For service-oriented businesses, field staff is playing an expanding and more complex role. A more efficient and connected field team can be a major asset, helping to reduce costs, bolster revenue, and provide reliable intelligence. This whitepaper discusses how service-based organizations can more efficiently collect and compile data, and what benefits that may yield. Key topics include: Top priorities and challenges facing mobile workforce management Mobile workforce data as a business enabler Building the best possible field team

1. Creating the Mobile
Workforce of the Future
Through Technology
and Training
A Field Service Whitepaper Presented in Conjunction with ClickSoftware

2. 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
2 Executive Summary
3 Key Findings
4 Research Findings
4 Top Priorities &
Challenges Facing
Mobile Workforce
Management
7 Mobile Workforce Data
As A Business Enabler
9 Building the Best
Possible Field Team
11 Key Recommendations
12 Appendices
13 ClickSoftware
For service-oriented businesses, field staff are playing more
important and multifaceted roles than ever before. A more
agile, efficient, and connected field team can be a major
asset, helping to reduce operational costs, bolster revenue
streams, and provide reliable business intelligence. Those
individuals also own the only in-person interactions many
customers ever have with a brand, making them valuable
sales and customer relationship management assets.
In order to form such high-functioning field teams, business
must aggressively cultivate data on projects and staff. That
data contributes to a wide variety of core business goals,
from operational efficiency to cost savings. However, many
organizations struggle to gather actionable data from their
field teams, due in large part to analog reporting processes
and disparate systems.
This whitepaper will discuss how service-based
organizations can more efficiently collect and compile data,
and what business benefits that data can unlock. Those
benefits include: better project management, pairing the
right staff with the right jobs while avoiding unnecessary
overtime; smoother and more accurate reporting and
costing processes; and the discovery of new on-the-job sales
and relationship management opportunities.

3. 3
KEY FINDINGS
In today’s competitive markets, service-oriented
businesses are looking to run leaner and more
efficiently than ever before
In this service paradigm, it is essential that organizations have job management
down to a science. Unfortunately, these businesses often struggle to deploy
staff efficiently, reducing the need for overtime and effectively matching
technician expertise with job requirements. Luckily, a new generation of
solutions, including mobile workforce management solutions, is leveraging data
to give business leaders an edge in project planning and staff management.
Data-enabled businesses are not only optimizing
their staff management, but they are also
streamlining their reporting processes
Through next-generation workforce management tools, these organizations
can streamline reporting processes by integrating real-time payroll and
reimbursement information with back-office reporting systems. The result is
greater automation with fewer inaccuracies, not to mention that better data also
means more accurate job costing and timeline information.
To customers, field personnel are the face of the
organization, which is why soft skills training is
becoming increasingly important
Today’s field staff must do more than simply fix the issue they are called on to
take care of; they must also positively represent their brands and help uncover
new sales opportunities. Many of these skills are not part of the traditional field
staff tool bag, and therefore need to be prioritized during training.

4. 4
Top Priorities & Challenges Facing Mobile
Workforce Management
RESEARCH ANALYSIS
Organizations with employees in the field face unique challenges when it
comes to staff management, project planning, and customer relations. On the
one hand, field staffs afford these organizations the invaluable opportunity to
interact directly with clients, fixing their issues, improving their relationships,
and gathering their feedback. On the other hand, effectively managing a field
team requires precise coordination of resources, smooth communication, and
comprehensive project tracking and reporting.
Although the top-cited priority among these businesses is to offer the
lowest prices, their top job management concern was overwhelmingly to use
staff more efficiently. Staff efficiency is an inherent challenge for service-
oriented businesses, and the ability to maximize staff hours while avoiding
unnecessary overtime only gets more difficult as the number of personnel in
the field grows. That challenge is further exacerbated by the need to match
technician expertise and tools to job requirements. Businesses that successfully
optimize staff assignments are turning their field workforces into assets and
differentiators, which can be nearly as valuable as offering the lowest prices.
A crucial criterion for effective staff management is visibility into the activities
of field staff. While nearly three quarters of the business leaders surveyed have
at least average visibility into their staffs’ activities, only 21% believe they have
highly detailed visibility. This is important, because a better understanding of
technician patterns, behaviors, and project management skills can help leaders
improve their staff planning and ensure that field workers are as productive
as possible. Mobile workforce management solutions can enhance visibility,
which is why 62% of respondents are either using or implementing a mobile
workforce management solution.
“Visibility is critical to effective staff management, because a better
understanding of technician patterns, behaviors, and project management
skills can help leaders improve their staff planning and ensure that field
workers are productive. Unfortunately, only 21% of the businesses
surveyed have highly-detailed visibility.”

