The field service industry is expected to grow massively, an estimated 5.1B by 2025 with North America being one of the fastest-growing markets. Keeping up with the pace of this evolving industry and newer trends can help boost revenue and growth, especially for field service management solutions. Customers are expecting more – 89% of customers want to see modern technology incorporated into their solutions and in some cases are willing to pay the additional costs. 

Let’s take a look at some of the trends in the market for the years to come:

Servitization

Simply defined, Servitization is adding services to products. Although this is not a new concept, more and more businesses are adopting this as a way of adding value to their business. Businesses that were product-oriented are moving toward a more service-oriented approach, including things like subscriptions or contracts. Of course, like most things today, technology is at the forefront of servitization. The better the technology, the easier it is to store, analyze and monitor data and improve customer experience. And customers expect more from their providers today. The shift towards this trend though is a long process and most likely requires a shift in the organizational structure, giving your business the key differentiator it needs to stand out from your competitors.

Contactless/Remote services

Needless to say, being able to provide contactless service or at least minimized contact is something that is becoming increasingly popular, and likely to carry on even after the pandemic. Many field service management solutions already accommodate functions like digital signatures and minimizing exposure by eliminating the use of paper. 

A trend that may come to be though, would be virtually assisting customers or employees. Experienced technicians can provide customers with easy fixes to certain problems. 75% of customers prefer not to have anyone in their house, especially during this pandemic and a shift towards this method of service can help increase customer satisfaction and retention.

Preventive/Predictive maintenance

Customers want their problems fixed before they can even arise. They expect your solution to be proactive, which requires a field service solution to be able to anticipate when maintenance is necessary and show up before an emergency or disruptions to their services. 

More effective solutions involve predictive maintenance, which relies on IoT or data to determine the best time to perform maintenance. This has its benefits, such as reducing costs of repairing damaged goods and avoiding breakdowns. Integrating technology into maintenance requires data that is relevant and readily available, which FSM solutions like ServiceEcho offer. This form of maintenance will allow field service operations to maximize asset performance and increase customer satisfaction greatly. 

IoT

IoT has been floating around for a while, but integrating IoT with field service management is evolving quickly. Experts estimate 35 billion worth of IoT devices installed worldwide by the end of 2021. 

Customers aren’t experts. They want their problem fixed but may not exactly know what it is. With IoT, reports can be generated without the customer having extensive knowledge or experience because the IoT-enabled device is capable of determining the problem. Saving the technician time and the customers loss in revenue.

The benefits of IoT are many, inventory management is simple as it can send out a signal and stock parts if and when necessary. Technicians may not have to show up on-site if the problem is minor and customers can be serviced faster. The value of growth brought about by IoT apps as utilized in the field service industry increases by $470 billion annually and will continue to grow. 

Overall, the field service industry is growing and so is the need for an FSM solution that allows businesses to keep up with consumer demands. 52% of field service businesses still rely on manual processes and are likely to experience a loss in customer satisfaction and retention if they don’t invest in more modern solutions. On the other hand, embracing these processes can increase technician productivity and efficiency, and revenue for the company. Demo ServiceEcho today to see how we can increase your revenue and customer satisfaction.