are qualified for the job and within X miles, assign the worker with Y characteristic). Automate appointment reminders and other straightforward customer communications to free up staff for more complex and customer-facing work.
  

• Empower frontline workers to be more efficient: Frontline worker technology streamlines workflows by making job data, customer details, ideal routes, and forms easily accessible on mobile devices. Workers arrive better prepared and have access to equipment specs and troubleshooting guides that help them work through issues in real time. By reducing the time spent on repetitive or administrative tasks, FSM and AI-assisted tools allow workers to spend more time with customers and on the job they came to do. User-friendly, AI-assisted tools help streamline field service workflows and make it easier on workers and customers alike. 
• Nurture meaningful customer relationships – Process improvements and FSM tools keep field service teams agile and responsive. By following up, gauging quality assurance, and cultivating meaningful experiences for customers, field service teams can build long-term opportunities from one-time interactions. They can earn referrals and repeat business, identify maintenance or service opportunities, and convert customers into vocal brand ambassadors.

It’s time to transform your customer journey 

Customer experience isn’t just about the service your field workers deliver, or even how they deliver it. It’s also about how customers find and experience your brand, and how easy it is for them to work with you at every step of the process.

Improving the field service customer experience is a strategic process that takes time and effort to yield results. But those results can take your business to the next level: happier customers, repeat business, more predictable cash flow, and a satisfied, well-utilized workforce.

Skedulo is a smart scheduling software built for field service workers and leaders. Offer self-service scheduling, create AI-enhanced optimizations, build custom forms, and empower workers with a user-friendly mobile app that makes work more efficient and effective. Skedulo integrates with leading CRM, HR, and ERP systems so frontline workers spend more time with customers and less time switching between apps and tasks. 

A Skedulo customer in the telecommunications industry put it this way:

Read more about Skedulo and Connexin to see how Skedulo enabled Connexin to improve the customer experience and streamline field service operations—so much that Connexin could double the size of its workforce.