By Siddharth Mehra, OnProcess Technology
I had the pleasure, last week, of attending Click Software’s annual event “Click Connect 2015” as a speaker. For the OnProcess team, it was a great opportunity to meet with Click’s current ecosystem of clients, partners, leadership and team members, gain valuable insight into their experiences, discuss best practices and explore mutually beneficial opportunities. There were a multitude of excellent keynote speeches and the one by Ken Schmidt was quite possibly the best keynote I have ever witnessed. I was able to attend most of the keynotes and breakout sessions in addition to connecting personally with several attendees. While they were all extremely informative three key themes stood out with regards to how CSO’s (Chief Service Officers) are structuring and managing their service fulfillment organizations.
- Service Transformation Not Just Service Optimization – For several years now, service organizations have focused on getting optimum productivity from their technicians. Their first initiatives include: deploying a workforce management solution focused on optimized routes, mobile enabled devices and GPS tracking. In a changing and on-demand economy customers are now expecting higher service levels and lower (I really mean negligible) wait times. This is driving organizations to reshape their strategies. Most CSO’s we spoke with are deploying Click and are doing so with an added focus on customer service. They are not just looking to deliver optimized service but want to ensure that optimization aligns with customer expectations and their customer care organizations. Click is driving several enhancements into their WFM suite to enable end customer visibility. The end result, and it’s already well underway, is going to be end-to-end service transformation initiatives within organizations as opposed to just getting the most out of your workforce.
- Change Management Is Key – Resistance to change during a new software/solution deployment is nothing new. This will also remain a constant as automation and reporting drives a need for technicians and dispatchers to adapt their behavior. Many of the breakout sessions highlighted the methods that best-in-class organizations and Click users employed to work through this curve. Executive level buy-in and engagement, a daily cadence of communication throughout the user base and the ability to fine tune the solution with real time input from SME’s were just some of the methods that resonated across organizations that were able to deploy Click successfully. It was also refreshing to witness the candor with which some of the CSO’s spoke while discussing any challenges they may have faced during implementation. Another hugely successful method employed by almost all these companies was the integration of business partners with prior Click experience to help with their deployment.
- Analytics And Data Driven Insights – A market leading workforce and service management solution will give you almost every production report you need and access to a wide array of data to build out customized reports. Analyzing that data and providing actionable, near real time, insight back to the service organizations still remains a gap that needs to be filled. Most CSO’s, I spoke with highlighted this as an area of improvement within their organization. While they were on point with most of their metrics and KPI’s, they had limited visibility into what actually causes breakage points and are still working, in over-drive, to integrate operational level data into their service process. Predictive analytics to prevent unnecessary service events was highlighted as an immediate need. They are looking for tools that can drive additional efficiencies into their business. While there was an obvious urge to undertake such initiatives, most organizations did not have the resources (data analysts/scientists) readily available to them.
All of the themes that stood out at Click Connect accredit what I have been seeing with our clients in the dispatch space in 2015. Service transformation and a focus on analytics have been mutually dependent areas for programs we have worked on. Our clients are also increasingly cognizant of the need for a meticulous and collaborative change management process.
Overall a great show with a good mix of attendees at every level in the service fulfillment space. I’m looking forward to Click Connect 2016.
Did you attend Click Connect 2015? What stood out for you? Share it with us in the comments section.
The post OnProcess at ClickConnect 2015 – Three Key Service Fulfillment Themes appeared first on OnProcess Technology.
