Mobile Business Solution Boosts Efficiency And Cuts Calls By 80% For Siemens Field Service Engineers

Added: (Thu May 16 2002)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Siemens Communications Ltd’s Customer Service Division (CSD) is enjoying significant cost savings, and improving efficiency and customer service after deploying a mobile business solution.

CSD – like most customer service departments – has a traditional structure of information and technical expertise at the centre and field engineers at the periphery with information passed between the two over the phone. Now the field engineers have a Siemens SX45 PDA that connects them to the company’s data network directly. The solution works over GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and the SX45 can also function as a phone for voice calls when necessary.

As the engineers can access all relevant information and processes regarding a customer service request themselves, they get information more quickly and the process is more accurate. A pilot trial of this new mobile technology demonstrated a massive 82% reduction in phone calls and a significant increase in productivity for both the engineers and the Customer Interaction Centre (CIC), this in turn improved both the service to customers and the divisions profitability.

“Our business, supporting customers right across the UK, is by definition mobile and so we wanted to practise what we preach and give our engineers the latest technology,” said Ian Robinson, Director of Customer Services at Siemens Communications.

“The results have been outstanding and are a clear indication that we were right to think that using these systems would enable us to transform our business”.

Siemens Communications is constantly developing its mobile business offering and works with organisations to tailor make solutions to speedup processes and increase efficiency and productivity.

Kathryn Howe, marketing manager for Siemens Advanced Customer Services, explained: “We take a very pragmatic and logical approach to developing mobile solutions. We start with looking at all the steps and tasks that employees undertake during their day and pinpoint areas where time is lost and tasks are duplicated. We then develop solutions to reduce these and enable employees to work more effectively and access information when and how they need to. This is exactly what we did with our own Customer Service Division.”

Siemens Communications CSD controls more than 550 field engineers via its CIC, based in Wellingborough. A key role is to provide the link between job assignment and completion and the new technology has boosted service levels and time to completion.

The trial has been so successful that Siemens plan a further range of enhancements. These will give staff:

· Access to an engineering knowledge base
· Site audit and history information
· Internet information sources (e.g. Courier tracking)
· Automatic scheduling of engineers.

Ends