Choose a field service management solution developed for the needs of broadband

For any businesses – large or small – where a significant proportion of staff are employed in field service roles creates unique challenges that other businesses do not face. How do you get in touch with a technician with a new job, or to change their next job at a client’s request, or ensure that your technicians file all the necessary paperwork, to be able to keep a record of completed jobs and raise invoices?

Keeping track of field service teams, plus the ability to digitalise many aspects of field operations, has multiple benefits. Field service management (FSM) software has been designed specifically to help businesses tap into them. As written about in previous blogs these include gaining enhanced levels of productivity from field service teams, not to mention simplified and easier processes for dispatching work orders, standardised ways of communication, enhanced opportunities for cooperation among teams, digitalised record-keeping and faster invoicing.

For the broadband/telecoms industry not all FSM platforms are created equal

The market for FSM software as a service (SaaS) apps varies significantly, in terms of features, functionality, user-friendliness as well as in terms of cost/investment. While they are designed to be industry-agnostic, few have been developed in tune with the needs of the broadband industry.

When faced with a marketplace of different FSM software platforms and tools, it can be advantageous to pick one that has been adopted by one of Europe’s major telecoms operators? Specifically, the operator wanted a mobile workforce management solution able to provide clear and complete visibility of field service activity carried out by subcontractor technicians, while allowing them more autonomy when it came to conducting their field operations.

Seamless integration of subcontractors’ operations

In the UK connecting up millions of homes and premises to gigabit-capable broadband cannot be achieved by broadband operators alone, despite the explosion in providers in recent years.

Therefore, third party broadband build partners – subcontractors – play a critical role in delivering boots on the ground to install and maintain broadband infrastructure. Deploying a field service management software for broadband that is proven to be able to seamlessly integrate subcontractors’ own teams with that of telecoms operators is a real advantage in the industry. One of the most valuable aspects of such an FSM application is the fact broadband companies and subcontractors can have direct connection and smooth communication with each other.

A proven solution, honed through thousands of field deployments for over 15 years

When choosing a mobile workforce management app it is good to know the chosen solution, selected from a marketplace comprising many options, has been proven and optimised from over a decade’s worth of deployment among more than one thousand customers, employing between them thousands of field service technicians, many of whom work in the broadband/telecoms industry.

This has resulted an intuitive and user-friendly app that technicians want to use, because it makes their lives easier at work, for example, by providing them with schedules and making changes to these in real-time, by getting them from one job to the next in the quickest possible time and by simplifying how forms and paperwork are completed. The result is a field service team – whether in-house or a subcontractors – that works more productively and more efficiently, freeing technicians up to be more
helpful and responsive customers they are interacting with, when they are connecting up broadband to individual properties and premises.

Choosing a field service management for broadband operators enables increased productivity, generating bottom-line boosting benefits from the outset, for operators and subcontractors. But it also has advantages in the long-term. It means working with a partner that cooperates with clients, in order to enhance and continue to revolutionise field service management SaaS software, based on the experiences of customers and people using it every day in the field.