Which mobility devices are preferred by the field service industry?

Decoding the criteria to choose the best mobile device for field workers!

Technological advancements tend to drastically transform the field service operations yielding high productivity and mobility. Field service industry is witnessing the benefits of consumerization of IT in the form of bespoke software solutions and native mobile applications. The key to successful collaborative working between field force and back-office executives lies in harnessing the power of right software applications on the right mobile device.

The world is going mobile – for all personal and professional purposes. The ease and convenience offered by the mobile devices have attracted the field service industry as well to empower their technicians whilst they are on the move. An organisation has to put various factors into consideration to digitise their administration and mobilise the workforce. The market offers a variety of hardware with different specifications, but the choice should be based on the primary purpose and budget constraints.

To realise the goal of increasing ROI (return on investment) and achieving customer satisfaction, identify and analyse main elements before drawing to a final conclusion. For instance few questions that can impact your choice are –

  • Are the field workers concerned mainly with entering information and updating order status via an app?
  • Are they supposed to access more concentrated functionalities?
  • Will they be working in harsh and tough environment conditions?
  • How are they supposed to manage their basic tasks on the device?
  • Does the device need to have any special memory, storage and processor features?
  • What is the ideal size to fit the purpose and give portability ease?
  • Do they need to collect pre-job and post-job photos and customer signature as evidence?
  • Will BYOD (Bring your own device) policy be apt for your mobile solution strategy?

Apart from the above-mentioned questions, the decision-makers also need to contemplate on factors like durability, ergonomics, design, working conditions and climate, reliability, worker knowledge, type of products, financial feasibility, data handling, battery life, and back-office system platform. A final selection should involve the views from your field team members as they are the ones who will be using it.

Let us have a look at different categories of devices being used across the field service industry-

Commercial Smartphones

The most widely used consumer devices have found their way to the field service industry to enable mobility. Since your workers are already acquainted with these personal phones, you don’t actually need to put in more efforts or time to train them. Moreover, these modern touchscreen smartphones have highly powerful features to support the mobile applications and coordinate with the office team. If the work demands instant communication, portability, basic tasks like the status update, adding notes, sending emails, GPS auto routing, collecting work photographs and disconnected updates, budget-friendly smartphones should be your pick!

Tablets and Phablets

For the organisations seeking a bit more than mobile phones and lesser than laptops, tablets win the game for you. Tablets and phablets come in larger screen sizes compared to a smartphone. They work well for the field service industry personnel who need to deal with chunks of information, brochures, data entry, training materials, accessing tons of records and perform faster and task-intensive operations. These devices come in varied sizes ranging from 5 to 10 inches with sophisticated hardware infrastructure to suit the field service demands. Tablets and phablets have been quite welcomed and appreciated by various field organisations.

Rugged Devices

These are the highly specialized devices meant for the field service industry professionals performing rigorous tasks in uncertain surroundings. For industries like energy and utilities, construction, heavy engineering, the mobile workforce has to carry out their job in a hard-wearing business environment, rugged devices are a boon! They are further available as business rugged, semi-rugged, fully rugged and ultra-rugged variants to exactly suit the requirements. Such devices can withstand climatic conditions, wear and tear, accident falls, moisture and dust. Rugged handheld devices are a great productivity booster for with a high initial investment but yield a longer lifecycle.

(Image: RugGearUK)

BYOD

Bring your own device approach has been reasonably praised by every employee as it lets them be in their comfort zone with their own device and produce deliverables. Whether to adopt this approach for field service is an open-ended debate and we suggest it should be entirely a company’s call to make a judgement. A holistic and customised field service solution, like ours, can easily support BYOD as it allows the application to run easily on all platforms. Additionally, it may help to save huge, if your strategy is backed up with a comprehensive software solution to facilitate this flexibility.

Along with these devices, smart wearables have also made a mark in the field service industry to gain a competitive edge and increase efficiency. The selection of underlying operating systems like iOS, Android and Windows is also significant in regards to the synchronisation and integration with back-office systems. As every company seeks to create more service driven sales opportunities, it is very necessary to be on your toes while selecting the perfect hardware device and software solution to support your business objectives. For further guidance and personalized suggestions on implementing a balanced strategy, talk to our experts.

Make your move now!

iTouchVision is one of the world’s leading cloud-based service provider with innovation & excellence at its base. The company has made its presence in all business verticals with its technical & operational capabilities to enhance the working of private & public sector organisations. Our products, ranging from Web-based software to Mobile applications have made their mark globally to transform the way work is completed.