A Complete Guide to Technician Effectiveness and Scorecarding

Here are a few benefits technician scorecarding can unlock:

1. Identify new growth opportunities.

Scorecarding sheds light on those growth opportunities that could directly impact your organization’s long-term revenue. For instance, imagine implementing a scorecarding program and notice one technician’s first-time fix rates hovering around 10 percent below other field techs. You dig into the details a bit more and find that the technician lives much further away from the closest parts warehouse than any other technician. In this case, you may be able to easily lift that tech’s rates by ordering parts in advance—a small move that drives up revenue. Ultimately, scorecarding lays out insights that you use to see where you’re missing out on revenue, adjust, and grow the organization faster.

2. Boost technician retention.

Talent retention has plummeted in recent years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found more than 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in March 2022—a record number. However, most technicians want to become better at their job, and they may be craving more education. In fact, a study by LinkedIn found that 94 percent of employees would stay with a company longer if that company invested in their learning and development. Scorecarding reveals which of your field techs could benefit the most from extra training, and it shows you how they can improve. That means you can invest in boosting their knowledge and keep talent at your organization.

3. Fill the skills gap.

The trade skills gap is widening fast as the baby boomer generation retires. A ManpowerGroup survey says almost 70 percent of companies are struggling to find skilled workers. Scorecarding makes it easy to see where your talent shortages are and identify which technicians have an abundance of skills. By tracking technician efficiency, you can assign coaching in areas that will make the biggest difference to both your bottom line and your technicians’ career.

4. Assign the right technician to the right job.

Technician scorecarding makes scheduling and dispatching more effective. When your back office has technician scorecards in front of them, they can easily match the right technician to the best job that fits their skills, certification level, and performance. A more precise level of matching ensures your technicians are showing up to jobs they’re prepared to take on, so it ends up lifting your first-time fix rates.

Knowing scorecarding is critical for growth, it’s not always easy to identify what metrics will be worth tracking and analyzing. Here’s a look at the best field service metrics to consider when you build out a scorecarding program that drives growth:

First-time fixes.

First-time fix rates influence the organization’s financial status on several levels. For one, higher first-time fix rates mean your techs will tech arrives and finishes a job in a single trip. At the same time, it’s a stat that inspires higher customer satisfaction. After all, the more frequent techs are completing a job in one go, the less often your customers have to interrupt their business waiting for fixes. That can lead to more long-term business for your company and faster growth.

Quote conversions.

Quote conversions show you how often a technician is closing a new deal in the field. It’s a solid metric to track when scorecarding because it reveals opportunities for additional coaching or adjustments. By improving quote conversions, you tighten up your entire service process, resulting in additional time and resources to reach more customers.

Utilization.

Utilization rates show you how much of the day a field technician spends on billable versus nonbillable tasks. This metric is essential because it highlights areas to boost productivity and improve workflow. For example, if you see that a technician is consistently spending much of their day in traffic, you may want to focus on more effective scheduling or find ways to better match techs to jobs based on their location. No matter how your utilization rates turn out, they highlight ways to increase efficiency.

Customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Managing core returns and parts inventory levels manually is an extremely time-consuming process. Not only do manual processes increase the likelihood of costly errors, but they also bog down your teams and waste valuable human resources.

Average revenue per ticket.

This metric identifies how much money a technician is bringing in on a typical job. It’s another way to spot high performers and those needing improvement. If you have one technician who is an excellent upseller, they may be willing to pass on their tricks to a lower-revenue technician. In turn, you upskill your technicians in a way that generates more revenue for the company.

Technician profitability.

Tech profitability is simply how much money each tech is bringing into the company. It’s a useful metric because it allows you to spot lags in profitability and improve them, boosting your organization’s bottom line. With more money streaming in, you’ll have the resources to invest in the company and support its growth.

Want to squeeze the most out of technician scorecards? Avoid the most common mistakes companies often trip over and follow some clear best practices. Here are a few tips for tracking, analyzing, and improving your technician scorecards:

1. Fuel progress with competition.

If your organization is keeping technician scorecarding results out of sight from techs, it could cause suspicion, and you won’t be using scorecarding to its fullest. That’s why it’s important to remember socialization when you’re setting up scorecarding. By posting technician stats, using gamification, and building out friendly competition, you can motivate your technicians to improve their scores—without damaging morale.

2. Rely on a single data source.

When setting up a tech scorecarding program, you need a reliable data source that funnels real-time information into reports that are ready to use. Too often, a company will have high hopes for their scorecarding program, but their data will be trickling in from multiple systems or manual reports. This approach wastes hours, sparks input errors, and pulls productivity out of your employees’ days.

That’s why it’s so critical to base your scorecarding program on an all-in-one software system that streams information straight from the field into real-time reports. By cutting out the middleman, you end up with more accurate statistics and spend little time inputting or managing information on your own.

3. Actionize data.

It’s common for field service organizations to gather information on their techs’ performance without paying attention to the broader story it tells. If you want to use scorecarding to propel your organization to more growth, you need to dig into reports, spot patterns, and take action.

For instance, if you notice a group of technicians is kicking out significantly lower average revenue per ticket, consider setting up a coaching session on upselling. If their utilization rates are low, look for common barriers that you can remove from the process. By digging into the data and using it to inform process decisions, your scorecarding program will help identify additional revenue for your organization.

4. Focus on the right metrics.

Technician KPIs are invaluable, but not every tidbit of information will be worth highlighting. The best scorecarding programs zoom in on the KPIs that lead to company-wide growth. For example, emphasizing first-time fix rates is a cornerstone metric to focus on because it influences everything from total revenue and fuel costs to customer satisfaction scores. A solid way to reach company-wide goals with scorecarding is to list out field technician KPIs that influence your organization’s overall financial health and fast-track those metrics to the top of your technician efficiency ratings.