Building a high-quality, customer-obsessed service model

Field service is inherently volatile. While many service events—installations, inspections, preventive maintenance, and upgrades—can be planned in advance, the work is often disrupted by unpredictable demand and unanticipated customer needs. Staffing limitations, skill coverage gaps, geographic distance, and schedule alignment all constrain service organizations and limit their flexibility.

A blended workforce model helps relieve these constraints by integrating direct employees with independent contractors. This approach allows companies to deploy their highly trained W2 teams on high-value work while routing less specialized or more distributed tasks to qualified on-demand technicians.

Service Council interviewed two Pomeroy executives—Stephen Vandegriff, VP of Digital Strategy, and Dennis Hinkel, VP of Operations—about their approach to blended labor. Pomeroy provides IT implementation and support services that help clients innovate, automate, and optimize their IT environments. Their objective is to equip users with tools and solutions that enhance satisfaction, flexibility, and productivity.

Although Pomeroy is not the most widely known provider in the industry, its leaders emphasize that the company has an exceptionally loyal customer base. They attribute this loyalty to consistent, high-quality service delivery.

Pomeroy’s value proposition centers on rapid response and resolution times, deep field service expertise, accessible information for technicians, diagnostic and repair tools, and high first-time fix rates. The company believes that service quality is the most important differentiator.

Measuring customer experience is equally critical. Pomeroy uses biannual “Voice of the Client” NPS surveys, interaction-level micro-surveys, and Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM scoring). In 2021, the company’s annual theme—“Customer Obsessed”—reinforced its service excellence culture.

Expanding flexibility with an on-demand workforce

Service Council also interviewed Dennis Hinkel to understand how Pomeroy integrates on-demand workers. As VP of Operations, Dennis oversees break/fix work, maintenance, projects, staging, repair depot operations, and more.

Pomeroy maintains a skilled W2 staff but augments capacity with Field Nation’s marketplace of on-demand technicians. This supplemental workforce helps Pomeroy handle variable demand, staff shortages, multi-site project workloads, and geographic gaps.

Dennis noted that Pomeroy relies on on-demand technicians when W2 staff are fully booked or unavailable in a specific location. Large, dispersed, or long-term projects also benefit from on-demand labor—sometimes blending W2 and contracted technicians, sometimes relying entirely on Field Nation.

Flexibility and scalability are major reasons customers choose Pomeroy. Sudden spikes in demand, uncovered geographies, engineering changes, safety requirements, or technician absences can all disrupt service. On-demand workers help Pomeroy maintain consistent service levels despite these fluctuations.

Field Nation provides visibility into technician skills, ratings, and qualifications. Dennis described the platform as “self-governing,” giving his team the confidence to select technicians who can be trusted to complete the job successfully. This unified view of on-demand resources enables Pomeroy to create a tightly integrated service operation that combines the strengths of both W2 and contracted labor.

Industry insights from Field Nation

Service Council also interviewed Steve Salmon, Field Nation’s VP of Business Development. He noted that thousands of professional service workers deliver supplemental capacity through Field Nation, supporting more than one million work orders each year.

Steve highlighted widespread challenges: volatile demand, staffing shortages, skill gaps, and supply chain disruptions. Nearly half of service executives report workforce shortages, and over 40% cite a lack of resources. Meanwhile, nearly 90% of field technicians say products are increasingly complex and require greater knowledge.

A trained on-demand workforce helps mitigate these pressures. It provides surge capacity during installation booms, seasonal demand, weather events, off-hours work, and disaster recovery. It fills gaps caused by vacations, retirements, or attrition. It supports geographies without nearby employees and offers specialized skills when W2 technicians are unavailable.

Companies are also refining service processes to ensure consistent, high-quality outcomes regardless of who completes the work—W2 or independent contractor.

About the author

Michael Israel is Service Council’s COO. Michael has worked in customer and field service for more than 40 years. He spent 17 years in his early career managing both domestic and international field service operations, including 12 years with IBM’s Field Engineering organization. Over the past three decades, he has held management and executive roles with major providers of CRM and Field Service software applications, including tenures with IFS, Oracle, and SAP.

His broad experience includes marketing, selling, supporting, and implementing CRM and Field Service software applications. Michael also served as a Field Service analyst for both Aberdeen Group and Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA).