What your customers want

A recent survey of over 8000 field service customers has uncovered how industry technology trends impact on the decision to hire plumbers, exterminators, cleaning contractors and other residential service providers. Results show that the residential services market is ripe for businesses that adopt integrated software and why those that don’t will get left behind.

There are a plethora of available options for home service providers when choosing a software solution for their business. While many allow customers to do things such as track technician arrival times and pay bills online, customer preferences are rarely considered a part of the software selection process.

To learn more, US-based field service tech group Software Advice (a Gartner company), conducted a survey on the effect of such software on the customer experience. The results will help residential services companies understand which capabilities can not only improve the customer experience, but even encourage customers to choose one provider over another.

The report suggests that field service companies - particularly the small to midsize residential service providers - lag behind other businesses when it comes to technology adoption. A 2014 Software Advice study discovered that 54% of software buyers were using manual methods for business management.

When selecting software to integrate into daily operations, improving customer experience is just as important as considering current business needs, and software selection can influence current and potential customers’ choice when selecting a service provider.

Technician tracking technology important

58% of survey respondents indicated that the use of technical tracking technology would increase their likelihood to hire that company. The ability to track the arrival time online, rather than relying on a traditional window of arrival, is a big plus from the customer perspective.

Software effects on hiring residential service providers.

The survey results suggest that the old-school method applies to bigger businesses such as utilities and telcos, but that smaller businesses can be more precise in scheduling given proper management and the right software. The report quotes Sam Pillar, CEO and co-founder at business management software provider Jobber, as saying: “So long as you have a good handle on how long the services you provide take to do, then you can schedule your field resources effectively - pretty much guarantee that they’re going to be where you say, on time.”

Pillar suggests that geofencing capability is a great starting point, as the technology literally acts like a digital fence, enabling businesses to set boundaries for service, create alerts on entry and exit and to automatically notify the customer when their technician is nearby.

He explains, “If you’re scheduled to do a job at 2 pm, but at five minutes to two, you’re still 10 miles away, you’d be able to automatically send a text message to the customer saying you’re going to be a little late.”

There are operational benefits with such technology as well, says Pillar: “If a technician claims to be on a job and the customer says they weren’t, you can verify this; or if they get in an accident you can see exactly where they were.”

Provision of a portal

The second strongest positive impact on a respondent’s likelihood to select a particular company is access to an online portal for self-service tasks such as scheduling and bill paying. However, the presence of a portal is also the most negatively impactful capability. The implication here is that properly implementation adds to the customer experience, whereas a poor execution detracts from it.

The polarising results warranted further examination of the data, so respondents were asked to identify specific preferred portal functionality. 55% said they would use online bill payment more than any other function and exactly half said they would use online scheduling.

Preferred customer portal functionality.

This creates opportunity for mobile platforms that connect customers to individual providers and suggests that these platforms are capable of generating market disruption in the same vein as Uber does for taxi customers, particularly for businesses without online payment and scheduling capability.

Only 29% of survey participants listed GPS tracking as useful in a customer portal, which seems at odds with the findings around technician tracking. It may be that customers prefer a stand-alone technician tracking function, given the generally complex navigational nature of customer portals.

Beyond customer-facing functionality

In an effort to understand customer perceptions on software use, respondents were asked about how well service companies leverage technology to improve the customer experience. 41% indicated that service providers do an “average” job, yet a combined 39% claimed their provider does the job “somewhat well” or “very well”.

Customer perception of residential services software use.

So, it seems that more customers have a positive experience with a service provider’s software than a negative one. The report suggests that building great technology for businesses to use in serving their customers means that it stays out of the way - the end consumer shouldn’t really notice it is there.

If the proper use of software is invisible, it’s probably very apparent when a provider is not using software properly; processes tend to be slower and more inconvenient. Pillar says: “The end consumer sees the benefits in more efficient work; an industry that is overall, faster and more competitive; and, ultimately, they should start seeing greater price competitiveness as a result, because [providers] are able to do more with less.”

The future

As more residential services businesses switch over to software, customers’ perceptions may change. To encourage a positive change, businesses must ensure they’re offering some sort of technician tracking capabilities, as well as an online customer portal that features efficient, easy-to-use online bill pay and scheduling. Failure to do so could soon result in a loss of market share to tech-savvy up-and-comers. However, doing this correctly could have bountiful results. With so many mid-level responses amongst our survey-takers, the residential services market is ripe for businesses to adopt technology that pushes average experiences into positive ones.

Report methodology

To find the data in this report, Software Advice conducted a three-day online survey of seven questions and gathered 8169 responses from random adults who have used residential services within the United States. All survey questionnaires undergo an internal peer review process to ensure clarity in wording.

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