June 29, 2021

The rising popularity of Dynamics 365 Field Service

By

Theta

We've witnessed a 600% increase in Dynamics 365 Field Service implementation requests over the past year. While this upward trend of interest in Field Services isn't surprising, the sudden boom has been interesting.

There are likely a few drivers behind this. From our own experience, we've seen businesses eager to try new technologies – especially with the upheaval from last year, a need to improve efficiency, and a desire to find out 'what else is possible?'.

For many organisations, Field Service is ticking these boxes.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service?

Before looking at some core efficiency drivers, here's a quick reminder of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Services if you're unfamiliar.    

D365 Field Service is a business application that gives you visibility over what's happening with your assets and people who are at an external site location.  For service-based businesses, it helps deliver an efficient onsite service to customer locations/sites. If you're not a service-based business, you can customise the platform to meet your visibility needs of any external assets you might have, e.g. fleet management.    

The use of IoT and 'digital twins' in Field Service has had a relatively slow uptake, but more conversations are starting to happen.

The efficiency checkboxes

Here are some ways you'll save time, money and effort with Field Service.  

Do an extra 120 jobs per year

Let's use an example to highlight this. Say you have someone completing 4 or 5 callout jobs in a day. The smarts behind Field Service optimise your travel route and can easily save enough time to add another job to your list.

1 x more job per day = an extra x 5 per week = an extra x 20 per month = an extra x 120 per year. The efficiency gains are huge, especially when considering what it would look like to add 2, 3, 4 jobs per day.  

You can also set up a text messaging service between the field service technician and customer to communicate ETA's, reducing wasted time when there's no one home.  

More efficient repair cycles

AI in Field Services tells you how frequently to service, fix or repair something – otherwise known as "scheduled maintenance". Having a better way to manage this cycle means less costly repairs due to overdue servicing. It's also helping many businesses adhere to strict health and safety requirements, keeping their people safe.  

Customers = optimisers

If you want customers to book slots when it suits them, Field Service can be configured for this. As a result, you can save time and effort for everyone and deliver a much better customer experience too. You can also pick the best technician for the job, reducing the need for multiple callouts.  

Consolidate and streamline your systems

Whether it's Dynamics 365 Business Central or existing internal apps, Dynamics 365 Field Service has a whole integrated path into multiple systems. That means no more manual entry from one system to another, uploading spreadsheets or scanning documents. It also means less frustration for your business users who are accessing multiple systems daily. You may even be able to eliminate some systems entirely.  

Huge ROI

With the correct setup tailored to your specific organisational needs, your operational costs will decrease. ROI has immense potential, and we can help you to estimate what the savings might look like.  

Licensing and pricing

If you already have Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, you'll need to add a new license and get it configured to work on your existing environment. If you have the Dynamics 365 Customer Service module, that's a natural precursor for Field Service, so I'd recommend looking further into it.  

If you're interested in seeing more, ask us for a tailored demo that speaks to your industry type. We'll show you how it can work for you, the expected ROI and some of the ways you can leverage efficiency.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

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