How Field Service Management Tools Can Help You Increase First Time Fix Rates
By Cameron Hayward | 19 Jun 2024 | 5 mins
Increasing First Time Fix Rates in the Maintenance & Repair Industry
Every business is affected by rising costs outside of their control. But one thing businesses can control is internal efficiencies. A good way to measure engineer efficiency is First Time Fix Rates (FTFRs). Improving this alone can have a huge affect on positive growth rates.
- What is a ‘good’ first time fix rate?
- How can field service management software help?
- A look at the numbers for a business case
- What would we recommend?
What is a ‘Good’ First Time Fix Rate?
Research found the top 20% of service-related businesses have a First Time Fix Rate of 88%, with those considered as best in class achieving a FTFRs of +98%. Whereas the bottom 30% of companies have first-time fix rates of 63% or less. Demonstrating the link between efficiency and the success of a business.
What Negatively Affects First Time Fix Rates?
FTFRs are affected by the following factors:
- Parts unavailability – 29%
- Customer/asset not available for service – 28%
- Improper diagnosis at time of dispatch – 19%
- Technician did not have right skills – 15%
- Resolution was only temporary – 8%
How Can Field Service Management Software Help?
Field service management software enables businesses to better manage all the factors driving First-Time Fix Rate. It captures and maintains an extensive set of constantly changing data including:
- engineer skillset
- van stock
- parts inventory
- locations and routes
- customer contract requirements
- planned and reactive service visits
- asset status data
- contract SLA’s and more
…which in turn, helps your engineers fix that asset first time.
Part Availability
Field service management software helps you to keep track of stock and parts. Any FSM mobile app worth its salt will allow engineers to look up and order parts on site. Better still if your service management software allows you to set minimum stock values and automatically order more items in when needed. Making sure your engineers have the right parts to hand can have a huge positive impact on your FTFRs.
Asset Not Available for Service
Surprisingly, many businesses struggle with the simple issue of assets not being available for service when a service is due. A field service management tool will help remind you when services are due and plan ahead so make sure assets are available. Delaying a hire contract by one day, in order for a service to be conducted, might save it breaking down on a customer mid-contract, and needing a more complicated repair.
Improper Diagnosis at Time of Dispatch
No-one is perfect, and mistakes can be made. Sometimes mistakes are unavoidable. But, often, the simple act of giving engineers visibility of an asset’s full service history can help avoid misdiagnosis. A FSM tool gives engineers all the information they need when they are inspecting a piece of equipment. From previous job notes, parts numbers and history, images from previous call outs…. anything that will help your team determine what work is needed.
Technician Did Not Have the Right Skills
Sending the wrong engineer to a call out can be frustrating for the business, but it can be even more frustrating for the engineer. A FSM system gives office staff visibility of engineer skillsets and qualifications, as well as their geographical location and calendar availability. From this, they can find the best suited engineer for each job.
The Resolution was Only Temporary
Often the result of facing one of the above challenges, if the right fix cannot be done then a temporary fix is often a fall back. If the right engineers, with access to the right parts is sent to a machine that has been maintained properly, then it is much more likely a permanent fix can be made. If engineers are also aware that FTFRs are being tracked, this can also help motivate team to hit this KPI.
A Look at the Numbers for a Business Case
Building a business case for the right service management technology to support Service Managers is vital. So this is where we need to dig into the numbers. We’ve done an example calculation to show how you might go about justifying an investment into a good field service management tool:
Example improvement value calculation
- 50 engineers assigned 10 jobs per week each, means in total the company is attending 26,000 jobs per year.
- At a First Time Fix Rate of 70% this means only 18,200 jobs are completed in the first visit. If you improve this by just 10 % you can complete 2,600 more jobs, increasing your total jobs completed first time to 20,800.
- If each visit takes on average 4 hours and engineers are paid £20 per hour, then the 2,600 extra jobs completed first time save you 4 hours per job in second visits, that’s 10,400 hours per year or a labour cost of £208,000.
- If you use just half of the time you have gained you will have an extra 5,200 hours so you can effectively complete 1,300 more jobs. And if you charge this out at £400 per job you can make additional revenue of £520,000.
When you crunch these basic numbers, you realise how working on your FTFR can deliver efficiencies, profitability and capacity for growth.
What would we recommend?
We want you to consider Service Geeni of course! As an industry leading field service management tool, Service Geeni is an integrated platform which gives technicians and office staff access to critical service data, ensuring inventory demands are based on planned service visits and those essential parts are available when needed.
Additionally, Service Geeni service management software gives engineers working remotely complete visibility of contract requirements, asset status and job history, outstanding jobs by site, van stock, parts across the network and upcoming scheduled maintenance. All this improves transparency and collaboration between all aspects of your operations. Service Geeni gives service managers the tools they need to make significant improvements in FTFR, and therefore drive business growth for the future.
