Our world is more connected than ever. Thermostats, televisions, appliances, smart speakers—all of these devices need to be connected for use in our personal and professional lives. The companies and field service technicians who help customers connect these devices need the right tools to do their job well and improve customer satisfaction, productivity and revenue. With the real-time demands of field service, it can be one of the most challenging aspects of running a business.
That’s where CSG comes in. For more than 35 years, CSG has delivered software and services that help companies around the world monetize and digitally enable the customer experience. CSG Field Service Management (FSM) helps technicians with the right skill set get to the right job at the right time, so businesses and consumers have the connectivity they need to work and play.
CSG FSM keeps customers connected throughout the service journey, based on changing conditions that regularly happen on the day of service and evolving demands in the customers’ lives. CSG knows that delighting customers requires constant communication and agility—whether it’s for the initial order, to the day of service, to the first trouble call.
But how was this award-winning solution developed, and how is it helping companies better serve their customers today? Chad Dunavant, Head of Global Product Management at CSG, has the insight. With over 20 years of experience, Chad develops the strategy and direction for CSG’s global products and service portfolios, ensuring the company’s solutions like FSM meet and exceed the current and future needs of the company’s global client base.
Built for new industries and geographies
CSG was founded in 1994, providing revenue management and customer experience solutions to the cable industry. Ever since, CSG has expanded its suite of market-leading products and services to serve various industries and geographies.
Today, CSG is one of the leading field service management solution providers in North and South America, used by over 75,000 technicians to complete more than 100 million work orders ever year. Global Service Providers use CSG Field Service Management to optimize their field service operations.
“CSG has been delivering field service management solutions to clients for decades,” says Dunavant of CSG’s expertise. “Our modernized product suite helps maximize our customers’ productivity, while positioning the product to support the growing demands of the service ecosystem.”
And demands in the field service ecosystem are certainly growing. In a CSG survey of 2,000 consumers across five countries, the company found that 89 percent of consumers would be very likely to call on a service technician to troubleshoot or repair devices if their service provider offered that service. Almost 40 percent of respondents also said that they think consumers will want an on-demand installation or repair service 50-75 percent of the time.
“Our clients are clearly identified as a trusted service provider and are seeing tremendous change in what consumers expect from brand experiences,” says Dunavant. “This requires change in how they deliver service relying more on the field service management operations—moving from legacy to digital systems while effectively and efficiently managing risk and costs.”
Fortunately, CSG Field Service Management is built for the connected service provider—and built to deliver a great customer experience.
“CSG offers dynamic field service management solutions that enable operational flexibility and exceptional customer experiences.”
Field service revolutionized
The CSG Field Service Management product suite transforms the way service technicians conduct their work, providing a real-time, 360-degree view of a company’s operations. This complete view allows service providers to get the right technicians with the right skills to the right job at the right time, while adapting to inevitability of the changing conditions.
There are five technologies that enable this real-time view:
- Real-time data: CSG FSM pushes important and urgent information including real-time traffic, scheduling, and communications to field technicians, dispatchers, supervisors and customers, while accommodating in-app communications between users, in real time. Without real-time data, the system would be unable to make real-time decisions and ensure the technician, and work they need to fulfill, are truly optimized
- Global scalability and availability: CSG is an Advanced Technology Partner in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network, extending its cloud-first approach to its Field Service Management product suite. By developing and hosting the product in the cloud, it provides CSG clients with global availability, scalability, and data security associated with cloud investment to meet and exceed their needs, in real time.
- Optimized appointment scheduling (OAS): OAS improves productivity and lowers costs through dynamic routing that continuously updates and optimizes the field service organization; taking into account service appointment time, route, real-time traffic incidents, actual street level distance to the job as well as technician skill proficiencies, licenses and equipment. With automated dispatch logic, companies can create a real-time dialogue between technicians and customer’s schedule availability to enable the team to focus on solving high priority issues and keeping service promises.
- Extensive suite of APIs: CSG FSM integrates into any existing billing system and third-party application. The solution integrates jobs from any order management system; tracks employee time, labor and inventory used from any enterprise resource planning (ERP) system; and automates equipment activation, warranty checks or customer signatures.
- Service Orchestration platform: CSG FSM enables jobs to automatically be broken down based on clientdefined business rules so the work can be appropriately assigned to the right set(s) of technicians. As service work becomes more complex, this is a critical factor to ensure the right information is gathered based on any relevant event.
But what really differentiates CSG Field Service Management is that it was designed with the technicians and customers in mind. CSG Field Service Management enables companies to customize how and when to communicate with their customers, utilizing channels such as SMS, mobile, email and the web to give customers realtime updates about their appointment, including the ability to follow the technician while they are en route to the customer location. All of this leads to a better customer experience.
“The only way to differentiate ourselves is in customer service,” says Simón Tadeo, CX Director at Telecom Argentina, an FSM client in South America. “CSG Field Service Management helps us deliver on our promises to our customers.”
Customer-obsessed culture
In addition to serving the technicians and end customers, CSG also stays focused on the service provider clients themselves. By helping them provide better service to their customers, CSG and its client can deliver on their promises. Through a re-imagined user experience, CSG FSM allows clients to manage work more effectively. By focusing on exceptions in an interactive dashboard, companies no longer have to organize dispatchers to technicians, but dispatchers to exceptions that happen during the day. This allows for operational efficiencies, streamlined communications and the ability to work across geographies from any device.
“CSG is customer obsessed,” says Dunavant. “By staying focused on bringing innovative solutions that address the business-critical challenges within our clients’ operations, we’ve nurtured recurring, long-term client relationships that grow and have expanded our leadership position and domain expertise.”
Dunavant says CSG is committed to elevating its culture by fostering a dynamic, collaborative and empowered environment that inspires its employees, nurtures their success and sparks innovation.
From the customers themselves
Below, CSG shares testimonials from clients who use CSG Field Service Management, as well as results those clients have seen:
- Real-time traffic helps our technicians exceed on-time arrival guarantees and deliver the great experiences our customers expect. Technicians are able to help more customers per day and get to the job on time, leading to higher customer satisfaction.” VP, Technical Services, Tier 2 Operator
- Atlantic Broadband is leading the way in providing its customers with compelling and flexible television, internet and voice services across its 11-state region. To be successful, we must be diligent in continuing to invest in innovative technologies that enhance our customer experience, our operational systems and our processes. Our relationship with CSG helps us further accelerate our digital transformation and create an experience for our customers that is second to none.” Courtney Long, VP Customer Operations, Atlantic Broadband
- Field Service Management has allowed us to provide better customer experience by offering shorter windows of arrival times, set customer expectations of how long a job will take and inform them of who is arriving at their door, no surprises to our customers – which is important to them. The relationship with CSG has always worked well, they’re always responsive and listen to our needs.” Sam Haulman, General Manager, Service Electric
- Tier One Cable Provider saw a 73 percent increase in daily booked jobs in just one market, equating to a productivity increase valued at $4.6 million per year
What’s next
Looking ahead, Dunavant wants to keep delivering great experiences for clients and end customers through CSG Field Service Management. The solution helps protect and maintain existing revenue streams by improving service delivery leading to higher customer satisfaction and increased retention for greater customer lifetime value. And CSG FSM allows companies to unlock new revenue streams through the monetization of multiple services like smart homes and the Internet of Things. Companies can offer services across multiple locations and channels, while bringing new services to market quickly.
It all comes back to CSG’s mission of helping companies optimize, transform and monetize through innovative, connected service ecosystems.
“We’re committed to helping companies tackle t heir biggest business challenges and thrive in an ever-changing marketplace,” says Dunavant.