5. 5
Pricing is the top priority for service-oriented businesses,
followed by being in the right markets and increasing revenues
Efficiently allocating staff in order to increase job coverage and reduce
overtime is the biggest challenge businesses encounter by a wide margin
Price competition is at the forefront
of these businesses’ minds, but
these businesses are also primarily
concerned with increasing revenue
and limiting costs. While mobile
workforce-specific goals, such
as improving productivity and
implementing better technology,
necessarily trail behind the
aforementioned goals, business
leaders are coming to understand
that a more efficient and better-
trained mobile workforce can help
unlock those fundamental goals.
Perhaps the most fundamental
challenge facing service-oriented
businesses is gaining good
visibility into the schedules,
jobs, and locations of field
staff. If dispatchers and back-
office personnel have a better
understanding of field techs’
workflows and locations, they can
track and schedule jobs much more
efficiently. Better visibility also
means faster reporting, since it’s
easier to stay up-to-date on field
employees’ weekly hours, when
they are on a job, and when the job
is complete.
Rate the following in terms of the importance to your business
What are the biggest challenges you encounter when it comes to job management?
Offer the lowest prices
Location
Increase Revenue
Cut Costs
Job arrival times
Job completion proofs (signatures, photos, etc)
Provide field/mobile workers with the best
tools to do their job
Provide the best customer service
Improve staff productivity
Increase back-office visibility of field/mobile
workforce
Productivity
53% Using staff more
efficiently
13% Matching staff numbers
and expertise to job
requirements
13% Post-­project reporting
11% Communicating with
clients or customers
5% Understanding project
parameters
5% Communicating with staff
while on a job
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

6. 6
Efficiently matching field personnel to the right jobs is the top priority,
followed by accommodating customers’ preferred service times
Only 21% of respondents have detailed visibility into their field personnel’s
daily activities
Nearly half of all respondents are already using a mobile workforce management
solution, with an additional 17% in the processes of implementing those systems
Rank the following priorities for scheduling jobs top priority lowest priority
How much visibility do you have into the daily activities of field/mobile staff?
Are you using a mobile workforce management solution?
28% Limited visibilty
51% Average visibility
47% Yes
21% Highly detailed visibility
38% No 15% Implementing now
Getting the right worker, to the right job, with the
right tools
Preferred time for the customer, even if a
few days later
Earliest possible appointment
Allotting ample time to run preventative
maintenance or manage unexpected complications
Closest to other jobs to maximize productivity
45% 17% 13% 17% 8%
32% 24% 22% 12% 10%
12% 22% 19% 26% 21%
4% 14% 20% 26% 36%
3% 24% 27% 19% 27%

7. 7
Mobile Workforce Data as a
Business Enabler
Service-oriented businesses are grappling with a myriad of new challenges
and opportunities. Fortunately, by improving the way they capture and
utilize mobile workforce data, those organizations can run leaner and more
effectively. Better data is a business enabler, improving project and staff
management, facilitating faster and more accurate reporting, and creating more
effective equipment monitoring.
Given that 53% of respondents noted that using staff more efficiently is
their biggest job management challenge, better staff management is perhaps
the most important advantage of mobile workforce data. By capturing and
activating data such as job details, inventory reports, and employee activities,
business leaders can streamline workforce planning and be sure to pair the
right employee with the right job. Furthermore, field staff are ideally placed to
collect critical customer and job information through mobile forms and surveys.
Better visibility into these details also enables businesses to adapt on the fly to
new circumstances and emergencies. Although roughly a fifth of respondents
are collecting data through mobile-enabled tools and another third are
leveraging digital forms and updates, only 16% of the businesses surveyed are
taking advantage of end-to-end workforce management software.
In addition to improving job and personnel management, mobile workforce
management tools also streamline reporting processes by integrating real-time
payroll and reimbursement information with back-office reporting systems.
That reduces the friction and inaccuracies caused by manual job tracking
and frees up back-office resources for other important tasks. Better data
also enables organizations to provide more accurate job costing and timeline
information to customers and to solve customer disputes more easily. The
result is renewed trust and transparency between businesses and their clients.
However, with just 7% of respondents reporting that their data collection
practices enable them to generate critical insights in real-time, it is clear that
many organizations should be prioritizing data collection in 2016.
It is also important to note that mobile data can dramatically improve
equipment monitoring capabilities, tracking equipment usage and potentially
helping to locate and recover lost or stolen equipment.

