Businesses and households depend on field service workers to keep their homes and appliances running smoothly. However waiting at the door during a service window can be stressful when customers are left in the dark.
Real-time communications and visibility can relieve a customer’s anxiety and make for a significantly better experience. Customers feel engaged in the process and can make plans around accurate ETA information. These measures can also have a positive impact on technicians in the field, as informed customers are more likely to be ready for their arrival
Let’s take a look at how increased transparency makes jobs easier, faster, and more pleasant for mobile workers – without compromising control or privacy.
Why is Visibility Essential?
In this evermore digital world we live in, we’ve learned to expect visibility and control. We book a ride-share and watch the map as our driver approaches. We order a pizza and see real-time updates as the dough is being shaped. Most importantly, when our Amazon parcel arrives, we’re ready and waiting at the door.
Yet when it comes to service delivery, customers often find themselves facing long multi-hour arrival windows. With no idea whom to expect, or if they’re running late, customers often feel powerless.
Service companies are increasingly equipping customers with notifications, ETA tracking and two-way chat. Many companies use Glympse to automate these communications based on job status updates, or the technician’s location. Glympse has also created Glympse PRO which allows our smaller sized customers to receive almost all of our Glympse features for an affordable price. Thus, Glympse has created a solution for every size business.
These measures require minimal effort from technicians, and help them to provide an exceptional customer experience.
Benefits For Mobile Field Staff
1. Less multitasking on the job
The “last-mile” of field service is often a gap in customer communications and a costly matter. Many companies fill this gap by asking technicians to phone or text the customer.
While this approach helps to reassure customers, it isn’t designed to meet the needs of busy technicians. Furthermore, it is dangerous to have drivers texting or calling their customers when they should be focusing their attention on arriving at their destination safely.
With Glympse, technicians can send an “en route” text message and/or email notification to customers. This is great for delivery drivers to give their customers a heads up on when the customers’ large package will arrive at their doorstep. This is also great for field workers because it allows the customers to prepare their home for the arrival of their plumber, home cleaner, electrician, attic cleaner, etc.
One of our customers, TruGreen, has Glympse integrated with their dedicated TruGreen app. Customers now receive a unique link via SMS text, email or mobile app notifications, allowing them to view the latest service timing information provided by Glympse, including the ability to reschedule or cancel an appointment.
After implementing Glympse to their existing app, TruGreen has seen a drastic decrease in customer care calls saving them money and significant decrease in calls due to our IVR call system which frees up space for more customer calls.
2. Customers are ready when you arrive
Life is full of distractions, and there’s no guarantee that customers will be ready and waiting for their appointment or delivery.
If a customer doesn’t know when to expect the visit, they may be taking a shower (true story from one of our employees) or in the backyard mowing the lawn. They could have even left their home for a quick trip to get groceries or mail a package.
This could result in slow access – or no access – to the property. Technicians are left frustrated and unable to complete their assigned jobs for the day. Not only that, it will cost your business a lot of money to have another technician go to the customers house on another day. This can lead to undesirable “truck roll” which is also bad for the environment. Our customers use Glympse to help with this.
Glympse En Route provides a visual tracking solution for technicians and drivers en route to a customer’s premise. It includes:
- Mobile platform – an off-the-shelf (iOS or Android) mobile application or SDK that provides a real-time location data stream, an intelligently calculated ETA and advanced arrival technology. Our SDK can be embedded into any existing mobile platform and the mobile application is installed on the technician mobile device. Both can operate behind the scenes based on existing technician workflows.
- REST APIs – Our API access allows external platforms to translate customer events – such as service appointments or deliveries- into Glympse tasks using basic information about the appointment such as customer address, appointment date and time-window. The API returns a unique invite code (web link) corresponding to each task, which is the customer’s view into the location-based Journey.
- En Route Console (ERC) – a web-based console that provides support, call center and operations teams with technician performance, customer engagement and overall program success metrics. En Route Console gives access to a comprehensive operational view of key field metrics and a real-time map view of technicians’/drivers’ locations on a single screen. Key metrics include:
- Technician log-in and successful location sharing percentages,
- Customer viewing statistics,
- Individual
- Aggregate group compliance percentages.
When the technician is “en route”, our system can notify the customer via text message and/or email. When the customer opens the unique URL provided to them, our web-based customer portal is used to track the technician’s arrival on a live map. Our live map updates frequently when the customer is viewing the map to provide accurate location information and give the customers ample time to prepare for the technician’s arrival.
When the technician is closing in on the customer’s location, another notification will be sent out when our dynamic geofencing detects the technician has arrived. This notification can be customized to your choosing. These messages are a great way to provide last-minute reminders about special requirements, so that the technician can carry out their work safely.
3. Technicians can access vital information
Often your customers have helpful information that they’d like to share with technicians. Glympse has a few ways to help ensure that everyone is on the same page.
With Glympse multiway chat, customers can send instructions on where to go and what to expect. They can also ask the technician to wait if they’ve headed out for a few minutes. Technicians greatly benefit from knowing if a customer is out, or just slow to answer the door. The technician can make an informed decision about whether to wait or declare a no-access visit. Customized canned responses can be made available for technicians to safely respond to a message.
Communications are internet based and can be accessed through all our platforms so there’s no need for technicians to share their number with the customer. If you would prefer your dispatch, call center, or office to see and respond to these customer messages, Glympse can support that as well. The app also allows technicians to access crucial job information such as customer’s name, address, additional notes, and of course easy access to multi-way chat.
The Glympse platform is built with your mobile workforce in mind. Our software is designed to fit into operatives’ routines and empower companies to provide a better service. To find out more, get in touch with us today.
