4 Tips for Service Request Management: The Secret to Achieving Customer Satisfaction

Maintenance teams need to be agile in attending to field service customer requests. People run out of time these days, and there is an increasing intolerance among the public. The ability to properly receive, route, and manage service requests impacts operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

In this blog post, let us discuss the best practices for service request management. Digitization of field service business is the order of the day. It unifies all service requests routed earlier via inefficient and disorganized approaches of emails, phone calls, etc., into one digital stream as customers can submit service requests via an easy-to-use mobile app. Such a cloud-based approach ensures no service request goes unnoticed or gets lost in the middle owing to communication gaps.

Here are a few ways you can improve your service request management process. Please remember field service management software is a pre-requisite for all tips to meet the modern demands of customers.

i) Craft the best work orders

Work orders are the engine of the service business. It is not an exaggeration to state that a good work order raised early with a clear illustration of the issue amounts to fifty percent of the work done. Yes, clarity in communication is an art!

A good FSM software should permit anyone in the customer’s organization to raise a defect statement irrespective of the registration status with the application or awareness of concerned asset details. A simple QR code scan must be enough to do that. What if the first observer of the defect struggles to portray the issue in words?

No problem! The person can describe the issue as voice, video, or image(with annotations) and attach them to the work order.

Upon receiving the service request, field supervisors can edit it, add additional information, notes, documents, etc., for quick resolution of the issue.

ii) Auto-assign the ticket to the best for the situation

The crew may operate in rotational shifts. The knowledge of staff availability across and the updation of the information in the FSM system is essential.

The FSM software provides supervisors full view of the real-time workload of technicians at any given moment. Thus supervisors can distribute work evenly, saving the workforce from fatigue so that they attend to service requests with good morale.

The best fix depends on the situation. In urgent situations the technician’s proximity is of higher priority. FSM software can limit the assigning of the ticket only to those within the Geo-Fencing circle in such a case.

In case of availability constraints, the FSM application can auto-assign the ticket to a group of technicians corresponding to the category and available in the shift. The supervisors need not be awake for assignments during odd hours.

In usual cases, the same application assigns the ticket to the most skilled technician.

iii) Automate Service Request Notifications

It would be professional to send notifications to customers upon each activity on the service request. People who need maintenance assistance would appreciate it.

It would be even better if notifications are sent for each comment on the work order for complete ruling out of delays due to communication gaps. Thus the service firm keeps informed on the status of fixes – whether a spare change is required/ temporary fix is given/ the fix is complete.

Customers can track the work order status and recent communication even after a few days, maintaining transparency and trust between the parties. Notifications are useful for the maintenance team as well. Service request notifications can notify administrators when they receive new service requests, approve or reject requests. Notifications also alert technicians when the application assignes service requests to them.

Customers can also track the route techs take during transit. It helps reduce the wait time for customers as they can plan their day better.

iv) Track Service Request Management KPIs

Maintenance managers and customers can glance at the FSM application Dashboard to know the big picture on current progress.

Accordingly, managers can plan for meetings, arrange training or concentrate on specific areas of lags. You get to know all metrics needed to measure performance, such as Average service request response time, Backlog task count, Customer satisfaction rating, Percentage of service requests completed on time, etc.

These tips help you stay on top of Service Requests with an able FSM software such as InnoMaint. With the digital transformation of service business, you radiate a culture of fair and transparent business practices.

You can reinforce the accuracy of time and cost estimates, provide help to front-line teams with reusable knowledge and knowledge from peers, and much more. All these factors combinedly cement customer relations to unmatched levels.