Is Your Field Service Team Missing Opportunities to Help Your Customers?

Here is a simple test for you.  Count the number of “F”s in the sentence below.

Don’t read any further until you have decided your number.

If you said six “F”s, then congratulations!  If you said anything else, don’t feel bad.  Most people see three.  Look at the sentence again.  Did you miss the “F”s in “OF”?  Now that you see the “F”s, it’s pretty obvious right?  It makes us wonder why we missed it in the first place.

Now, think of your service business.  Opportunities to help your customers should be obvious too.  Or are they as obvious as we might think?  Is your service team missing opportunities to help your customers?

Even with a Process in Place, Is Your Customer Seeing All the “F’s”?

Perhaps you have encouraged your field team to look for ways that you could help your customers achieve their business goals.  You’ve set up processes and systems to capture any opportunities identified.  You may have even told your customers your intentions and why your field team’s actions are not only unique but of great value for the them.  Even with all of this in place, how confident are you that they are seeing all of the “F”s – that is, how confident are you that they are not missing any opportunities to help the customer to be better off.

Four Actions to Ensure Your Field Service Team Does Not Miss Important Opportunities

Here are four actions that you can take to help ensure that your field service team does not miss opportunities that are important.

1. Establish a customer visit routine

Whenever your field service professional calls on a customer, ensure that each one of them follows a specific process which may include steps like:

• • Stopping by the customer’s office to explain the nature of the visit upon arrival and asking if anything has changed since their last visit.
  • Stopping by the customer’s office after the work is completed to go over what was done and asking if there is anything else they would like them to address while they are there.

2. Have your field team follow up on previous recommendations

Your customers are busy and, even with the best of intentions, some of your recommendations will get forgotten.  It’s a valuable service that you provide when your follow up reminds the customer to address something that had completely slipped their minds.  This is particularly important if the recommendation would prevent something that could seriously and negatively impact the customer if it is not addressed.

3. If appropriate, have your field team ask the customer to take them on a tour of their facilities

While on the tour, the field professional can point out ideas where you may be able to help and even some issues that may not be related to your business at all but will help the customer see that there are improvements that can be made.

4. Share best practices between team members

Whenever a field service member makes a recommendation that benefits a customer in a significant way, share it with the rest of the team.  What was the issue at hand?  How did the recommendation help the customer?  How many other customers might benefit from a similar recommendation?  What do these customers look like?  What questions might the field professional ask to uncover whether they could benefit from a similar recommendation?

Every time we make a proactive recommendation to a customer, we have an opportunity to help them toward achieving their business goals.  But, recognizing opportunities is not always as easy as we may first assume.  Andmissed opportunities might result in a problem for the customer.  Help your field team establish a process that will minimize lost opportunities and further enhance the value that you offer to your customers.

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

“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one”

– Mark Twain