8. 8
Digital forms are the most common source of data on the activities of field
staff; mobile-enabled tools are also important information sources
Only 7% of respondents believe their field workforce data enables critical
real-time insights
Most businesses have automated at least part of their project reporting
processes, but only 16% say those processes are very automated and efficient
How do you collect data related to field/mobile staff?
From a back-office perspective, how would you classify your data collection as it relates to your field/mobile workforce
How would you describe your job/project reporting processes, including things like payroll and reimbursement?
55% Data collection with siloed views enabling piecemeal analytics
38% Data collection with an integrated view that generates
broader insights
7% Data collection that creates a real-time view of operations
and generates critical insights
20% Very manual
64% Somewhat automated, but still with substantial manual work
16% Very automated and efficient
32% Digitally-enabled forms and project updates
21% Mobile-enabled tools and equipment
19% Paper forms filled out by staff and clients
16% End-to-end workforce management software
12% Phone calls and status updates with supervisors

9. 9
Building the Best Possible Field Team
Field staff hold some of the most impactful positions in service-oriented
organizations. Not only are they responsible for service delivery, but they
are also the vanguards of the customer experience. As such, it is crucial that
field staff are trained in soft skills so they can make the most out of every
client interaction. Although field personnel have traditionally been evaluated
based on their service records, they are increasingly being graded on the
quality of their client interactions and their ability to upsell during calls. In fact,
respondents in the present study indicated that customer feedback is the most
important metric for field staff – even if soft metrics are weighted the least.
Despite being the measurement with the least weight for field staff, 56% of
organizations believe that soft skills training is critical to improving operations.
Only 13% of respondents called soft skills training non-essential.
Similarly, field personnel are crucial assets when it comes to gathering client
feedback. More than half of the organizations surveyed for this study noted
that better communication is the most common piece of client feedback
they receive. For instance, clients are always interested in making sure that
projects are on-time and on-budget, and they want to be notified of any project
complications. Unfortunately, it has not traditionally been easy for field staff to
dynamically communicate with clients when not on-site. For this reason, tools
like mobile workforce management solutions can help bridge the gap between
customers and field personnel before, during, and after the call.
Soft metrics trail behind customer feedback, hard metrics, and core
competencies as the most important indicators of employee effectiveness
Despite the fact that
most organizations
claim that soft skills
are an important
way to track staff
performance and
improve operations,
soft skills-related
metrics still lag
behind other firm
measurements.
What weight do you place on each measurement of employee effectiveness?
Customer reviews
Internally reported hard metrics
Core competencies
Internally reported soft metrics
31%
30%
29%
16%
Weighted Averages

10. 10
43% Important to our ongoing operations and underway
31% Something we’ve been working on implementing
13% A nice to have, but not essential
13% Already implemented and making an impact in the field
Despite not being a top indicator of employee effectiveness, 43% of
businesses consider soft skills training to be important, while an additional
13% have already implemented that training
How important is soft skills training for your field/mobile staff
Improved communication is the most popular customer request
With tools like mobile workforce
management solutions, feedback can
flow much smoother from customers
to technicians to managers and other
office staff. This creates a much faster,
closed-loop feedback system that
enables businesses to quickly learn
from each customer interaction.
Armed with those insights, businesses
can quickly and iteratively improve
their product and service offerings,
staying a step ahead of industry
trends and delighting their customers.
Which of the following do your customers ask for most regularly
56% Better communication
20% Better cost projections
and cost transparency
16% Easier scheduling
8% Confirmation of job
completion

