SUMMARY KEYWORDS

technician, service, completed staff work, field, michael, customer, company, water heater, industrial, part, call, software, completed, air conditioning system, field service technicians, years, philosophy, people, question, give

00:00

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01:15

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots. And let's go right

01:34

once again, welcome to industrial talk the number one industrial related media platform in the galaxy that celebrates industry professionals and companies. Because you're bold, you're brave, you dare greatly. you innovate. You solve problems, you collaborate, you are making the world a better place. That's why we celebrate you onto this industrial talk platform. In a hot seat. We have a gentleman by the name of Michael Israel, we're going to be talking about field service. What that means, why it's important. And also the the topic of Completed Staff Work. Nope, I don't know anything about it. Michael does. That's why this conversation is so important. Let's get a correction. So if you're out on the video, you're saying, Oh, my goodness, Scott, what is going on with your eyeball? What's going on with your nose, I had a bit of a procedure done, and had something to remove my nose. And of course, it created a black guy. But it doesn't, it looks manly. That's what I say. i There's nothing I could do about it. But I was glad to get it done. They did a great job, I think they did a great job. I have no comparison. But if you're out there and you're distracted by the nose, get past it. It's just gonna be there for a little while. But hopefully I'm on the mend with no problem. All right, I alluded to this, this platform, this ecosystem that we're creating at industrial talk, if you are truly interested in being a part of it, and sort of highlighting your voice, your blogs, your videos, industrial talk is here for you. It is important for us industrial talk to Team industrial talk, to be able to sort of, I don't know, be those, we want to get that message out. We want to be able to tell the message of industry around the world, we want to be able to do that. And we want to use this platform to do it. Because there's a lot of people, a lot of individuals, a lot of companies that don't know, that need to know, because we need them to succeed. And to succeed, we need to collaborate, we need to educate and of course, there is this huge innovative component associated with that. So that's what we're really very much focused that education, collaboration, and then talking about all the wonderful innovations that you industry and companies are doing out there around the world. That's why we're here. Now, this field services, I take it for granted, I didn't know anything about it. I just you know, my refrigerator goes down, I call somebody they come on out, they fix it, boom done. But there's a lot of work that goes in there. And this is this is this was a really interesting conversation. And I just love the fact that Michael is is passionate about it, as well as the company zooper Zup are all into this field services technology. There's a lot that goes on and and I want a skilled technician. I want somebody to get it done right the first time and zooper and individuals like Michael they're making that happen. So without further delay, here's Michael. Hey, Michael, welcome to industrial talk. Thank you very much for finding time in your busy schedule to talk to the Best Buy, say the best listeners on the face of this earth.

05:15

Well, thanks for me. Yeah, I'm doing great. But thanks for making time for me as well. And I'll let you know when we're done. If I think it's the best,

05:23

it's, we're the number one industrial related podcast in the universe right here, right now. It's all backed up by data.

05:31

Okay, nevermind, I don't need to tell you. You know it already. It's all fluff. It's nice to be it's really nice to be here. Nice to be part of your show. I really appreciate it.

05:41

Now, I really appreciate the opportunity. Definitely. All right, listeners, we're gonna be talking a little bit about Field Services, we're gonna be talking about a principle a concept of called completed service work. And Michael is going to go into some details. So I would say and suggest that this is a paper and pencil opportunity it is. So get your paper and pencil out, because this is going to be a great conversation. But before we get into that conversation, Michael, give us a little background, a little 411 on who Michael is.

06:11

Sure, I have been in the business of field service. And I'll explain that a little more in just a moment, or 50 years or more. I started working for IBM when I was 19 years old. So many years ago, I started as a night dispatcher for field service technicians and parts from work. And I spent 12 years with IBM. And I ultimately ended up in Seattle as part of the regional headquarters staff, I spent another six years with a hardware manufacturer based out of Denver, Colorado, where I managed all the field service operations and the parts room and the Tech Support Center and the dispatch center, etc, etc, both domestically and internationally. And I was there for about six years. And then I moved into the software space. And I've spent the last 30 plus years with some of the major software companies that provide software for field service business operations. I've also been a field service analyst at three of the major analyst firms. And that pretty much summarizes the 50 years plus that I've spent in the field service industry,

07:18

you'll find for the listeners to find Field Services. Sure.

