Customer service is a critical aspect of any business. Effective service depends on streamlined delivery, installation, repairs, and more. As most equipment manufacturers rely on the channel or third parties, many field service challenges disrupt service delivery.

The Challenges of Third-Party Service Providers

Relying on third-party service providers often allows manufacturers to focus on their core competencies and benefit from service delivery scalability and flexibility. However, employing large networks of installers, contractors, and technicians also leads to several operational challenges and a loss of control. Here are the top challenges of partnering with third-party service providers:

• Labor challenges: Third-party service providers spend countless hours on talent—considering how best to recruit and retain great people. With labor shortages becoming a global challenge, hiring and training a skilled workforce is an enormous task. In addition, managing salaries, balancing work schedules, and resolving tenure complexities affect the quality and delivery of service—impacting KPIs and customer satisfaction.

• Siloed tools: Organizations that depend on third-party service providers deal with islands of individual systems. Transparency plummets when providers rely on different tools to deliver services and collaborate. At the same time, little or no integration between systems limits data sharing and decreases productivity— leading to poor service performance and gaps in operations.

• Limited visibility: Many independent service technicians working in the field also impact service consistency while restricting visibility into service performance and quality. Standardizing processes, streamlining access to training and product information, and ensuring timely service delivery across multiple dealers, installers, and service partners are costly when managed manually. It makes scaling service delivery through an extended service provider network extremely difficult.

The Benefits of a Unified Field Service Delivery Platform

In a complex and crowded service provider network, equipment manufacturers wanting to deliver amazing service while maximizing profitability should enable and empower the channel. Even the best third-party service providers have their challenges to overcome. OEMs must embrace a unified field service platform developed to help service and support teams stand out and deliver top-notch service.

With digital workflows, integrated remote assistance, and mobile-first knowledge management, a unified service delivery platform enables cost-effective communication, consistency, and quality across the entire service network. To drive service innovation on a budget, it can help equipment manufacturers overcome all third-party service provider issues and pave the way for:

• Coordinated service delivery: Equipment manufacturers unlock cost-effective activation of their service partner network and optimize support for them. With a unified service delivery platform, they can gain unprecedented visibility into actual work execution, drive service standards, and accelerate revenue growth through service channel partners. Instead of buying separate tools for digital forms, remote assistance, documentation, learning, and automation, they can invest in a single, easy-to-deploy platform that allows for coordinated service delivery that delights customers.
• Remarkable customer experiences: When equipment manufacturers rely on a network of service providers, getting customer and installed-based visibility through the channel becomes difficult. How do you ensure technicians install, set up, and troubleshoot products efficiently without repeat visits? A unified service delivery platform empowers businesses to drive service quality and ensure customers are satisfied. Manufacturers’ channel support capacity increases by streamlining work across the entire service network, such as warranty checks and product registrations, so more customer issues are resolved.
• Improved service readiness: Service network teams are expected to deliver great service but lack adequate training tools. A unified service delivery platform offers cutting-edge mobile capabilities, allowing organizations to empower their service network and engage them at scale with tailored learning modules and step–by–step guidance. They can keep track of every service task, connect and engage with service providers on-site in real-time, and enable the consistency that drives amazing service.
• Standardized service delivery: When service partners cobble together manual operations, it leads to bottlenecks, double-entry, and increased administrative costs. Adopting a unified service delivery platform standardizes and keeps service consistent while ensuring customers don’t wait for responses. By replacing paperwork with digital workflows, equipment manufacturers can roll out as many service delivery processes as needed to balance the appropriate levels of oversight and support.
• Cost-effective results: Supporting a large network of partners is costly. A modern service delivery platform comes with several remote assistance and self-service capabilities—allowing technicians to resolve customers’ issues faster at a fraction of the cost. It provides real-time assistance to field technicians when they need it most while allowing expert support teams to handle heavy volumes of service and support issues.

Increasing customer expectations, growing equipment complexity, and global skill shortages affect service delivery and performance. Those effects are limiting service business growth and leaving customers unsatisfied.  Since the time it takes to onboard new service providers creates a significant service expectation gap, equipment manufacturers need a platform that helps them at each step of their service transformation journey.

When a large network of dealers, distribution partners, and installers service delivers service, a platform trusted by the world’s leading equipment manufacturers,  like Atheer connects everyone through service standardization. Its no-code approach allows manufacturers to develop and deploy digital service processes to keep everyone in the service delivery chain informed and performing.

Whether you need to ramp service partners quickly or manage your network profitability, Atheer can help extend your current service systems with real-time service performance visibility and help you streamline delivery across your complex service provider network.