In the first blog in this series, we talked about the first step to create a Proactive Service® focus for your field service team. The second step involves encouraging them to get to know your customers’ business goals. At first glance this may seem a bit off of the beaten path of the technical nature of their job, but it is critical in providing a higher level of service. A technician who understands the business goals and challenges faced by the customer will be attuned to opportunities to help their customers achieve them.
Without knowing the goals of the customer, how can our technicians make valuable recommendations? A solution that works for one company might be contrary to the needs of another. There is a wonderful story circulating around the Internet that illustrates the danger of solving problems without understanding the business goals. Perhaps you have read it. It goes something like this. Read more

Creating a Proactive Service® culture throughout your service team is one of the most effective ways that a service company can grow their business and create a distinctive competitive advantage. By Proactive Service®, we mean a technical service team that is engaged not only in maintaining and fixing equipment to the highest levels, but in actively looking for ways that their firms can help their customer meet their own business goals. It is proactive because the technician takes the initiative to identify opportunities to help and proactively addresses these with the customer.
Imagine opening up a reputable trade magazine and reading an article that states that you should stop maintaining your mechanical and electrical equipment. You read the following:
Welcome to my new Baston’s Blog – Transforming the Service Experience! Baston’s blog is a regular resource of ideas, tools and strategies to help you transform the service experience you are providing to your customers and reap the resulting rewards – rewards that include higher revenues and profitability and increased customer satisfaction and retention.
I wrote a book this year called 