07:22

Field Service. You know, it's really interesting that you asked that question, because most of the time when people ask me what I do, and I tell them Well, I work for a software company, and they say, Well, what kind of software and I say, field service software. And the question that inevitably comes out of their mouth is what is field service, same thing you just asked. And it's it's not surprising, but in a way, it is surprising because field service activities surround us every single day. If you think about your house, for example, and just think about any appliance in your house, let's let's talk about your water heater. And all of a sudden your water heater produces a leak of some kind and you need to, you need to call a plumber or somebody to come and fix your water heater. Or maybe replace it with a brand new water heater. That person that comes is a field service person. And they do the installation of the equipment whether it's your water heater, or the faucets in your sink or your air conditioning system or the the lighting control electronics in your house or whatever you have. Whoever is doing that as a field service person. People that mow your lawn are field service people, people that go into grocery stores and convenience stores and fix the point of sale systems or installed them or fix the refrigeration units in their grocery stores. People that go into operating rooms and calibrate the MRI equipment and the CT scanners and calibrate and install and repair the robotic surgical arms. Those are all field service people, people that go into clinics and hospital rooms and do something as simple as replenish the hand sanitizer that is in the unit on the wall. Those are field service people. So if you go ahead question

09:20

now it's not that it's it's it's a it's a profession that to a certain extent we take for granted. Like exactly, you know, like you were saying that that hand sanitizer hit that's it's still full, but it happens. That's pretty cool.

09:39

Yeah, it happens is that doesn't happen because the nurse changes it. It happens in most cases because there's a company that comes around and resupplies all of that hand side sanitizer and all of those units. So, as I said, field services all around you every day. Every time you see a van driving down the road odds are, there's a field service person of some type in that van going somewhere, to install something, to fix something to move it around to D install it and put in a new one. It's probably a field service person to do one of those things.

10:15

I have to ask the question about Super, which is the company that you work with? There they have the technology or the platform to be able to properly manage? Because it would seem to me, there is the potential for field services to be like herding cats, if there's a lot of a lot of things going on. And I would imagine that it requires a pretty robust system to be able to manage that activity.

10:43

Yeah, you're exactly right. And let me let me give you an example of how things have progressed over the past five or six decades that I've been in the business. As I mentioned, I started out as a parchment clerk and a night dispatcher. And when one of the field service technicians, we called them field engineers back in those days in a lot of places still do refer to them as field engineers, when one of them came to the window in the parts room and asked for a part. In order for me to find the part I had to go to a tub file. And if anybody is old, as you and I are, they'll remember type files. And I had to pull out the card that had the part number on it that I was looking for. And it would tell me which bin you know which row which bin in which slot in the bin, the part would be in. So I'd go to that row to that, that to that bin that slot, and then I'd pull the park, then I go back to the tub file, pull the card out, Mark Out mark down that I took one. And I'd adjust the on hand quantity, then from 12 to 11, or 10 to nine whatever the number was. That was all manual process. So obviously, when I needed to dispatch a technician in the night, in the evening to go repair something, I didn't have any software to look at to tell me who was available. I had a paper list, don't me who's working the night shift tonight. And then I had kind of a checklist that said if they were available, or if they were at some other customer and I had to manually update those things. And the reason is, because there was no software back then to do that stuff, it was all a manual process, or you wrote it on a whiteboard, or you stuck a magnet on a whiteboard that said, occupied or whatever. It's changed so dramatically, because now there's software that manages all of that. If an order comes through in a parts room that says a technician, John Doe needs a part, it will not only it pop up on the screen, or print out a sheet that says here's the part number, here's exactly where it is how many, here's how many we're supposed to have on hand. And when you issue it to the technician to go the window, physically hand it to them and then update their your laptop or your handheld device that says I gave John, part number 123. Now all of a sudden, the inventory balance shown in the software is minus one. So if I had 10, now I got nine. So it's all automatic. And as far as assigning and dispatching the technicians, we instantly can see which technicians are available. Are they working today? Or are they off shift? Is it? Do they work the weekends? Or don't they? What are they doing at this very moment? Are they available? Or are they at a customer site? And if so, how long have they been there? And when are they expected to finish? Because we know with the software that based upon the type of service call that it is that typically takes 45 minutes or two hours or three days or whatever it is. So we can have a pretty accurate estimate of when that technician is going to be available for the next call.

