In our recent New & Next webinar, Shane, EVP of Product at Field Nation, shared our product vision, new features, and capabilities designed to make work easier and more rewarding for the thousands of providers using Field Nation. Watch the webinar on-demand below.

Summary

Our product vision

Field Nation has been the #1 labor marketplace for IT field services for 15 years, connecting over 2,000 buyers with more than 20,000 independent providers to complete over 1.5 million work orders annually. However, our journey is far from over. We aim to make it easier to complete work on Field Nation by enabling buyers and providers to consistently achieve great outcomes.

Through conversations with hundreds of buyers and providers, we’ve identified key challenges that need to be addressed. For buyers, reliability, star ratings, and the time-consuming vetting process are significant hurdles. For providers, understanding performance metrics, workflow friction, and difficulty standing out are major pain points.

Buyer challenges (7:29)

1. Reliability: Cancellations, backouts, and late arrivals disrupt workflows and incur costs. For example, if Provider A cancels an hour before the work order start time, there’s often insufficient time to get Provider B up-to-speed. This kind of disruption, multiplied across numerous work orders, can lead buyers to question the reliability of Field Nation.
2. Star ratings: Our star rating system doesn’t always accurately reflect provider quality. With 81% of active providers rated five stars, it’s challenging for buyers to discern which technicians are exceptional performers.
3. Vetting: Vetting new providers is a lengthy process. On average, dispatchers review 17 profiles before making an assignment. This involves checking skills, experience, star ratings, reliability metrics, and more, which can be time-consuming, especially when assigning multiple work orders daily.

Provider challenges (11:13)

1. No scoreboard: Providers often don’t know how they’re being evaluated. Without clear metrics and thresholds, it’s hard to understand what buyers are looking for and how to improve performance.
2. Workflow friction: The current workflow has several pain points, from requesting schedule changes to managing double bookings. These issues make it difficult for providers to deliver high-quality service efficiently.
3. Hard to stand out: Even outstanding providers can struggle to distinguish themselves. The current system doesn’t make it easy for buyers to see which technicians consistently deliver top-tier service.

Addressing these challenges

To address these challenges, we are focused on three main goals for each side of the marketplace:

1. For Buyers:
   • Assess provider quality: We’re leveraging data to provide a more holistic view of provider performance, considering factors like cancellations, timeliness, and deliverable uploads.
   • Find and assign the best provider: Using our extensive data, we can help buyers identify the best fit for their needs.
   • Manage the work: Enhancements in workflow will reduce disruptions from backouts, cancellations, and late arrivals.
2. For Providers:
   • Get work done: Improving the mobile app and workflow to minimize friction and make it easier to complete tasks.
   • Gain recognition: We’re refining the quality signals provided to buyers to better highlight top-performing providers.
   • Grow your business: Introducing a “scoreboard” that clearly outlines performance metrics and how providers can improve to secure more work opportunities.

Introducing the Business Dashboard (17:09)

Today, we’re excited to introduce the Business Dashboard – a new tool developed in partnership with nearly 100 providers. This dashboard will provide detailed performance metrics, relationship insights, and overall business health indicators, helping you understand where you excel and where there’s room for improvement.

Key Features:

• Overall business health: Monitor key performance indicators that buyers look at when vetting providers.
• Relationship insights: Understand your interactions and relationships with buyers.
• Performance metrics: Access detailed metrics that impact your chances of getting more work.

Enhancements to workflow (29:29)

1. Double-booking prevention: We’ve identified that 25% of backouts are due to accidental double bookings. Our new workflow includes schedule conflict warnings to help prevent these issues.
2. Schedule accuracy: Informal schedule changes often lead to timeliness issues. We’ve improved the workflow to ensure schedule changes are accurately reflected in the work order system, reducing the risk of late arrivals.
3. Deliverable uploads: Previously, 50% of work orders were marked incomplete due to deliverable issues. We’ve overhauled the process to improve reliability and reduce upload failures by 73%.

Updated Approval Policy (38:37)

We’ve also rolled out an updated approval policy to ensure faster payment. 95% of work orders are now approved within seven days, and over 99% are approved within 12 days. This policy ensures that work orders completed without issues are approved by the platform 14 days after completion if the buyer hasn’t already approved them.

Key takeaways 

The enhancements we’re making at Field Nation are designed to help you thrive. By leveraging our new tools and workflows, you can improve service delivery, gain recognition, and grow your business effectively. We’re here to support your journey and give you the tools and insights needed to succeed in the competitive field of IT services. Thank you for being a part of Field Nation!