By Carl Weinschenk, Senior Editor
TOA Technologies, which describes itself as "the only on -demand provider of enterprise class mobile workforce management and customer experience management software solutions," has posted press releases focusing on the economic wastes of keeping people sitting around waiting for a tech's truck to pull into the driveway. The releases offer different totals for the United States, Germany and Brazil.
The price tag here in the States is $37.7 billion. The release says that during the past year, 58% of people waited for a visit from the cable, satellite, "Internet" -- whatever that means -- utilities, retail home deliveries or other home visits.
The release doesn't describe how the dollar amount or percentage figures were arrived at. Considering that fuzziness -- and the fact that TOA is a vendor looking to go to work for clients to reduce both -- it seems likely that the figures are on the high side.
Regardless, the basic premise that everyone benefits when windows are shorter is a hard one with which to argue.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a feature that looked at field force automation. The upshot of the story was, in a way, similar to many others that BTR runs: Things are getting far more complex, and the companies and industries that do the best job of boiling through the complexity to better serve customers will have significant advantages over their competitors. And -- with the level of competition rising -- this is an important issue.
The TOA study puts a number on the failure to pay attention to service windows. True, the number likely is overinflated. True, it doesn't break out cable -- instead lumping it with other telecommunications providers. But, all the same, it is a reminder that operators owe it to both their subscribers and their public profile to use any tools available to perform services calls in as timely a manner as possible.
Carl Weinschenk is the Senior Editor for Broadband Technology Report. Contact him at [email protected].