13:36

See what's interesting is that how you're driving the inefficiencies out of that process. And way back when, you know when when they used to do it manually, it just has an innate sense of inefficiencies just because it's it is what it is. Now you're driving that inefficiency out with clarity into seeing where everybody's at. And yeah, what what's happening now, I guess for lack of a better term,

14:02

yeah, not only where everybody's at, but what's what's out there in the future that needs to be taken care of. And who's the most likely person that is going to be able to do that? What kind of skills are needed to go to the next job? See, that's how, how far away are they from the next job. So the software today can look at all of that data, analyze it and can actually produce it an ideal route for a technician is that okay? Instead of driving from the east end of the city, to the west and to the city, and then back to the east end of the city. Now we can automatically create a route that says, When you finish job in the East in the city, go to the next one in the west end of the city, then go to the next one in the eastern Western, the city, whatever when I didn't mention the first time then back to the south in the city. And then finally when I'm done, send me back to the office or send me back to my home. All of that is automatically determined and the routes and the schedules are automatically calculated and signed to the right person, for the right times

15:03

spectacular. I'm all giddy. That sounds so cool. I mean, I really am I. So let's, let's take a, let's take an example. So I'm on the phone, my, my, my refrigerator is down for whatever reason, call goes out, you dispatch, a field expert comes on out, but that system is taking care of it, I got the right person doing the right job. But I want to be able to use this as a segue to that topic of completed service work. Take us through that he deploys the solution fixes the refrigerator in this example, and then what?

15:45

Well, I'm going to I'm going to divide that into two parts. And talk about it from what is the technician doing now? Versus or and what is he going to do when he's done? So what is the technician doing? Now, that's part of the completed service work philosophy as well. If the technician has the right skills, then most likely they're going to be able to correctly diagnose and fix your problem. If they have the right parts in their van, which the software will help them determine, then they're going to be able to fix your problem on the first first visit. Rather than having to say to you, I need to go back to the shop and get apart and then I'll come back tomorrow or I need to go back to the shop, see if we have it. And if we don't have it, we're going to have to order it and then I'll have to call you and tell you when I'm going to be able to come back if they have the right skills, the right parts, and the right attitude. And that comes in with the next part of the discussion about completed service work. That is an important, an important part of the whole consider completed service work concept. That is make sure that what you're doing to start with is you're enabled to do it completely and accurately and finish it the first time that you go visit the customer so that you don't have to go back the next part of

17:08

Yeah, so let me just sort of wrap that up real quick. Skills, parts and attitude is how it's we're segwaying into the completed service work. And yeah, I'd say

17:18

yeah, I think that's correct. Let's add one other skills, parts attitude and timeliness. Timeliness. Yes. So how frustrated are you today? For example, if you place a service call for your water heater, just to pick and stick with it. example we talked about already? Yep. And the answer you get from the company that's coming as well. We'll be there tomorrow, sometime we'll have to let you know. Unacceptable. Versus Yeah, we'll be there tomorrow. We're coming in between eight and 10 in the morning. And the technician that's coming is Joe. No better. And then in the morning, you get a text or an email or both. That says Joe is on his way. He'll be arriving in 15 minutes. And here's his picture.

18:02

Right. I like it. I like so far. Yeah,

18:04

that's all the tech that's those are all the things and more that the technologies can do technologies like Zuber like the company that I worked for. So let's get to the other part of completed service work. And that is perhaps in the long run the most important, I think, and that is what does the technician do when he or she is done with doing your repair or doing your install? Or whatever. Let me give you a little background before I get into the details. Many years ago, as I indicated, I worked for IBM and when I worked in Seattle for regional headquarters, I worked for a fellow that was a real character.

18:45

And at home at IBM, a real character.

18:49

Yeah, he was he was a character. Like cheers. He was a positive character. Let me put it that I'll even tell you his name. But anyway, for him, I did a lot of writing, I had to write a lot of financial reports and manpower planning reports and things like that. And I would give him my reports, and he'd look at him and read them and he literally throw them across the desk of me throw the paper across the desk of me. And he'd say you can do better than this. You know, and I thought that man he's He's a mean sob when I first started working with him, but the more I worked with him, the more I got to love it, really. And he introduced me to a concept, which was the basis of why he treated me this way. The concept was known at the time and you can look this up on wiki and you'll find it was called Completed Staff Work. And Completed Staff Work meant that anybody who is a suburb of a suburb, a suburb was a place anybody who has a subordinate of a superior, who is assigned to write a report for a superior should do so in such a manner to do it's so completely so thoroughly read serves so perfectly written, if you will, that the superior didn't need to do anything except sign it. They didn't necessarily for review it or make commentary or give criticism or anything, because that superior knew that the subordinate was going to produce a close to perfect, if not perfect report. So after a few years, I got close to that. But the point is he introduced me this concept called Completed Staff Work. And as I thought about it over the years, I thought, why does that just apply to written reports and things that should apply to everything. So I came up with the concept of completed service work based upon that original introduction to Completed Staff Work. And my thought was, completed service service work means that when you're done with your work, you're not done yet. You're only done with your work your assigned task, when you are able to anticipate the customers next need their next question, the next thing that might be helpful for them. And you're able to proactively anticipate and address the next thing that the customer might need. The next question that the customer might ask the next instruction that might be helpful to the customer. The next recommendation that might make their life easier, like, gee, maybe you need to upgrade your water heater, because it's 15 years old. Simple things like that. So it's anticipating what the customer might need in advance and proactively providing that for them or trying to provide that for them. And that just spans a gamut of opportunities. So with completed service, work, work, what we had zooper are doing and we we do podcasts about this, and we have a book in process about this. We're trying to encourage organizations to encourage their field service staff to adopt a philosophy and a culture of completed service work that basically says, Okay, you fix the water heater. Now what do you just go on to your next job immediately? Or do you think about what might help the customer? Or do you ask the customer? Is there anything else I can do for you, sir, any additional questions, I can provide any of the answers to any additional information I can provide for you. That is completed service work. And that in the long runs, cements a much closer relationships with your customer than just doing the work. And if you've cement a much closer relationship with your customers, number of wonderful things happen, they're going to stay with you, they're not going to look for competitive solutions, because they're happy, more than happy with what you do for them. If they stay with you, they're going to spend more money over the long haul. If they're, if they're going to buy a new water heater, guess who they're going to buy it from? Not from somebody that just came in and did the work rather, from somebody that came in and acted as a true caring partner for them. And they're also going to give positive referrals to their friends, their neighbors, their business associates, and you're going to get some revenue out of those referrals that you otherwise would not have gotten.

