One of the key outcomes of the pandemic on the field service sector was the rapid adoption of remote service delivery. As we begin our analysis of our exclusive research into this area run in partnership with Salesforce, we begin by assessing just how widespread such adoption has become…

In a previous study by Field Service News Research conducted earlier this year, we had already seen the evidence of the widespread adoption of remote services. At this point, we had already seen that adoption of such tools had reached over three quarters (76%) of market saturation.

That same study, conducted only a few months earlier to this one, also revealed that over two-thirds (67%) of the companies that had such capabilities had implemented these as a direct result of the pandemic.

Further to this, of those field service companies who had yet to implement such solutions, three-quarters stated they were actively seeking to implement them in the near future.

Fast-forward just a few months, and we have seen that the trend that was emerging in that earlier study has remained true within the findings of this current study. In fact, we are now seeing an overwhelming majority of 87% of field service organisations stating that they have the capabilities to deliver service remotely (figure 1).

We asked those companies who had indicated that they currently didn’t have the capability to deliver remote services if they felt under pressure to introduce such solutions since the pandemic. Tellingly, over half of this remaining group, responded that they had.

Moving back to the full response set of companies, we see further compelling evidence of the market pull towards remote service delivery. Having asked our respondents if their customers have shown an increased need for remote services since the pandemic. The results show very clearly how profound the impact of the pandemic has been on how we approach service delivery, with 84% of field service companies stating that this is indeed the case.

Again, this is echoing the findings of our earlier study that the industry is moving firmly towards mass adoption of remote service delivery. Having now seen this trend sustain solidly across two separate studies, with mostly different respondent groups, it is now explicitly clear that the field service sector has overwhelmingly moved towards the adoption of remote service delivery.

The fact that remote service delivery has become a standard approach to service delivery within the field service sector is now quite undeniable. However, as we touched on in the introduction, what exactly does that mean for the field service sector at large?

Want to know more?

You can find the full paper in the premium resource library