Your business could succeed or fail based on how you treat your customers at initial contact. This is because 24% of clients with a positive first encounter will stay loyal to your company for, on average, two years. The converse is true, though, as a bad experience makes customers altogether avoid your establishment.
The opportunity to wow brand-new clients with your customer service is one that you won’t receive again. You won’t have to because you ensured the first encounter exceeded the client’s expectations. With a high first-time repair rate that provides your company makes a fantastic first impression, this may be accomplished most effectively.
We at SmartServ have created a knowledge vault for plumbing contractors and technicians like yourself. Head to our website for more informative articles to enhance your business knowledge.
SmartServ’s field service management software can also streamline and optimize your workflow to generate growth and more revenue for your business!
Book a FREE demo today to start streamlining your workflow!
What is First Time Fix Rate?
The first-time fix rate statistic helps us gauge the frequency with which technicians finish tasks the first time. The term “first-time fix rate” (FTFR) refers to situations where a technician resolves an issue without needing additional components, information, or assistance from specialists.
Also important to note is that no follow-up calls or additional visits are permitted. For FTFR, the field service sector averages an 80% score. Therefore, consider yourself a high achiever if you hit nearly 90% of your goals. The success of your organization is probably in jeopardy if it’s less than 70%.
The first-time repair rate is a business metric that measures how frequently a field service technician successfully attends to a customer’s service call on the first visit. It is a crucial business benchmark and key performance indicator (KPI) for maintenance, offering productivity and customer satisfaction information.
When technicians arrive at the scene, they must have the necessary knowledge and tools to solve issues correctly. If they don’t have those two things, they’ll have to leave the job site and return later to address the customer’s problem.
How to Calculate First-Time Fix Rate?
Divide the positions by the number of jobs fixed during the initial visit to determine your company’s FTF rate. You get your FTFR as a result. This formula can evaluate an employee’s performance individually or for particular services. You can observe where your technicians shine and where improvement is needed.
Once you’ve determined the proportion of your fixes that are successful the first time, you may use this method to determine the percentage of each assignment sent to a technician, engineer, or office staff. This guarantees that groups are achieving their goals and KPIs. There may be a chance to offer individualized training if you observe that one of your mobile workers has a low FTFR compared to other employees.
How can you improve the First Time Fix Rate of your company?
By assigning projects to qualified technicians, giving dispatchers visibility, and taking careful notes, you may increase the percentage of fixes done right the first time. To assist you in organizing and automating your operations, you may either carry out these tasks yourselves or invest in field service management software.
- Streamline the Management of Stock and Spare Parts
Competition is fierce in the world today. As a result, you can lose a client if another provider can arrive with all the necessary components. The days of engineers making a customer wait another week by stating that they “need to order a new part” are long gone. A significant difference is made by using the proper parts for the job.
- Secure employment access
Everybody gets frustrated when your technician is unable to access a location. Furthermore, your organization will incur a considerable expense as a result. This happens quite frequently, regrettably. Your first-time repair rate should improve if the job can be finished after the first site visit.
- Send your most qualified employees.
Your field personnel should have the knowledge and abilities to complete any assignment. But in reality, things are always complicated. Your FTFR will be in danger if less experienced engineers are left to work first-time jobs while more experienced experts are in demand.
- Enhance the Process You Use for Job Planning
Your FTFR may decrease if you give technicians insufficient time to finish a task. They’ll likely need to return another day to complete the task if there needs more time or the location is about to close. Make sure there are no follow-up jobs or callbacks to qualify your FTFR.
- Aim to match the appropriate technician with the proper task.
The specialist dispatched to the project site is frequently incapable, which makes it difficult for businesses to resolve issues on the first attempt. You can prevent this by proactively pairing field technicians with the work they are most qualified for based on their abilities, degree of experience, and expertise.
- Make the appropriate inquiries.
To match technicians’ skills with jobs, one must be familiar with the task and the client’s expectations. Asking the appropriate questions of your customers when they phone to make a service appointment is the only way to obtain the data you require to inform those matches. Once you have the necessary information, you can input it into the platform of OptimoRoute and let the program connect technicians with jobs, schedule the services, and map routes to each job site.
- Real-time visibility for dispatchers
Mobile workforce management is imperative when technicians are dispersed across different working sites. Even in cases where professionals and jobs are well matched, unforeseen difficulties like a flat tire can necessitate rearranging the schedule.
Why is FTFR important for your field service company?
Your first-time fix rate significantly impacts the success of your business. According to a survey, firms with an FTFR of 70% had customer retention rates of 86%.
Knowing your CSAT score is crucial since customer retention and satisfaction are linked. CSAT, short for “Customer Satisfaction,” measures how well customers think you perform. To get feedback from your clients, you must conduct frequent surveys. With the help of this, you may generate your CSAT score and feel more assured when determining the real influence of FTFR.
Additionally, high customer satisfaction levels will benefit your business’s financial line. Best-in-class field service providers, for instance, could boost their revenue when they achieved CSAT scores that were 90% higher.
When a consumer phones a plumbing company, an installation company, or any other field service company, they anticipate speaking with a skilled expert who can address their issue immediately. In addition to exceeding client expectations and sparing them the expense of extra service visits, a high first-time fix rate boosts customer satisfaction. More significantly, it raises your revenue.
According to statistics from the Aberdeen Group, the average first-time fix rate for field services companies is 75%, while “best-in-class” companies boast an astounding FTFR of 89%. The statistics also revealed that it required an average of 1.6 extra visits to correct a problem when a business could not do so on the first try.
Every time a repeat visit is necessary to address the issue, additional operating costs are associated, including pay for the technician’s time, further training, and spare components. They also take up more of your technicians’ time, which limits their ability to handle other tasks.
Because of the high first-time fix rates, you can therefore anticipate growth in client loyalty as well as further advantages like:
- Productivity Growth
By including FTFR as a KPI in your performance reports, get more done quickly. Employees will have more time to do other responsibilities by ensuring that questions are answered the first time. Your response time to future service requests will increase when technicians are freed up to concentrate on first-time visits rather than recurring trips.
- Increased Profitability and Lower Costs
Fewer site visits result from more excellent FTFR rates. As a result, less time and money will be wasted on pricey follow-up visits. First-time fixed prices will also increase customer retention rates, lowering the money you spend on acquiring new clients.
- More efficacy
By receiving high FTFR scores, you may show clients how much you value providing top-notch service. Better CSAT ratings will also be a result of increased service efficiency. As a result, there is a better chance of keeping customers and a lower chance of losing them.
To alleviate the contractor’s and technician’s burden, one should seek the assistance of a field service management software like SmartServ.
Book a personalized demo to see how SmartServ can optimize your business!
