Choosing the Right Field Services Provider

Should you Outsource to a Field Services Support Provider?

The latest research in field service support is stunning. 86% of decision makers in companies that offer field activation believe it's critical to their success.

“Now is the time when merchant services providers really need to prove their value to small businesses by offering proactive service and support to address inflationary concerns and high-quality technology that works every time." -John Cabell, managing director of payments intelligence at J.D. Power

Challenges of Managing Field Services

If your customers are having trouble activating your technology solution and using it, chances are higher they'll walk away all together, never sending transactions through. After the effort to land customers, this can't happen. Field activation support is providing technicians onsite to a business to help them get up and running with your solution. It's a massive undertaking to hold onto in-house for a number of reasons:

1. Lack of expert technicians: There is a shortage of professionals well-versed and vetted in technologies like point of sale, kiosks, keycards, menu terminals and more.
2. Reliability: Even if you can source technicians, you now have to schedule them and manage issues like no-shows or hardware that's delayed or lost. You become responsible for the logistics and the disappointments when field service missteps happen.
3. Draws focus from core business: Selling and growing your product needs to be in the forefront of any company. When you have to handle field activations while also trying to attract new business and maintain the business you already have, you are spread thin. With these balls in the air, what often gives? New business development.
4. Weak project management: The vast majority of field services providers do not have their own in-house project managers, which means technicians are scheduled and sent out, with little follow-up to confirm visits or provide support to the technicians and customers. That leaves you trying to get answers when technicians don't arrive or are not solving a problem. An exceptional field services company understands the need to both build a network of highly skilled technicians but especially, to invest in a dedicated, W2 project management team that takes over all details of the field support functionality, including logistics and technician support and education.

Four Things To Look for in Field Services/Field Activation Network

Outsourcing onsite customer support for your technology to an independent field activation company can be highly efficient and effective for your business. We recommend looking for a customer service provider that offers the following important factors:

1. Wide network of background-checked field technicians: It's hard to cobble together service technicians that you can trust to show up and troubleshoot problems well. A company like OvationCXM that has already built and vetted a network of professionals solves that problem. We've been offering field services support for close to a decade and have built trusted, proven relationships with the top experts in technology, all across the country. We service companies throughout the United States and Canada and handle background checks, ensuring rock-solid knowledge and experience.
2. Responsive, timely scheduling: As a CX company, we prioritize the experience of customers. We built a platform specifically to streamline visibility, scheduling, collaboration and communication in field services. We use our platform to manage your cases, schedule and ovesee technicians, plus communicate and provide real-time updates to partners so you always know what's happening.
3. In-house project managers: A common complaint in field services is that too many companies assign technicians but that's where support ends. If they don't show up, get lost, discover missing hardware, or need additional clarification or equipment, that coordination falls on you. But not with OvationCXM. Our project managers have been in the technology industry for many years, and they are intimately involved, monitoring and problem solving to ensure technicians have what they need to get to your customers and to get them up and running quickly.
4. Technology that provides visibility, collaboration and communication into your field services cases: Choosing the right people is primary, but knowing they are using tools that ensure excellent CX consistently is a key piece of this. For example, OvationCXM built its CXMEngine technology so its field activation network could work more efficiently, providing real-time updates to our customers on the status of their merchant servicing.

If your business requires onsite support, take a look at OvationCXM's field service solution and see if it fits your needs.