Field Service: Adopting Digital Experiences to Improve Technician Job Satisfaction and Overall Customer Experience

One recurring theme we hear on every Field Service implementation project is that technicians want easy access to information and tools required to complete their jobs.  It is a main source of frustration when technicians spend time on manual tasks, have to contact others to assist with information needs and wait for responses, or are required to capture extensive data to record job completions and data required for reporting.

With a new generation of field service technicians, we see a workforce that is adept at adopting new technologies and prefer digital access and automation to information to do their work directly from their mobile device.  Customers are also demanding more self-service capabilities when trying to schedule work to be done, troubleshoot issues or contact support.

With the Oracle Field Service (OFS) evolution over the last several years, there are advancements in helping our customers adopt more of a digital experience in the field, improving and streamlining how field technicians can do their work as well as providing near real-time benefits to the back-office and reporting systems.

Advancements in…

• integrating knowledge base articles to help techs search and find information quickly are more in demand
• automating forms information by pre-populating customer and work order information, to eliminate manual entries, and sophisticated forms configurations capabilities to facilitate the capture of data and preserve data integrity all contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of the work completed by field technicians.

Oracle Field Service’s mobile plugin framework allows us to help customers integrate any 3^rd party application or source of data seamlessly into the field service application, so workflows and tools can be accessed easily, and information needed is integrated into the field technician workflow. With enhancements in collaboration tools, field technicians can communicate and collaborate with other resources via chat or video in real-time to resolve issues, eliminating the need to call a phone number for support.

Oracle has also improved the OFS native “Where’s My Technician” feature over the last several major releases. This feature provides out-of-the-box functionality that allows customers to schedule, cancel, or reschedule their appointment, track when a technician is en-route to their location in real-time, and also complete a post-activity survey, providing a feedback mechanism to capture post service visit experiences.

This feature also seamlessly integrates with digital assistants and chatbots across other Oracle Service offerings, including access to support and knowledge base articles, which combine to create a robust customer self-service experience (all while remaining mobile-first.)