Why should you move to Salesforce Field Service?

Author: Rohit Arora, Solutions Architect at Salesforce

I would be lying if I told you that change doesn’t make me anxious. Transitioning an entire Field Service Organization to a new platform is a massive undertaking. It requires a lot of time and resource investment in selecting a new platform, planning the transition, change management, and preparation before the move.

But here is why you should do it:

1. If you are an existing ClickSoftware customer (whether on-premise or Field Service Edge), Salesforce Field Service is an obvious choice as under the hood they are very similar products that you have grown to understand and appreciate. This would be the easiest move from a change management perspective as the UIs are also very similar.
2. If you are an existing Service Cloud customer and are looking to implement a Field Service solution, then Salesforce Field Service is just an extension of Service Cloud’s capabilities. It is built on the same platform, uses the same data model, and Service Cloud extends all its capabilities (Customer and Partner Communities, Knowledge Management, Entitlement Management, CTI Integration, Omni-Channel, and more) which not just provides additional tools to the Field Service users and customers but makes for a seamless integration experience with the back-office/contact centers.
3. Salesforce Platform offers excellent capabilities in terms of automation of business processes in terms of Process Builder and Flow Builder much more than what Generic Events and Workflow Agents did in Legacy Click.
4. Salesforce Maps extend standard GIS offerings Mapping, Routing, and Geocoding with real-time traffic updates, asset tracking, route optimization, geofencing, and territory planning. Integration with ESRI ArcGIS Online.
5. Salesforce Field Service is constantly evolving with a lot of great functionalities to offer like:

• Appointment Assistant package– allows tracking technician’s real-time location, confirm/reschedule/cancel appointments and responding to customer satisfaction surveys from the customer community page.
• Location-less Service– provides the ability to book appointments where no travel is involved for important use cases like telehealth, telesales, and remote diagnostics.
• Asset uptime– provides insight into asset reliability/availability. It allows organizations to decide whether to replace the asset or increase the frequency of the maintenance schedule and helps identify assets where there might be a risk of missing service guarantees.
• Criteria-based Preventative Maintenance– allows users to schedule preventative maintenance visits not just on the basis of a calendar but also based on asset usage.
• Visual Remote Assistance (VRA)– allows for remote diagnostics on assets at the customer’s premises using a two-way video in split screen mode between the remote technicians and the customers and potentially saving the truck rolls to the customer site and/or reducing the time spent on site by the field technician.
• Search Nearby Parts– functionality allows for technicians to search for missing parts near their location and have the parts delivered to them using a ride-share service like Uber/Lyft thus saving valuable time and costs and most importantly, avoiding customer frustration.

I would be very interested to see drones being used to transport parts in the not-so-distant future or even technicians printing the parts using a 3D printer in their trucks!

6. Salesforce IoT allows your organization to be an active participant in the fourth Industrial Revolution. It is already happening around us with more ubiquitous and mobile Internet, smaller and more powerful sensors that have become cheaper, and artificial intelligence and machine learning. We have edge technologies pushing us forward, in the form of the cloud, social, mobile, IoT, and AI. Salesforce IoT allows you to jump on the bandwagon by monitoring assets and creating tickets based on pre-defined parameters to enable preventative maintenance of assets rather than fixing them upon failure.
7. Salesforce has excellent Reporting and Dashboard capabilities. Salesforce Field Service comes with some pre-configured ready-to-use reports and dashboard capabilities which are pretty neat.

You probably heard that “Data is the new Oil”. Jack Welch rightly said that “An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage”.

Salesforce Einstein Analytics and Tableau (additional licensing cost) are both incredibly powerful analytics tools that allow you to just do that.

Einstein Analytics can provide predictive and machine learning capabilities that you can integrate with your Tableau dashboards and can generate actionable insights which can be a total game changer.

8. Mulesoft Anypoint is a very powerful integration platform with hundreds of pre-built connectors which link Salesforce to a wide gamut of applications, platforms, and accelerators which allows generating ROI sooner by allowing modernization of legacy systems, adopting best-of-breed SaaS applications, enabling rapid and seamless cloud migration.
9. Salesforce is heavily invested in its Customers’ and Partners’ success. Trailhead is Salesforce’s free online learning platform devoted entirely to teaching people to use Salesforce. Salesforce conducts regular Customer and Partner success hours where they share a sneak peek into the latest features, and tips on implementing the product features and offer a platform for customers and partners to ask questions about their implementation challenges. It allows for faster onboarding of Technicians, Dispatchers, and Managers. Trailhead platform also allows you to create your own training content and co-relate it with Technician’s certifications.
10. Salesforce has a huge partner ecosystem. If you need functionality that isn’t available in Salesforce, chances are there is already a number of apps available on AppExchange. AppExchange is a marketplace offering solutions, such as apps, components, and consulting services. All apps on AppExchange are required to go through a comprehensive security review process. Security review ensures that the app meets the highest-level security standards. You don’t have to build any functionality from scratch. You can just download a pre-built solution, which is more secure and already tested by other users. You don’t have to invest in development and maintenance costs, as paid apps are often improved and enhanced by their providers. There’s only the time investment of searching for an existing app and implementing it.

Can you think of other reasons? Please feel free to contact us.