Improved Resource Utilization

Datria applications enable home-based and dynamic scheduling. With home-based scheduling, technicians call from home to get their first assignment, rather than driving to a central facility to pick up assignments. In dynamic scheduling, when a technician completes an assignment, he or she get a new assignment, rather than picking up all assignments at the beginning of the day.

These two changes result in much better resource utilization. Energy South’s technicians completed an average of 1 1/2 more jobs per technician per day after implementing Datria. Overtime costs declined by 22% to 30%. Additionally, the company reduced the time needed to respond to an emergency from 60 minutes to 30 minutes. This improved customer satisfaction as well as efficiency.

Fewer Truck Rolls; Fewer Repeat Trips

Datria applications help to speed the parts replenishment cycle. It’s more likely that the right parts are on the right truck at the right time. Several Datria customers have reported 2% - 5% fewer “failed calls” because the technicians have the right parts.

Customers also report fewer “drive-by” installs, where a technician drops in mainly to fulfill the customer’s expectation that a technician will arrive. They don’t actually complete the installation, however, because it’s the end of the shift, they don’t have appropriate parts, and so on. Datria applications help reduce this behavior by ensuring that the right technician with the right parts and sufficient time will make the call.

Reduced or Re-Deployed Personnel Costs

Increasing the productivity of field technicians reduces the need to hire new technicians. Additionally, customers estimate that Datria can handle 80% of technicians’ calls regarding work orders. Thus, dispatchers can be re-deployed for other assignments. Cardinal Health, for instance, re-deployed 83% of their dispatchers to customer-facing assignments. The company also reduced the hours of their dispatch center from 5 x 24 to 5 x 10. Cardinal Health not only reduced costs; they also improved customer satisfaction.

Eliminate Time on Hold

Many field technicians spend a lot of time on hold, waiting to talk to dispatchers. One of our customers reported that their technicians called the dispatch center 14 times per day and waited on hold 95 seconds each time they called. That’s a little over 22 minutes per day. Working 22 days a month translates to 484 minutes per month on hold. That’s a little over eight hours a month - -- equivalent to one shift. At a burdened rate of $42 per hour, the on-hold time costs $336 per month per technician. Multiply that by 1,500 technicians and you can see why they bought a Datria solution.

Eliminate Boot-Up Time

Another customer told us that their technicians spend an average of 45 minutes a day powering up their laptops, waiting for a signal, and logging in. Over 22 days per month, that translates to 16.5 hours per technician per month. That’s the equivalent of two shifts missed. Datria’s applications eliminate the latency so you can reclaim that time for productive work.

Device-Oriented Benefits

Customers report that the cell phones they use with Datria applications are less costly than other devices, easier to replace, less damaging when lost (because they contain no confidential data), and easier to train on. They’re also easier to replace if lost or damaged. Bell Canada also reports that technicians can complete most transactions 50% faster than they could on or laptop. Bell Canada reports that this translates to a savings of as much as 70 minutes per person per day.

Customers also report that voice applications provide higher security at lower cost. The secret is biometrics. On registering with the system, each user provides a voice print. Datria matches that print each time the user calls. Unlike a standard computer password, voice prints can’t be stolen. Additionally, because phones don’t run local applications, they are less prone to viruses. One customer estimates that the cost of maintaining security for a voice application is 15% of the cost of maintaining security for an equivalent application on a mobile data device.

Best Business Practices

We know more about field service than any other speech company (and more about speech than any field service company). We study field service processes and compare our customers’ practices. Our product managers sit in our customer’s call centers and do “ride alongs” with our customers’ technicians. We know what field technicians do, how they spend their time, what they like, what they don’t like, what they’ll use, and what they won’t use. We’ve designed call flows and dialogs that reflect the best practices in field service. You can often improve your business just by implementing our applications.

More Consistent Business Practices

Most companies want to deploy standard, consistent business practices through their field service organization. For instance, if they want technicians to upsell a customer, they want all customers to get the same pitch in the same way. If they want technicians to add a line item for each new task the customer requests, they want to ensure that all tasks are adequately captured and billed. To the extent that these things are hard to do, companies will not get consistent behavior. Datria applications make them easier to do and thus promote greater consistency and compliance. They can also capture revenue that might otherwise be lost. TELUS, for instance, reported a “significant” increase in revenues per technician after implementing a Datria application. The reason: it’s much easier to add line items to an open work order, so technicians do it more consistently.

Faster Billing Cycles

Datria applications can ask technicians for billing information in real-time — often while the technician is still at the customer site. TELUS reports that they have reduced billing cycles by an average of five days using Datria applications. In some situations, they’ve reduced the cycle by as much as 60 days.

Faster Training Cycles

People already know how to use phones, so companies can train them on Datria applications much faster than any other technology (including paper and pencil). This can be a huge cost savings, particularly in companies experiencing high turnover in their field organizations.

Better Prepared Technicians

Using Datria, technicians can get more information about a job and/or a customer than they can with any other technology. They’re better prepared and can do the job more efficiently. They can also answer complex customer questions more readily. One of the more popular Datria features is the “prior technician’s comments”. While driving to a job, a technician can listen to recorded comments made the previous technician(s) to work at the site. Datria users say that this information source - more than any other - helps get them adequately prepared for the job at hand.

Cardinal Health also uses “trombone transfers” to prepare their technicians and set customer expectations appropriately. When a Cardinal technician calls Datria to report that they’re en route to a customer site, Datria collects the appropriate information, and then transfers the technician to the customer. The technician gives the customer an up-to-date time of arrival and also gathers additional details about the job. When the customer hangs up, the technician automatically returns to the Datria application to complete the work order information. The result? Better prepared technicians, happier customers, and cleaner data in the system.

Better Management Information

Because it's simple to deliver information with Datria, you get more information delivered more consistently and more accurately. This can help you make important management decisions for the short term - e.g. Where should we deploy our resources this week? - and for the long run - e.g. What capital equipment should I invest in for next year?

Cingular Wireless found that an unexpected benefit of a Datria solution was an improved bonus program for their field technicians. The company had been paying bonuses based on fairly generalized measures. They were never sure if they were really incenting improved performance. With Datria installed, they had much better information about employee performance and could pay bonuses on much more specific measures. With incentives tied more directly to performance, performance improved.

Better Ability to Incorporate Contractors in a Unified System

Datria customers have told us that one of their key buying criteria was the ability to get one - and only one - system that could easily incorporate both employees and contractors. Only a voice-driven system with a universally available device could fit the bill.

It’s a Packaged Application

Yankee Group estimates that packaged applications cost 25% to 30% less to own than equivalent custom applications. Plus you get industry best practices. Plus you get a predictable upgrade path. Plus you get industry standards. Plus you get to share costs with other customers who have similar needs. Plus you get to share ideas with other customers who have solved similar problems.

Reduced Device Costs

Bell Canada had given all its field service technicians laptops to complete two dozen different business processes. The laptops were cumbersome, fragile, easily lost, expensive, and required a lot of training. The company decided to swap the laptops for a Datria solution base on phones. They implemented the same business processes but allowed a Datria application to gather the information as the employees spoke it. The time per transaction also declined – from 20 minutes per transaction using a laptop to 8 to 10 minutes per transaction using a phone. Bell Canada also saved money – an estimated $10 to $15 million per year.