Benefits of Knowledge Management Software for Field Service Workers

Earlier, when people used to hear the term field service workers, they understood from it that workers who actually work in the fields. But, with time the meaning of the term field service workers has also changed. In present, any worker working outside the office is designated as field service workers.

Challenges for the Company and Field Service Workers

It is observed that after the pandemic the demand for field services has considerably increased. Companies as well as the field service workers, both are having to face challenges. Now, let us look into some challenges that the field service workers have to face.

Excessive Work Load

Looking back last year, in 2020, our life changed. Who could have even imagined that the world would be suffering from the pandemic? Everyone including these field service workers had to stop their work and stay home to be safe.

Due to this, there accumulated a lot of unfinished tasks for the field service workers from their calendars. Also, with that as the pandemic ended and these workers are back to work, new tasks are being assigned to them, as throughout the pandemic, customers couldn’t get their issues resolved.

Since, there is heavy work pressure for the field service workers, it becomes a lot more difficult for them to finish the tasks within deadline.

Unorganized Documents

Resuming work after 1 year, means wasting a lot of time to gather all the old documents. Since for the field service workers, there are a lot of paper works and thus, handling them becomes difficult.

Scheduling Conflicts

Due to lack of a knowledge management software, the scheduling of field service workers often becomes conflicting. There are three most common of these scheduling conflicts.

First is when a field service worker is assigned two different tasks at the same time. Second is when two different field service workers are assigned the same task. And the last, third, is when a field service worker is on leave, not available for tasks, but is still assigned a task.

Now that we have seen some of the common challenges faced by the field service workers, let us also look into some challenges that are faced by the companies.

Workers’ Tasks Management

A large number of field service workers work for an organization. Managing all the tasks for each of the workers is a great challenge faced by an organization. But there are a lot of benefits of knowledge management software that would also help the company in managing work orders.

Communicating with the Workers

It is not always possible to stay connected with the field service workers through the office as that would consume a lot of time. Such challenges are faced by companies when a particular task requires too much detailing over products and/or services.

Also, when the field service workers are in an area with network issues it becomes difficult for them to communicate with staff in office.

Lack of Visual Guidance

There are also some tasks which are too extensive and elaborate for a field service worker to complete without any help. In these situations, they need visual guidance from an expert else the tasks may remain unfinished as a result there will be a bad customer experience and reduction in first time resolution (FTR).

Less Efficiency of the Workers

With a lack of a proper knowledge management software the efficiency of the workers decreases.

There may be customers’ requests that is not being resolved from quite a time, there may be high priority tasks being ignored, there may be pending tasks, there may be scheduling conflicts, etc. These are some of the reasons as a result of which the workers’ efficiency is gradually decreasing.

Benefits of Knowledge Management Software

So, these were some of the common challenges faced by the field service workers and the companies. Now let us discuss about the benefits of knowledge base software that would help the workers and the companies in the challenges that they have to face as mentioned above in the article.

Proper Work Scheduling

We have already discussed the problems that the workers and the company have to face due to scheduling conflicts. Thus, with the benefits of knowledge management software these challenges can be tackled with easily.

With the help of a proper knowledge management software companies can assign tasks to their field service workers only when they are available, not occupied with other tasks, or when the task is not already assigned to any other worker.

Reduced Visit Costs

Using visual guides with the help of a knowledge management software can help in reducing the visiting costs. Often the field service workers have to go for tasks that can be easily done by visual guides.

With the help of visual guides workers can solve the customers issues or problems without having to visit the customer as a result reducing the visit costs. It also takes a considerable amount of less time thus a greater number of customer queries can be solved in less time.

Faster Transaction Time

When a worker is well trained using knowledge management software, they don’t find it difficult to solve customer queries. They become well versed with the software and easily solve the customers’ queries in a much less time as a result reducing the transaction time.

Increased Workers’ Efficiency

With the benefits of knowledge management software, the work of a field service worker is getting much eased. It is helping them in proper tasks scheduling, better understanding of the product and/or service and easily resolving the customers’ queries.

Improved FTR

When a worker is well trained then with the help of knowledge management software it becomes much easy to solve any customer queries. Often the issues get resolved in the first time services only which as a result helps in improving the company’s first time resolution.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, there are different benefits of knowledge management for field service workers. Companies that have implemented a knowledge management software have seen a notable increase in their company’s productivity, collaboration and employee efficiency.