Companies are waking up to the importance of cloud-based field service management operations given that poor scheduling and improper manual planning are affecting turnover rates. A 2022 report found that 11.4% employees in the professional services sector resign within a year of employment, higher than the average of 10.6% across industries. With the Tokyo release, ServiceNow field service management features advanced tools to help you provide seamless service while improving technician efficiency.

First-time fix rates and time-to-site are among the most important metrics that can make or break your field service. Multiple site visits not only rack up costs, but also affect customer satisfaction and employee experience. More often than not, multiple visits are necessitated either because technicians and field agents lack information on device history or they are left in the dark about availability of parts, having to run back and forth to check inventory or get the necessary approvals.

ServiceNow FSM improves collaboration, visibility and access to help your business manage work orders, resources, skills and assets more efficiently. ServiceNow takes over as a single centralized platform integrated with all data sources and third-party apps so stakeholders can easily access all the information they need to quickly complete tasks.

Field service management

ServiceNow Tokyo release’s cutting-edge field service management features

ServiceNow Tokyo release features specific tools that address key challenges in field service management — repetitive and time-consuming admin tasks, poor scheduling practices and siloed systems. Field agents play a key role in customer satisfaction and ServiceNow FSM tools are designed to deliver seamless service with coordinated effort and automated workflows.  Let’s take a deeper look into how the new release enhances ServiceNow field service management:

Capacity and Reservations Management: Gain control over work distribution across your internal and external teams so employees are not overburdened with requests. Engage smart scheduling that classifies and organizes tasks based on priority and demand so your customers are not left shortchanged in case of a surge in demand. Automate scheduling based on capacity rules to improve agent productivity and ensure compliancy.

Inventory Management: Empower field agents with the new advanced inventory management workflows, which allow agents to request for multiple parts at one go. Agents can look up availability and source parts via Now Mobile app too. The new workflows simplify peer-to-peer interactions so agents can transfer or swap required parts with mobile notifications alerting them on the status of requests along the way. The enhancements are geared to ensure quicker resolutions if not first-time fixes, which improve both employee and customer experiences.

Schedule Optimization: Automate scheduling by feeding key factors and objectives into ServiceNow and letting the Now Platform deal with complex scheduling scenarios. ServiceNow takes multiple factors into consideration including capacity, priority, resources, agent experience, location and skills. Automating the process doesn’t just save you money and the hours spent on manually creating work schedules but also increases agent productivity and reduces overall carbon footprint by clamping down on travel time.

Territory Planning: Speaking of reducing travel time, create, visualize and manage territories using territory planning to allocate sufficient resources, including personnel, to cover tasks in specific areas. With the Tokyo release, planners can import geographical data and use enhanced visualization capabilities to balance schedules and avoid conflicts. You can also create overlays to get a bird’s eye view of workers, assets and crews on territory maps.

Planned Work Management: Planned Work Management helps you manage planned and recurring work activities such as maintenance, inspection and audits. It includes new workflows that take agents through the different types of planned activities and reduce administrative burden. ServiceNow automates scheduling for recurrent activities and allows field agents to create maintenance and servicing plans for multiple assets on one work order.

A ServiceNow upgrade should be on your to-do list

Experts recommend a ServiceNow upgrade at least once a year. Upgrading your ServiceNow instance ensures you have continued access to the very best of Now Platform, ServiceNow support services and optimum platform security. But an upgrade is no simple task. It is a crucial project that requires dedicated resources. An experienced ServiceNow solutions provider can make the upgrade project simpler and also help you with ServiceNow integration with all your third-party apps for ITSM, HRSD, CSM and more.

Aspire Systems is a Premier Partner of ServiceNow and has successfully completed more than 100 projects on the platform. From ServiceNow consulting and implementation to enhancements, we have the experts you need to get the most out of your ServiceNow journey. We specialize in Automated Test Framework, which helps expedite your upgrade journey by taking all the manual effort out of testing. With our expertise, a global chemical and ingredients distributor slashed manual testing costs by 90%. Read the case study to know more.