11. 11
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Staff management is a constant challenge, but
technology can help turn it into a competitive
advantage
Technology is at the core of effective job management, and those companies
that continue to manage their mobile workforces without it will be at a
functional disadvantage. By providing better visibility into technician activities
and strengths, data-driven mobile workforce management systems can help
optimize scheduling and ensure that jobs are assigned to the technician with the
proper expertise.
Automated reporting can help businesses save on
their bottom lines while also freeing up staff for
more important tasks
Manual job tracking and reporting creates substantial waste and prevents back-
office staff from performing more essential strategic duties. By integrating real-
time payroll and reimbursement information with back-office reporting systems,
many mobile workforce management systems can create a more efficient and
accurate reporting process.
Soft skills and sales training are the next big tools
for field staff
The exposure that field personnel have to customers puts them in a position
to take control of the customer experience, collect intelligence, and educate
customers on new product and service offerings. In order to get the most out
of every service call, field personnel must be trained soft skills.

12. 12
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Methodology
For this report, WBR Digital and ClickSoftware conducted online
surveys of 77 field service professionals representing a number of
industries (see Appendix B for demographic information). Survey
participants included decision-makers and executives with responsibility
for their firms’ field service management strategies. Surveys were
conducted in November and December of 2015.
Appendix B: Demographic Information
INTERESTED
IN THIS
CONTENT?
WBR Digital produces
quality content and digital
campaigns for high-
performing businesses
across a wide range
of industries. See how
you can put our team of
content specialists and
marketers to work for
your business.
To learn more about
WBR Digital’s full suite of
content, lead generation,
and digital branding
services, click the
button below!
Learn More
How many employees does your company have?
How many field workers do you
have in your force?
Appendix C: Related Research
“How Mobile Workforce Management Changes the Game for SMBs”,
WBR Digital, July 2015
What is your primary industry?
48% Equipment Manufacture/Service/Support
13% Health Care (Inl. Medical Imaging)
9% Computer/Technical/Professional
Services
8% Other
5% Utilities-Electric
3% Wholesaler/Distributor
3% Specialty Home Services (Plumbing,
HVAC, Appliances)
3% Utilities-Gas Oil
3% Utilities-Water/
Wastewater
1% Transportation
1% Security Services
1% Construction
1% Cable TV/
Telephone/ISP
1% Insurance/Finance
14% 100 or Fewer
23% 101-500
27% 25 or fewer
11% 26-50
12% 51-100
25% 101-500
25% More than 500
What is your business’s annual revenue?
35% Less than $100M
43% $101-500M
22% Over $500M
10% 501-1000
30% 1001-5000
23% More than 50000

13. 13
WBR Digital connects solution providers to their target audiences with year-
round online branding and engagement lead generation campaigns. We are a
team of content specialists, marketers, and advisors with a passion for powerful
marketing. We believe in demand generation with a creative twist. We believe
in the power of content to engage audiences. And we believe in campaigns that
deliver results.
RESEARCH PARTNERS
ClickSoftware
WBR Digital
ClickSoftware is defining field service engagement, empowering the world’s
most customer-centric and demanding organizations to optimize the full
potential of every service interaction. With ClickSoftware, field service becomes
the new competitive lever to drive differentiation and business value. The
Click Field Service Edge Platform arms field service leaders with the smartest
technologies, a limitless technology-forward platform, and the knowledge
gained from a global community of best practices.
Exclusively focused on field service since creating the market, ClickSoftware has
managed billions of service engagements and is relied upon by nearly a million
field service professionals every day. The company is the recognized market and
technology leader by analyst firms including Gartner, IDC and Frost Sullivan.
And, Click is the field service solution of choice for Salesforce, SAP and top
systems integrators. More than 350 global enterprises across 20+ industries
tap into ClickSoftware for the world’s smartest thinking in field service.
ClickSoftware. The field service leader.
Learn more at www.clicksoftware.com