BURLINGTON, Massachusetts,
June 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
For many businesses that provide deliveries, installations and
service calls to customers, more than half of the service work is
handled by third-party contractors. These road warriors are often
the only face that the customer sees and are essential for
enhancing the business. The rise in the power of the consumer is
causing increased demand for businesses to provide a seamless
customer experience, regardless of who is providing the service.
Yet new findings from a ClickSoftware (NasdaqGS: CKSW) survey of
more than 200 companies shows the partnerships between businesses
and their contractors are not as solid as once thought, and major
service gaps are weakening company reputations and increasing the
cost of service every year.
The main drivers of customer dissatisfaction are communications
and quality failures. The failures are on both ends of the spectrum
with 89 percent of contractor managers reporting that third-party
contractors should be more transparent and communicative in order
for the business to succeed. At the same time, many key performance
metrics are not being regularly measured by businesses due to the
lack of visibility into the contractor's workday. Key survey
findings include:
- Contractors are Brand Ambassadors - More than 90 percent
of businesses surveyed agree third-party contractors' performance
while on a service call is just as important in maintaining and
improving the business as marketing itself. Businesses want the
contractors to do more, with 80 percent indicating contractors
could do more for client satisfaction.
- My time is valuable - The most numerous complaints about
contractors (66 percent) in the past six months dealt with
scheduling issues. It's not just late arrivals, but also early
arrivals that caused customer frustration, return visits and missed
appointments. One third of the complaints (38 percent) emerge from
a contractor arriving late. While businesses realize this is an
issue, almost half (45 percent) of contractor managers do not
consistently measure scheduling as part of contractor
performance.
- Missed appointments and poor quality
hurt business reputation and
increase costs - The study found that 21 percent of contractor
service appointments result in return or repeat visits. Despite the
majority of businesses focusing on matching the appropriate
contractor skill set as when allocating service calls.
- Contractors poor service impacting the bottom
line - The costs of the contractors' poor performance are
rising year over year according to those surveyed and that's
impacting the bottom line for many businesses. The study found 66
percent of businesses believe that the majority of the costs
associated with repeating work are largely due to poor performance
of third-party contractors. That is why businesses value the
quality of work over customer feedback/satisfaction, on-time
arrival and even time spent to complete service projects when
retaining contractors.
"The survey findings show businesses who are using more
third-party contractors, are seeking new methods to optimally
manage the workflow of these contractors to adhere to service level
agreements, improve performance and have better visibility into the
service delivery process," said Stephen
Timms, ClickSoftware's President of Americas. "Technology,
such as ClickSoftware's Service Network for Contractors, is
available to help manage workflows and transform the way businesses
operate and deliver services. Our solution provides these
businesses with the ability to view service activities and
third-party resources in real-time to improve efficiency, more
effectively serve customers, build brand reputation and avoid
mistakes that have plagued the industry for years."
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online through Online Panel, Research
Now Panel, which is ICC/ESOMAR compliant within the United States between April 15 and 23, 2015 among 200 decision
makers within departments that deal with third-party contracting
and targeted directors and managers of services, customers service
and operations, and looked specifically at the following sectors:
manufacturing (installations); home services; retail and utilities.
To view the detailed survey results, download a copy of the survey
report. For complete survey methodology, including weighting
variables, please contact clicksoftware@mslgroup.com.
About ClickSoftware
ClickSoftware (NasdaqGS: CKSW) is the leading provider of
automated mobile workforce management and service optimization
solutions for the enterprise, both for mobile and in-house
resources. As pioneers of the "Service chain optimization" concept,
our solutions provide organizations with end-to-end visibility and
control of the entire service management chain by optimizing
forecasting, planning, shift and task scheduling, mobility and
real-time management of resource and customer communication.
Available via the cloud or on-premise, our products incorporate
best business practices and advanced decision-making algorithms to
manage service operations more efficiently, in a scalable,
integrated manner. Our solutions have become the backbone for many
leading organizations worldwide by addressing the fundamental
question of job fulfillment: Who does What, for Whom, With what,
Where and When.
ClickSoftware is the premier choice for delivering superb
business performance to service sector organizations of all sizes.
The company is headquartered in the
United States and Israel,
with offices across Europe,
Latin America and Asia Pacific. For more information, please
visit http://www.clicksoftware.com. Follow us on Twitter.
Media Contacts:
Lauren Mead
ClickSoftware
+1-781-272-5903 ext. 2308
lauren.mead@clicksoftware.com
Erin Zwirn
MSLGROUP
+1-781-684-0770
clicksoftware@mslgroup.com
SOURCE ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd