Regardless of company and regardless of industry, COOs look to the rate of first-time fixes as one of the key performance indicators for their mobile workforces. According to Mobility and the Consumerization of Field Service, a new report by independent analysts at the Aberdeen Group, 220 organizations from a broad cross-section of industries collectively report a first-time fix rate of 72 percent.

Of course, comparing the first-time fix rate of your field service with an broad-based average like this one can get tricky. Folks from different industries and different corporate cultures can quibble about the definition of “first-time fix.” If an HVAC tech abandons a repair because the homeowner opts to replace her 25-year-old furnace with a new, more energy-efficient model, does that count as a failure to fix on the first visit? In some organizations, yes; in others, absolutely not. Replacements and upsells make up a significant percentage of service calls, and they might skew perception of first-time fix as a KPI.

Nevertheless, so many organizations look to the first-time fix rate as a key metric because it indicates performance in other areas – namely, customer satisfaction and operating costs. In the Aberdeen report, for instance, the unambiguous response “technician did not resolve issue” ranks as the No. 1 customer problem with field services, accounting for 45 percent of all complaints. (Late arrivals come in second, with 32 percent of customer complaints.) And, of course, first-time failure at least doubles the operational cost of every work order, since resolution requires a second trip.

How can you raise your field service’s first-swing batting average above the mean of .720? Mobility applications help reduce costly strikeouts in three important ways:

• Visibility into parts and equipment. Does a particular tech have the tools and parts needed to complete a particular job? Scheduling and routing software might answer that question. Since it considers a tech’s training and expertise when it assigns jobs, why shouldn’t it consider parts and equipment as an equally critical factor? But the right mobility app can provide valuable answers, too. As the Aberdeen report notes, “At the point of task acceptance or at the point of service, visibility into the parts required, parts available and parts to be returned can greatly impact first-time fix and improve the overall service experience.”
• Access to knowledge bases. When you’re trying to troubleshoot a leaky toilet at home, you can find an online video from Home Depot showing tips from professional plumbers. It makes the job so much easier and faster. Field service employees expect the same kind of easy access to job aids at their worksites, and the best mobility apps give it to them – videos, wiring schematics and even 3-D images manipulatable on a tablet’s touchscreen. Almost every organization in Aberdeen’s survey included access to some type of knowledge base (text, videos or interactive formats) on their mobility wish lists, because they know how it contributes to doing things right the first time.
• Collaborative exchanges. When technicians confront an unfamiliar problem at a jobsite, they usually call their supervisor and ask what to do. Nowadays, that phone call is what passes for “collaboration” for more than 90 percent of all field service employees. For a tiny minority, an enterprise social network serves as the forum in which to ask a question, post a photo or video showing the exact problem, find an expert and get a solution. This genuine collaboration takes only a fraction of the time required by phone calls and dramatically affects the rate of first-time fixes.

No field service management system can promise that you’ll bat 1.000 with first-time fixes. But the right mobility app can make a smartphone or tablet as essential as a screwdriver for getting things done right the first time.

Since TOA has been using Google Apps from the day it was available to businesses (we are a Charter User, I believe) this is no real news for us or for any of our employees worldwide. We love Google Apps (Docs, Plus, etc) and can clearly see a future where we will not need to buy a copy of Microsoft Office for every employee and save not only a lot of money but a lot of hassle on many levels (storage, security, records, etc).

Google Apps and Docs are not just ‘Good Enough’ at this point – they are indeed great. It only takes using them for a few days to figure out why. Google is constantly, continuously and obsessively innovating…with no fear..Even if GDocs seems to ‘look like’ Word or Excel or Powerpoint… they are not…their power is in the little improvements and small but substantial thought that Google’s brilliant developers have put into everything…with the goal of making the user experience simple, easy, connected.

And yes…it’s that connection, the ability to easily and seamlessly collaborate with others, without needing help or user manual , that is the true Killer here…And collaboration here is not some pretty industry buzz word that no one understands or know how to use…At TOA we use Google Docs primarily for sharing documents and collaborating and we encourage it – from the CEO on down as the de facto standard. We’ve collaborated with 5 people on an spreadsheet at one time with people in 5 different parts of the world and 5 different time zones; I’ve written whole documents with two or more people looking and working on shaping text together simultaneously (I’ve even done that on a Delta flight at 30,000 feet working on a presentation with one of my marketing directors, who was sitting 5 rows behind me, we were both connected to airborne wifi, both on the same Google Doc, working together, being highly productive.. talk about Mile High Club…); I regularly collaborate with my executive team to speed the creation and completion of documents, etc. And now we use Google Plus Hangouts to do big video conference calls incorporating Google Docs and Videos and Screensharing…you name it. And with the greatest of ease…

If I sound like I’m a paid spokesman – don’t worry – I’m not…I just love audacity in innovation and a company that has a vision, steadfastness and no fear. No fear of failure. It’s a hallmark of Google’s approach to trying new things. Google Apps, Plus and Docs are getting better by the day, by the hour and I and my colleagues marvel at the constant and positive change: For me looking at Google Plus and Google Apps and Docs is like watching a time-lapse motion picture of a beautiful plant growing…you can literally see the evolution with your own eyes, as you work, with new great features popping up every single day…It’s truly awe inspiring.

