“Yes ma’am, our field service technician was at your house at 1:17 p.m. to initiate your water service and you will have water when you come home.”

This is the type of detailed information Service Authority Customer Service Representatives can now provide customers, thanks to the implementation of Mobile Service Orders (MSO’s). A year ago, the Authority ushered in the era of “real-time notification” between Field Services staff who are on the road all day (field personnel) and Customer Service Representatives who work at the Woodbridge headquarters. Field personnel enter the status of the work order while in the field and a Customer Service Representative can view that status immediately. Conversely, field personnel can receive real-time notifications concerning customer accounts. For field personnel, it’s like having a miniature version of the Authority’s billing system at their fingertips. MSO’s allow field staff to access relevant information such as  customer consumption history, a history of all previous work orders linked to each customer, and any notes or alerts associated with the account. Additionally, MSO’s allow field personnel to send and receive broadcast messages.

At the start of a typical work day, field personnel are assigned service orders by the Field Services Supervisor. However, as more work orders are generated throughout the day, they automatically appear in a queue on the Field Techs’ laptop computers that they carry with them. Each job is assigned directly to the most appropriate Field Tech by the Meter Operations Clerk, who works with Customer Service Representatives to handle any special requests or emergency orders.
 
Field personnel who work during typical daytime hours may assign MSO’s that are still open at the end of the workday to evening Field Techs for completion. As a management tool, the Authority’s use of MSO’s allows those who dispatch the work orders to carefully monitor workloads. Another feature allows dispatchers to note a Field Tech’s most recent location as well as the direction in which he or she is headed to minimize travel time between service order addresses. All of this information is conveniently visible on one screen.

Another management tool, the MSO Dashboard, provides a statistical view of work orders, allowing Authority personnel to create graphical reports, see daily and monthly statistics for field personnel, track workloads and create benchmarks to improve the Service Authority’s overall performance.

by Mark Head, Field Services Manager

the Pipeline - Volume 3, Issue 1