How a company manages its mobile workforce and resources is vital to brand perception and customer service, suggests Trimble in a new report.

It says that customer service is becoming increasingly recognised as a strategic issue and, according to the Institute of Customer Service, if organisations do not include it in the boardroom then some of those businesses won’t be around in the longer term.

The most common customer complaint is when a mobile worker does not resolve the issue first time. This may be due to not having the right part or tools, not having the right skills or not enough time to complete the job.

Considering 25% of service calls require a follow-up visit, the result of not achieving a first-time fix can be detrimental, says Trimble.

As a result, it claims that more and more organisations are beginning to realise the value of ‘intelligent scheduling’ - incorporating technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into their scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is actually the person who can resolve the customer’s issue first time.

Trimble told Fleet News that the role of the field service operative has changed dramatically over recent years; shifting from one of operational necessity to strategic significance.

Why this change? Because with the rise in use of automated booking systems, for example, and with the growing trend of machine to machine (M2M) capability allowing applications to provide preventative and predictive analytics, the field technician’s visit to the customer may be the first and only exposure a customer has to the company’s brand and service delivery.

Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service said: "The biggest change we have seen in customer service is the move from a transactional economy to the relationship economy where value lies in one-to-one interactions and service leaders prevail in the marketplace.”

According to the Institute of Customer Service, having somebody on the board who has overall responsibility for the customer experience is essential and that somebody needs to be the CEO.

The customer service strategy is integral to the business strategy, and the board needs to lead on this.

• For more insight and analysis, see this week's issue of Fleet News.
• The full Trimble report, Transforming Service Delivery: An Insight Report, is available as a free download.