23:11

Do you require that field service technician to update the system? With that information saying, Yes, I had this conversation with Scott, I recommended that the water heater is looking like it's on its last legs. They decided whatever. But I said okay, you can do does that information ever make it to the system itself?

23:37

Well, that's a great question. And the answer is yes, it can test to say yes, it does it always is it required? No, not necessarily. One of the advantages of the software systems that are available including zooper today is that you can make that information required. In zooper for example, we can make checklists and or you can refer to them as inspection lists as well. Where we can say to the technician on site, think of it as an inspection if you're doing the water heater, make sure you inspect the anode rod for example, and the pilot light etcetera. And if you want to also make sure that the technician asks him specific questions, you can put those in the checklist and you can make them required. So like did you ask the customer the last time they had the water their water heater inspected? What did you ask them when the last time was they had the water fly water heater flushed? Those kinds of things. And you can if you want you don't have to but if you want using the software you can make those kinds of questions absolutely required. So the technician can't finish his work on the work order or the job unless he answers those questions.

24:47

Now the thinking about my water heater

24:52

we can switch the air conditioner if you like. It's not like I'm assuming though we don't want was switched to robotic arms and surgical centers right now, though.

25:04

Cool topic. Cool topic. Don't get me wrong. It's a cool tool. How do you how do you? It seems training? It just seems like there's some training, there's some cultural, organizational type of work that needs to be done to begin deploying this completed service work mentality. How do you? How do you provide that?

25:24

Yeah, I don't think it was a question. There has to be some cultural training. And it has to be led from the top. If you don't have management, senior management, fully embracing this philosophy, and spreading the word about that philosophy and encouraging it, and even rewarding people when they exercise according to that philosophy in that culture, then it's not going to happen. I'll give you an example. I think, not too long ago, speaking of air conditioners, I had a semi annual inspection, you know, you can sign up with HVAC companies, you can sign up to have them come and inspect twice a year. So the guy was here to inspect my air conditioning systems. And he did his job. I guess, I don't know, because he didn't talk to me about it afterwards. He just handed me his handheld device and said, Could you please sign. And of course, I signed because it was part of my contract. And I didn't owe any extra money. And they didn't encourage me to buy other stuff at this time. But he didn't tell me what he did. He didn't give me any advice on how to how to make sure that I'm, excuse me using my air conditioning system in the most efficient manner possible. And I thought, you know, the guy did his job. But I'm not going to keep my contract with his customer with this company. I'm going to get a contract from another company. That's the difference. Right? So I don't know how to further explain it. No, he did an adequate he did an adequate job. But he didn't. He didn't. He didn't finish anything having to do with complete service work.

27:01

See, we've all experienced that. I don't. Yeah, you'd be lying. If you said you'd never have because I know that you have been pointing at you people out there in the video. We've all experienced it. Where there's there's a noticeable difference of of somebody providing services that go that extra mile that talk about, hey, this that and the other thing, I did this, I did this, I cleaned this out, this was good, this looks fine. You get a little weak here, whatever, the details associated with that, versus somebody that just comes in, you know, flies in and flies out. And it just seems to me that if I was the owner of a company that provided field service solutions, I would I would require that because it's bottom line value, it creates that customer stickiness that that's so valuable, right.

