Understanding Technician Utilization: Its Importance and How to Monitor It

What does a typical workday entail for your service technicians? While you might think you have a grasp on what happens when a truck is dispatched, do you have the necessary metrics to ensure that your field service operations are running at peak efficiency? Let’s Consider a scenario: One of your technicians travels to a client’s location but encounters an unexpected issue — a freeway accident causing significant delays. He finds himself stuck in traffic for over 45 minutes, singing along to the tunes on the radio. Upon finally reaching the customer site, he completes the service promptly, finishing in just twenty minutes, leaving the customer delighted. However, after the service, he returns to the main office and waits an additional thirty minutes or longer to file the work order and receive his next assignment. Such remote support delays, resulting from scheduling issues, can harm your business. Is this reflective of a typical day for your technicians? The only way to find out is by tracking Technician Utilization. Read on to discover what Technician Utilization is, why it’s essential, and how to enhance this metric within your organization.

Defining Technician Utilization

Before we delve into the significance of Technician Utilization, let's clarify what the term means. Technician Utilization is a metric that quantifies the percentage of billed hours that your technicians spend addressing customer issues and service requests. Time spent commuting to client sites, restocking supplies, or waiting for procedures to proceed does not factor into this calculation.

Why Technician Utilization Is Important

Measuring Technician Utilization is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your field service management. You can leverage the initial assessment to set benchmarks for your team and establish improvement goals based on their utilization rates. From our earlier example, you might want to question whether it’s acceptable for your technicians to be operating at a mere 50% efficiency. If this rate isn’t satisfactory, it’s worth investigating the inefficient aspects of your field service operations to make improvements. Additionally, tracking Technician Utilization can help identify high-performing technicians capable of managing heavier workloads, as well as those who may benefit from further training or development opportunities. While Technician Utilization is significant on its own, it also plays a key role in calculating other performance indicators. Understanding how effectively your technicians operate can assist in determining the cost per ticket and cost per service request.

Enhancing Technician Utilization

Once you start monitoring Technician Utilization, you may find a need to boost these rates. Here are a few key strategies to improve Technician Utilization in your organization:

1. Enhanced Technician Training: If inefficiencies are found in unloading or administrative tasks, it may be time to reevaluate your training processes for technicians in these areas. Consider offering additional training to technicians or support staff that could streamline paperwork-related tasks.
2. Improved Traffic and GPS Solutions: A significant amount of time can be wasted during technician commutes to customer locations. While unpredictable traffic conditions are an inherent challenge for traveling support technicians, investing in reliable GPS solutions can help reduce travel time. Modern GPS applications, such as Google Maps, factor in real-time traffic data and can redirect drivers to avoid congestion.
3. Remote Video Support: Investing in a remote video support solution is another effective way to improve technician efficiency. While mitigating traffic delays and optimizing paperwork processes is beneficial, offering live video assistance in the field can greatly enhance Technician Utilization. Remote video support tools like Blitzz enable technicians to assist customers without having to travel, allowing them to seamlessly handle multiple appointments.

Boost Your Technician Utilization with Remote Video Support

With this fresh understanding of Technician Utilization, you now possess the insights and strategies needed to improve the efficiency of your customer support operations. One of the most prominent inefficiencies in many field service processes is the time technicians spend commuting. By integrating a remote video support tool into your field service technology, you can significantly reduce this wasted time. Blitzz’s remote video support platform allows technicians to guide customers through their issues as effectively as if they were physically present. Technicians appreciate how augmented reality and OCR-driven text extraction features simplify troubleshooting, while customers enjoy the straightforward interface of Blitzz. Experience it for yourself and try Blitzz for free today!