Why your first-time fix rate is so important

Based on research from The Service Council, the first-time fix rate -- which means the percentage of time a service issue was resolved on the first visit to a customer -- is around 77% for most field service organizations. (This number does vary in other studies.)

If you assume 77% is close to accurate -- most figures from other studies are around that -- that still means 23% of the time (over 1/5th), a customer’s issue is not resolved within one visit. This understandably increase customer dissatisfaction -- which is bad for repeat business and referral opportunities -- but it’s also a cost problem.

Cost per dispatch can range from $150 to $1,000 per call relative to the type of service organization -- so a second and third call to a customer becomes costly for the field service organization, and that’s before we even factor in opportunity cost (what else those technicians could have been doing instead of a second or third visit).

If you add it all up, first-time fix rate is a pretty important metric for field service organizations to be tracking -- but according to Aberdeen Research in 2013, 17% of field service organizations don’t even track that data. Compare that with the flip side: 57% of customers in that same research said their biggest issue with field service was slow resolution (multiple visits to fix a problem).

So, over half of field service customers clearly want things fixed the first time out, but nearly 1 in 5 field service organizations aren’t even tracking how successful they are at that metric.

You could do better here, and it all begs this question: how do you improve your first-time fix rate?

The easiest place to start figuring this out is to look at research around the reasons behind second and third visits. Per Aberdeen in 2013, the top three reasons for additional visits include:

• Part unavailability (51%)
• Technician lacks experience (25%)
• Lack of time to complete task (13%)

If you take those three at face value, then any solution for a better first-time fix rate needs: 

• Inventory tracking
• Alignment of personnel with job
• Time management/scheduling

And now we come to an answer!

The easiest way to improve a first-time fix rate is with field service management software, and ideally a software program that can align with Internet of Things, or IoT. In this situation, here’s what you’d get:

• Customers’ devices and machines send data to you (that’s the IoT part)
• You’re then able to determine when service is needed before the customer even calls you (that’s the customer experience being good part)
• Your dispatchers and the IoT system can align expertise of specific technicians with that job (that’s solving a customer issue, too)
• The scheduling aspect can be aligned by your back office and the FSM solution to prevent ‘The Bullwhip Effect,’ whereby a technician’s first job of the day runs late -- and as a result, his or her fifth job of the day is running super late

Saving money is often about managing time better, and that’s tremendously true in field service. FSM software allows you to integrate different operations -- sales, inventory, scheduling, invoicing -- to make the experience better for your end customer, and that is going to drive your growth.

We put together an eBook on first-time fix rate and other real-time analytic or data measures that your FSO should be embracing. Data is a major competitive advantage in the modern business environment -- you can see some examples above of why first-time fix rate is so important. That’s just 1 out of 8 metrics we discuss in the eBook. You can download it -- and as always, if you have any questions about any field service issues, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Written by Julio Hartstein