The 8 Field Service Metrics You Need to Know

June 13, 2016 Nicole Klemp


field service metrics

If your organization has a field-based team of sales, service, or support technicians (and extensive equipment in the field), you understand the need to increase efficiency, reduce cost, improve customer satisfaction, and grow service revenue. But to do this, you need a way to track key metrics and be able to tie those metrics back to your business processes — which is where integrated software comes in. ServiceMax has been innovating in the field service management industry for over a decade, and in a recent webinar, their team shared what they believe to be the 8 key metrics that you should be tracking to drive field service excellence:

  1. Service contract attach rate. The percentage of customers who purchase a product from you, then purchase an accompanying maintenance contract. This is an important metric to track because if your attach rate is lower than average, you need to find a way to better show the value of your maintenance plans — whether through bundling or some other method that’s more attractive to customers.
  2. Contract uptime. The percentage of uptime for an installed product covered by a contract. Uptime impacts customer satisfaction and cost. You can improve contract uptime by collecting machine data and scheduling planned maintenance.
  3. First time fix rate: This refers to the percentage of customer problems that are resolved on the first visit. As you would expect, improving this rate can have a huge impact on customer satisfaction. You can increase this rate by enhancing inventory visibility, improving dispatch, facilitating better collaboration, and delivering proactive service.
  4. Utilization: The utilization metric is a breakdown of work performed by a technician (productive time vs. total hours). Be sure to properly manage technician schedules to optimize utilization.
  5. Mean time to repair: This metric refers to the average time it takes to repair an item on site. You can improve it by providing mobile troubleshooting and better knowledge resources, facilitating mobile collaboration among technicians, and using installed base info to quickly locate a machine and its technical specifications.
  6. Mean time to complete: This metric is similar to #5, except it measures the average time it takes to complete the entire life cycle, not just one on-site repair. Improving this metric is key to customer satisfaction and cost reduction.
  7. Average response time: This refers to the average time (per work order) it takes to respond to the customer. It’s important to understand performance variance among technicians, as improving this metric allows them to fit more jobs into their day.
  8. Repeat visit: Just like it sounds, this metric measures the number of times an installed product has to be re-serviced by a technician within a specific time frame. You can improve this metric by enabling remote monitoring and software content management capabilities, as well as by providing your technicians with regular training.

When measuring these metrics, consider 3 things when it comes to improvement: people, processes, and technology. Field service organizations need the right people in the field in front of their customers, streamlined processes that reduce cost and improve efficiency, and the right technology to automate their business. And with the rise of IoT in service and manufacturing, the need for integrated software within field service management will become a necessity.

Decide how your organization needs to function, and what process improvements and technologies are best for both your field service teams and your customers.

Need assistance developing a roadmap? We can help.


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