Field service—work performed at a customer’s site by skilled technicians to install, repair or maintain equipment and systems—is a critical function for a variety of industries, from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to utilities and telecom companies. In many cases, a field service call may be the only direct experience a customer has with these companies.

But many organizations are struggling to maintain their own in-house field service organizations. Baby boomers are retiring from the workforce, taking decades of experience with them. That leaves leaders of field service organizations scrambling for qualified talent to meet their customers’ needs.

While strengthening the existing field service teams makes sense, another option is to incorporate an on-demand model into the mix. An on-demand system taps into qualified third parties to perform this work, expanding the field service resource pool in a more economical way and creating the ability to scale up and down along with seasonable or variable demand. Call it crowd-servicing.

In fact, nine out of ten service and support organizations are already outsourcing some or all their field service operations to third-party service providers, according to the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA). The top reasons they’re doing so are to increase geographic coverage, quickly adjust to fluctuating workload volumes, increase service availability, and reduce service costs, according to the TSIA Field Services Benchmark survey.

The problem is that, historically, attempting to manage external field service organizations or contractors has been a manual process that can devolve into a game of broken telephone, with missed communications and mounting frustrations. There typically has not been a straightforward way to onboard external technicians into internal field service management systems, which both adds to the cost to serve and creates variability in work execution, customer service and profitability.

Another challenge for companies considering using third-party field service technicians: managing their reputation for strong service. Many companies are fiercely protective of their brands and reluctant to outsource the field service experience to outsiders, particularly if they have little visibility into that service delivery. In fact, according to a recent TSIA blog on the topic, organizations that outsource full field service operations have significantly lower Net Promoter Scores and renewal rates. What’s more, while many companies may assume it will be cheaper to outsource field service, there is a cost to managing a crowd.

The crowd-service model offers a path forward. With the right technology—purpose-built for this emerging approach to field service—companies can ultimately manage external partners, subcontractors and other skilled resources nearly as effectively as their own employees. They can give these external technicians access to their in-house tools, knowledge and training to perform the work to company standards. They can also optimize resource allocation with scheduling tools to match the right technicians with the right jobs and update the status of the work as it proceeds.

And while the term “crowd-service” may remind you of ridesharing or food delivery apps, the model is different for field service management. While they share some features—like automatic scheduling, a company setting up its field service crowd-service can determine the attributes it uses to determine which technician goes to which customer. It could be based on technical skills, distance, or availability. Fees are often determined by contractual agreements between a company and its third-party providers, or a system may require a provider to provide an estimated cost for a job. Once a work order is completed, the company can review and approve the job performed.

This article explores the experience of one company that is pioneering this approach.

Who has implemented the crowd-service model for field service management?

It's early days, but one medical device manufacturer has been implementing this approach. Uptime and availability of the company’s products—patient monitoring, ultrasound, and anesthesia devices—are critical. The company adheres to strict service-level agreements with its healthcare customers so routine maintenance and rapid fixing of any problems are paramount. In addition, it must meet strict regulatory requirements regarding service and provide an audit trail of who performs what work and what parts are used to meet those regulations.

What motivated them to try the crowd-service approach? Why now?

The company had been using third-party field service providers for some time to provide full-time coverage and expand globally. But there was no way for external technicians to access the medical device manufacturer’s own legacy field service management system. Any information about service calls had to be recorded manually and passed along after the fact to be entered into the system. This made it impossible to track service visits in progress and created concerns about data accuracy and consistency.

Facing end of support for that legacy system presented the company with an opportunity to explore a solution more suited to a crowd service approach.

In 2020, the company implemented a new system capable of managing a crowd service approach end to end.

How does the system work?

The system enables the host company (an OEM like the medical device manufacturer) to control who is performing field service work. The company decides which third-party service providers to admit to its crowd. The company can invite, evaluate and approve service providers and their technicians based on the experience and technical certifications they determine are required. The approach—to enable a company to determine who participates—ensures that companies can access technicians to perform the work that meets the service-level agreements established with customers. A company also can integrate this crowdsourcing system with their ERP and other business processes to maintain and synchronize up-to-date data on service calls.

Third-party service companies are provided with their own portals to participate in this system. There, they can upload and maintain their engineer profiles, locations and certifications to ensure that only their qualified technicians are sent to work with customers. When a service order is issued, the service provider can decide whether to accept the order or not.

In the case of the medical device manufacturer, once a provider is onboard, the manufacturer can assign work orders to them, track their performance, and process their service reports.

When the company’s call center receives a customer service request, a service order is created. The system uses algorithms to match the right technician with the right job based on service type, skill sets required, location, and availability. The external technicians use a mobile app while performing work at customer sites, giving them access to everything they need—including documentation—to perform their work as well as the ability to capture and upload data onsite, thereby creating full visibility at the medical device company throughout the process.

Notably, the service requests can be automated. IoT-enabled devices connected to a predictive analytics application can generate a service order when the system detects equipment needs attention or will soon.

What was their approach to the implementation?

Pre-implementation, it was crucial to align expectations across departments to ensure that everyone is working towards the same core business requirements.

The company then rolled the system out in phases, conducting numerous online and offline training sessions for internal users as well as the external field service partners. It created detailed operation manuals on the new system and made IT resources available to answer any question and troubleshoot issues during the initial phases of deployment.

And the work did not end after go-live. Ongoing systems optimization has been a must, including refining strategies for data synchronization and business rules setting and changing business processes as necessary.

What have the results been so far?

By mid-2024, the new system has improved field service efficiency by 10 percent, cut paperwork in half and boosted new business opportunity conversion rates by 10 percent.

It also improved the quality and quantity of data the company collected, not only about equipment faults requiring repairs and other maintenance details, but also customer feedback and data collected by field service technicians, including conditions at the customer site. This data collection largely automates previously manual, paper-based steps, such as assigning a job to a third-party service provider with customer location, equipment details, spare parts required, and other data; and detailed log of work performed, time spent, materials used, expenses incurred, follow-on work required, checklists to ensure quality work, and customer sign-off, recorded via the technician’s mobile app.

Most importantly, the medical device manufacturer is building a consistent service brand with customers even as it is expanding its field service offerings and can focus its efforts on managing what’s happening in the field instead of managing disconnects with its external partners.

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