Field Services CRM, Is Your Maintenance Making The Grade?

While systems for customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) are key to managing financial and sales data, a maintenance technician’s understanding of the software and equipment running the systems has become essential for successful operations.

As we move further towards the era of smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT)Opens a new window , the ability of companies to maintain or repair the systems they installed has become increasingly important.

Accurate data of the equipment requiring repair is critical. Field agents need it to dispatch the best technicians with the proper tools and requisite parts to fix complex devices and equipment. Agents must also provide reliable data about the serviced equipment.

In the field, technicians must assess the data about the equipment and repair tools before starting the actual corrections.

A Reliable Record is a Must

Technicians accessing such platforms need to depend on reliable, historic records of jobs, parts replaced and tools used for any given machine or equipment part.

Some of the larger and more established cloud-based service-execution management platforms are tracking more than 200 million assets, ranging from jet engines all the way to gym equipment.

“The more sophisticated the equipment, the more service planners, dispatchers and technicians depend on accurate data for each piece of serviced equipment,” says Amit Jain, a vice president at ServiceMax, a cloud-based software provider that focuses on equipment-centric service execution.

His company aims to deliver a high level of data, enabling firms to track and update data surrounding a single asset. It claims a much higher level of visibility than some more traditional enterprise applications in the CRM and ERP spaces.

‘The Core of Our Strategy’

“Field services are at the core of our strategy, and mastering our installed base data is a key enabler to execute,” says Daniel Philippe, a vice president at Schneider Electric. “Our customers expect us to provide the best services and support.”

Firms like Schneider rely on a record of the installed baseOpens a new window to help them understand their business, key market dynamics, and the location of the installed base. The record represents a complex tapestry of technical data that might need to be accessed by literally thousands of operations staffers in multiple countries.

Having a system to record equipment data as maintained in the field is key for organizations wanting to move from break-it-fix-it to proactive service and, eventually, to predictive service.

Key takeaways:

• Companies are now expected to deliver a much higher level of after-sales service and maintenance for far more complex equipment. This requires field personnel to have the right training and equipment.
• Tracking devices operating in the field is a complex task that many CRM and ERP platforms are not suited for. It often requires more sophisticated, cloud-based platforms to achieve the required efficiencies.
• With the onset of IoT technology, companies are harvesting yet more data on their machines and equipment, and the expectations of response times and even the holy grail of predictive maintenance are ever higher.