Aberdeen: Fixing First Time Fix

Aberdeen: Fixing First Time Fix

First time fix is a really important metric for field service, because it gauges the operational efficiency of the business. Our research has showed that more and more organizations are beginning to track first time fix as a pulse of field service efficiency, field service profitability. What organizations don't realize is how first time fix impacts the customer, also impacts overall profitability. It's not only a true measure of efficiency, it's also a true measure of customer satisfaction, as well as service margins or service profitability.

The importance of first time fix isn't just tied to field service. If you think about it, it can really impact cost, customer satisfaction, and the profitability of the business. It's dispatch related cost. Every time a service visit isn't completed on a first visit basis, our research shows that about 1.6 additional visits are required to get that issue resolved. If you think about an organization that does perhaps 500 visits per day, this can mean 200 additional service visits. That added burden from a dispatch cost point of view can almost impact or reach up to $12.6 million, if you consider $200-$300 cost per truck roll. That's just dispatch related cost. If you think about the opportunity cost, the additional visits for service technicians when they don't resolve something on a first visit basis means that they're not able to address new issues that might come up. This potentially could be revenue generating opportunities as well. There's an opportunity cost associated with it as well.

From a customer satisfaction point of view, the impact can be significant on the down time. A low first time fix can be significant on the customer. That in itself can have a significant impact on the revenue fortunes of that customer and create negative satisfaction from a customer's customer's point of view. Then, overall, a profitability impact. By having less satisfied customers, you're likely to have less retention. Therefore, that impacts the profitability of your service business.

First time fix is a very difficult metric to fix for a lot of organizations because they treat it just purely as a field service metric. Really, the solution for improving first time fix involves the integration of field service and service parts. The primary reason for low first time fix is the fact that the technician didn't have the right part in place or had a number of parts in place, but they weren't the right parts. That's the primary reason. If you just try to optimize, if you will, field service performance without considering the impact on parts, or the effect that parts will have on field service, you're not going to be able to drive first time fix performance up. That's the reason we see organizations struggle. It's because they look to their field service organizations to improve first time fix, but they don't integrate or look at the traditional silo, if you will, of service, parts, management. Those two need to be put together really to drive field service and first time fix performance forward.

To improve first time fix in the near term, we see best in class organizations that really look at a comprehensive review of workforce management. They're not just looking at scheduling as one solution. They're really looking at it from a point of service, all the way to planning and activities around all of that. For example, at the point of service, they're looking to provide their field technicians with better information when they're onsite so that they can resolve a service issue. That information can be customer history, service product history, asset history, technical information, technical content, whatever is required for that agent to resolve a service issue.

If you step back a little and think about the dispatch and scheduling function, we see the best in class really focused on triage, if you will. Really understanding once a call comes in, what is the issue, what are the parts required for that specific issue, so prior to dispatch, the necessary parts can be made available for the technician. That can have a significant impact on improving first time fix. We step back one more level, we see the best in class organizations focus on planning. It's in forecasting future service needs, field service needs, from a reactive and predictive point of view, then, moving those resources to be in those positions to solve future potential service needs, again, more predictive, as opposed to reactive in that service.

Finally, the final element of workforce management, if you will, is in looking at the hiring, the training, the skills required for field technicians. Really focusing on those gaps between what technicians know and what they don't know, and filling that gap with better training, better assessments, better hiring procedures, so that they have the right workforce to resolve customer issues. With the aid of that comprehensive review from the point of service to planning

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