Changing Perception by Focusing on the Benefits

“Do you remember last week when we read in the paper that taxes may increase by 15%?” I’m back in the 9th grade listening to my social studies teacher. He is holding up today’s newspaper. “Today they announced that instead of a 15% increase, they’ve managed to reduce it to only 7%. How many of you are pretty relieved by this?” We all raise our hands. He looks disappointed. “They’ve successfully altered your expectations by changing what you are comparing. Right now you are comparing the 7% tax increase to the 15% increase. Forget about the 15%. Remember, they’re still raising taxes by 7%!”

It’s interesting how our perceptions change based on what we focus on. Us students saw a 7% hike instead of a 15% hike. Our teacher saw a 7% hike. What I experienced in my 7th grade social studies class was similar to what I saw recently with a client.

The client implemented a pilot phase of ClickSchedule. While most stakeholders were excited and have seen significant benefits, the technicians weren’t happy. Why did they have to be micro managed? They only saw that instead of managing their own day, they now had to physically call their dispatcher to report the start and finish of each assignment.

The 7% tax instead of the 15%: Next we are implementing ClickMobile. Technicians were excited to learn that they’ll no longer need to call their dispatcher. Instead, they only have to push one button on their mobile device to change statuses. They could still perceive this as micro managing, but now they’re happy that the process will be easy.

We’re back in the 9th grade. One of the students raises his hand. “But isn’t the tax increase to fund education? So while we have to pay more, we realize a benefit.” Now we were starting to look at the whole picture.

Once the technicians got past the initial micro managing concern, they soon realized that there are many benefits to using the new system. For example, moving from a labor intensive, paper-based timesheet process to automatic tracking. And knowing where the other technicians are in case they require assistance.

It’s interesting how we change our perceptions as we go through a process. We can either focus on the fact that our taxes are being raised by 7%, or we can understand that those taxes will go towards education. It’s up to us to help our technicians understand this bigger picture.

Author: Felisa Berg

Decision Making

For many field service organizations, paper is a thing of the past; the entire information is digital and data is passed through wireless networks from the back-end systems to the field almost seamlessly.

There’s no doubt that for the individual level, having a mobile application in the field improves the quality of work, reduces human mistakes and thus, increases the efficiency.
But is that enough? How can organizations get to the next level and use of their mobile data to maximize their efficiency?

The answer lies in Decision Making. Decisions which are based on information only mobile technologies can supply.

The field users get the data they need in order to perform their work. In return they report back and send data to the back-end systems. Capturing those pieces of information in almost real-time can give the organization an advantage when trying to make better decisions.


GPS devices are a great example; using satellite navigators is a common way to reduce travel time and cost. But a bigger benefit can be achieved by using the real location of each field engineer to dispatch jobs more efficiently. Using LBS, emergency jobs can be assigned using precise information of the engineers’ location, idle time which is caused by unexpected jobs cancellations can be handled more wisely, etc.

During the day, plans which were built based on assumptions – are being changed.
Getting real-time information means that the system relies less on assumptions and more on the actual events such as status reports, traffic jams, arrivals to the sites, and delays in work.

Back-end services can also be accessed by the mobile application. For example, appointment booking, in case needed, can be launched from the field (in front of the customer), triggering logic services that will eventually book a future task in almost real-time. This, too, is a great example of combining mobile technologies and data with decision making.

Mobile technologies are the best way to turn your organization into a real time organization, but this can only happen with a combination of data transfer and automated decision making.

Author: Gil Bouhnick

What Makes a Mobile Field Service Champion?

“96% of [Aberdeen’s] survey respondents claim that effective mobile field service-related process and solution are paramount to the performance of their service organization and that these tools have become more important given the uncertain economy and rising cost pressures.”- Aberdeen Mobile Field Service AXIS Report

Companies who implement effective mobile field service are able to reap benefits such as: increased service efficiency, improved Service Level Agreement compliance, boosted worker productivity, and increased service-based profitability. However, as most of you already know, getting effective mobile field service is not just as simple as acquiring mobile devices; it requires a strategic understanding of business processes and the selection of the best vendor to fit with your current and future strategies. Criteria such as integration, reporting, and two way transfer of data are all important things that can either improve or when not present, can detract from the results of mobile field service.

The recently released Aberdeen AXIS report provides an objective, fact based vendor assessment of Mobile Field Service vendors as well as recommendations and organization wide improvements that companies should consider when looking to leverage a mobile field service solution. Vendors represented on the Axis are illustrated by the performance of their customers as well as the visibility they received from the market as part of research. According to this research, a “Champion” on the chart is a vendor who has demonstrated superior proficiency in delivering both real value as well as the ability to serve and support its installed user base. A “Champion” vendor must demonstrate not only value delivered through best-in-class organization using their solution, but also proven market readiness determined by an assessment of the technology vendor’s current ability to serve the market based on over 250 objective assessment criteria. Additionally champion’s have the ability to adapt and respond to customer demand and market requirements. These traits are all crucial factors in the return that a mobile solution can deliver to your organization. In a time when everyone is looking to do more with less, can you afford to go with anyone but the best?

To find out who made the cut and read all of Aberdeen’s ratings and recommendations, download the full Mobile Field Service AXIS Report.

Author: Lauren LeBlanc

World of Service

I’ve recently started playing World of Warcraft with my youngest son. Yes, I realize that I’ve crossed a line that I shall never uncross and I am okay with that. It’s good fun, and my son and I have a great time playing. We read strategy guides together, discuss which quests we should take, how best to kill the Clattering Scorpids, who’s cooler – the Taurans (him) or the Trolls (me) - and so on. It’s nice bonding time that I’m sure will dwindle as he moves into his teens.

So why am I writing about World of Warcraft on the ClickSoftware blog? Because I was surprised to see that there are actually a lot of similarities between World of Warcraft and our Service Optimization suite. Really!

· Both are very robust, powerful and complex applications that can provide a multitude of user experiences.
· Each application can be customized with product add-ins to satisfy the user’s requirements.
· There are countless ways to configure your own user experience.
· A shared theme is “being connected”. For World of Warcraft that means being connected to the internet community, for Service Optimization that means being connected to your entire service business.
· ClickSoftware and Blizzard Entertainment both stay connected to the end-user community to understand how to enhance the user experience.
See you online!

Author: Andrea Bach