Microsoft on the other hand just can’t seem to regain the supremacy that it once had…despite some of the nice things they are trying desperately to role out with Windows 8 and Windows Phone, they are late to the party and the consumers are not really biting…at this pace, ten years from now, if there is no brilliant unexpected big move…Microsoft could well be a shadow of its former self – while Google does not rest and continues to rise…innovating like crazy, ambitious like there is no tomorrow, vibrant and alive….I embrace that strong innovative spirit and phenomenal execution!

The Appalachian Trail (A.T.) is a 2,180 mile long trail, stretching from Georgia to Canada. Thru-hikers complete the entire trail in 5-7 months, at an impressive speed of over 20 miles a day. The hike requires significant planning – after all, you’ll be carrying all you brought with you throughout your hike, on your back. There are no shopping malls nearby to buy supplies you forgot to pack. No supermarkets or restaurants when you are hungry. No water faucets, showers, restrooms, electricity or garbage cans. No pharmacy or doctor. What you do have is flimsy cell reception, unpredictable weather and wild animals that would love to share your precious food.

Above all, there’s the walking. Walking eight to ten hours a day, up or down a steep mountain (the total elevation gain of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail is equivalent to climbing Mount Everest 16 times), on rocks, tree roots and occasional mud.

I realized that when you walk on a surface so different from the flat floors we are accustomed to, you must focus on your next step. For me, focusing on my next step thousands of times a day was a meditative experience. Out of the quiet focus came some interesting reflections on both the technology and human topics I deal with regularly on the job at TOA Technologies: reliability, redundancy, planning, invention, innovation, partnership and management.

This blog will share not only my experiences on a beautiful and inspiring week-long backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in southern Vermont, but the reflections on my work as a company co-founder and CTO in the enterprise software executive that accompanied me and continue to hike on in my mind.

To current CIOs and CTOs, to those who aspire to hold these roles in the future, and to the dreamers who have the itch to invent a new app that will change the world, I hope that my insights will give you new perspectives along your own journey. Stay tuned!

Fred’s post from yesterday resonates big with me – as I am sure it does with many entrepreneurs and startup CEOs. That’s because one thing I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt is this:

Despite all the great ideas, the incredible technology, the fantastic energy and the amazing people who are an essential ingredient in the journey of founding and growing a company, there are always going to be challenges – HUGE challenges – and major obstacles. These will sometimes seem insurmountable. But at those moments, it is the power of endurance and perseverance that matters most – the true power of the entrepreneur. The ability to look beyond the horizon, beyond those situations and people who could stop you from continuing the rise, and come out of it to not just survive, but thrive and revel in the challenge, in the test of the moment and the great unknown.

The key is not letting anyone or anything get you down! To me this is the true secret of success – as Fred says: “being able to withstand a lot and keep moving” – utilizing the most powerful weapons of all – optimism, vision, strong belief in the cause, camaraderie and a healthy sense of humor.

Certainly, technology helped alleviate some of the uncertainty during the storm. Everyone could turn to Facebook to hear from friends and family in real-time. On Twitter, people could follow detailed reports of conditions at a grassroots level – neighborhood-by-neighborhood, sometimes even block-by-block. But technology also helped alleviate some of the suffering after the storm as well. Utilities, telecommunications providers and other organizations could use state-of-the-art field service management to schedule, route and manage crews working to restore vital services more quickly.

The best management solutions can easily integrate workforces assembled ad hoc, such as those formed when technicians pour into a storm-ravaged region from far away. These blended workforces usually comprise workers with different skill levels and different statuses. Sophisticated software can dispatch large teams of workers to perform jobs, even when specific skill sets are needed. Dynamic scheduling engines route more experienced or highly trained personnel to more technically complex tasks.

And, when a blended workforce makes BYOD (bring your own device) an operational necessity rather than an optional luxury, any mobile device with internet accessibility and login credentials can use a device-agnostic system. Once entered into the user database, responders coming from anywhere have instant access to job assignments, schedules and local routing on any smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Although mobile phone service usually proves hardier than landlines do in a natural disaster, connectivity seldom becomes an issue for crews using an HTML5-coded system. By logging on for just a few minutes in the morning, they can access a full day or even a full week of scheduled assignments and routes. That information will persist in their browsers even if they lose connectivity somewhere along the way.

During a disaster like Hurricane Sandy, cloud-based solutions show their strengths. Weather, earthquakes or floods might knock out local infrastructure (such as corporate data centers), but a well-designed cloud-based solution stays up and running, thanks to redundant hosting in primary and secondary data centers thousands of miles away and thousands of miles apart.

An adaptable, continuously learning solution can also help crews respond smarter and faster. It allows users to plot work zones quickly and easily, moving resources from one work zone to another as the need arises simply by dragging and dropping them onscreen. Getting crews to the right place ASAP also becomes simpler when a system doesn’t rely solely on street-level routing. A time-based routing engine can learn which roads have flooded or which bridges have washed out, and it takes those circumstances into account when scheduling jobs and mapping routes.

Although every disaster presents its own peculiar difficulties, the best solution can adjust to changing conditions. For example, the timing of tides (and the storm surges associated with them) obviously became critically important during Hurricane Sandy. Certain roads or entire neighborhoods simply turned impassable for hours at time, until the tidal flow receded. In these situations, the most useful software can account for dynamic factors when it schedules and routes crews.

Certainly, Sandy brought suffering and devastation to thousands. But disasters also have a way of bringing out the best in people – and in technology. That’s when a workforce management solution can serve as a vital tool for work crews trying to bring survivors’ lives back to some semblance of normal.

*Joe Younger is Editorial Manager at TOA Technologies