27:54

Yeah, exactly. And to, to answer, I think the other part of the question you you asked is, you know, how do you encourage that and I talked about, it's got to be from the top, it's got to be in the DNA. And if people aren't exercising, it are acting according to that philosophy, then they need to be educated. And they need to be shown examples of how it works. What are the consequences of when it works? And I think companies can capture that information, you know, and they need to be in they need to be shown examples or explained examples about when it doesn't work. And I think if they can put in some kind of recognition rewards, that are presented to people occasionally, because they exhibit that, that philosophy consistently. Yeah, I think that's really important, then that serves as an encouragement for the rest of the team. Please, no, no,

28:49

I, what's interesting to me, is that what you're talking about that that going above and beyond asking the right questions doing, showing that you're you care? I think that that has that's applicable to not just Field Services, it's applicable to business in general industry. And

29:12

for sure, yeah,

29:13

I mean, come on. It makes sense. Right? I mean, it just does. Now there's,

29:19

there's no question about that. And I think you use the right terminology. You said showing that you care? Yeah. show empathy, right? How would you like to be treated as the customer if you are on the receiving end of that service? Would you like to have somebody take an extra minute with you, or two minutes or whatever, to help you understand better how to get better productivity and usage out of your product out of your air conditioning system, whatever? Or would you just have, sir, would you rather have somebody coming out, just do what they need to do and then say bye, bye. I think the answer for most people is absolutely clear. I give you and you know what the other thing is, there's an upside for the technician as well. When they're doing this And they're, they're saying that their customers are almost always and I mean, certainly you can't please everybody all the time. But if you if you exercise in that manner, you exercise your duties in that manner, the vast majority of the time, you're going to see your customers smile, they're going to be grateful, they might even hand you a tip. And for them, for the technicians, I think that engenders a sense of pride, and a sense of value, a sense of worth. And if they have, if they have pride in their work, they have a sense of value, they have a sense of that they're contributing something valuable to the company, they're not likely to leave. Right? They're not going to be hunting around frequently for a job that pays 10 cents an hour or more, whatever. So there's an upside all across the board for the customers for the technicians and for the companies.

30:50

Well, you're hitting on all cylinders, I really can appreciate this completed service work, I can definitely have admiration for the field service technicians. It's not easy work, it's challenging it. They deal with personalities like me, if my air conditioning is out, I'm not the nicest individuals. I'd like to consider myself being nice, but I'm hot. I'm miserable. And you know, and God bless them, because they're that it's excellent work, Michael, how do they get a hold of you? And let's say I want to know more about super, super, and and just all coming out with a book. How do they get a hold of you?

31:31

Yeah, sure. And thanks for mentioning the book, we hope to have that out sometime first, first quarter of next year. And just for people's information, the title we think will be completed service work the path to sustained customer loyalty. So there's a plug before the book is even published. So thanks. Anyway, they can get a hold of me in a couple of ways. One, you can look me up on LinkedIn, Michael Israel, I always caution people, there's a very famous artist named Michael Israel. That is not me. So you might have to scroll down a page or two, if you can reach me through zooper. My super email address is Michael MI, ch, AE L at zooper zu p e r.co. So it's dot co.ca. Always want to always want to point that out. Figure in there. Yeah, well, we're one of the one of the Dotco domain is gaining much more popularity, it's being used by a lot of newer startup companies that want to really distinguish themselves as, as you know, et cetera. So Dr. michael@zooper.com

32:42

Well, fantastic. Michael, thank you very much for being on industrial talk. All right, everybody, we're gonna have all the contact information for Michael out on industrial talk.com. So reach out, put that on your to do list. Excellent job, Michael. Excellent job. All right. Well,

32:59

thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. All right,

33:01

we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back.

33:05

You're listening to the industrial talk podcast network

33:15

that was a great conversation. I enjoyed that conversation with Michael company is super. With gentlemen, again, is Michael Israel. You're gonna have all the contact information for Michael out on industrial talk. Remember, we're generating we're creating a platform that makes it easy simplifies people's ability to be able to get the information they need to make the right decisions. And you, industry professionals, you companies are leading the way. And you are at the heart of what we're trying to do here at industrial talk. Because we want to educate, gotta educate, we want to collaborate, we need to collaborate. And definitely, innovation is a big part of that. And the only way you're going to do that is that the educated collaborate, that's exactly what has to happen. So that's what industrial talk is all about. We're gonna have more great conversations, as you always know. Be bold, be brave, dare greatly hang out with me. And let's change the world together. We're gonna have another great conversation shortly. So stay tuned. We will be back