Lightning fast service with Field Service Lightning

Salesforce Field Service Lightning (FSL), one of the latest products within the Salesforce umbrella, was acquired just a few years ago from ClickSoftware. Today, FSL is among the most intelligent tools for seamlessly optimizing a mobile workforce. Konstantinos Poulis, a Senior Salesforce Consultant and the FSL Lead at Capgemini, throws some light on how FSL allows organizations to deliver intelligent, fast & timely, personalized, and productive on-site services.

As part of the Salesforce cloud, FSL has great potential as a workforce monitoring and management tool irrespective of the industry it is being used for. Right from transportation and logistics, manufacturing and production, telecommunications, waste management, financial services, retail, and even professional services, FSL enables optimization of the mobile workforce. This includes scheduling service appointments, dispatching mobile workers and equipment, tracking vehicles, stocks, and work order status.

FSL is basically a means to monitor field services – service-, sales-, and/or maintenance-related. This is managed by administrators, who set up the specific features of the FSL package for any industry and operated by agents, who are responsible for registering field requests and service appointments via work orders. The next set of key people involved in FSL include the dispatchers, who are responsible to assign work orders (based on skill levels and availability) and monitor resources (in terms of location, stages of work order, and so on). Last but not least are the resources: technicians, field workers, and workforce who are responsible for executing the work orders placed by customers.

So, how does Salesforce Field Service Lighting work?

The key advantages that FSL brings to the workforce includes the ease of mobility, combined with real-time data updates, and end-to-end support right from order generation to work order execution and completion. Available for both iOS and Android operating systems, the most important advantage of the FSL is a seamless communication experience, optimizing the customer service experience.

An organization that uses the FSL mobile app can:

• Setup and track appointment schedules
• Create work orders and follow-up appointments
• Track work orders, reach contacts, and verify addresses
• Collaborate with other mobile workers, managers, and dispatchers
• Receive push notifications to track work orders
• Access knowledge articles
• Track and requisition stock and inventory

Capgemini’s experience with implementing Field Service Lighting

FSL has shown a lot of potential and has been gradually maturing with every release. In fact, today, FSL is considered the best tool in the market and the fact that customers trust Salesforce adds to its weightage. A number of Capgemini clients have also requested for demos and PoCs of FSL, which underscores the popularity of the tool.

Capgemini has successfully implemented the FSL for one of its clients, an international accountancy software company. Prior the implementation, the company relied mostly on manual task monitoring, and wanted to bring about an inherent change in their operations to make it more efficient and seamless. Capgemini experts helped them in choosing the FSL tool and started off by commissioning it in two countries. Today, the use of FSL enabled to spread to more than 10 countries and become a pan-European operation. It is also heartening to note that not only have they adopted and adapted to the FSL tool smoothly, they employ it on a daily basis thereby ensuring their processes have become largely automated and the operations are smooth.

The whole idea of Salesforce Field Service Lightning is a lightning fast field service that allows an organization to manage jobs anytime and anywhere by planning services in a smarter way and improving the team’s overall productivity. With Salesforce, one of the leaders in the CRM domain, advocating it, FSL can help you optimize your operations. If you’d like to know more about Field Service solutions with Salesforce, please feel free to reach out to Kontantinos Poulis.

Maurits Jan Groen

Expert in Cloud, Data Management

As Alliance Manager Digital I drive our business partnership with major partners in our Digital and Cloud integration portfolio.
I have over 20 years of experience in Marketing & Technology. I love developing compelling propositions, connecting people and creating business value with cutting edge technology.
I have also spoken at TEDxHilversum about how Internet of Things will develop and grow to change our lives. Watch it here.