Gaz Métro Plus repairs and replaces gas furnaces and water heaters for more than 160,000 residential and commercial customers in the province of Quebec. As a result of deregulation, the gas utilities market is fiercely competitive. To stay ahead of the competition, Gaz Métro Plus focuses on delivering fast, efficient customer service.
Gaz Métro Plus realized its paper-based system was hindering the service technicians’ ability to respond quickly to service calls and provide value-added customer service. The technicians were not equipped to upload customer data to the company’s central database while working remotely, which meant the call centre did not have relevant customer information during customer calls. The paper-based system hindered the service technicians’ ability to quickly process service calls, which created internal bottlenecks that translated into longer wait times for customers.
To address this issue, Gaz Métro Plus gave their technicians Motion Computing tablet PCs loaded with web-based software. Now, Gaz Métro Plus can respond to more customer calls each day and provide customers with current information about the status of each service request. This mobile solution streamlines service calls, helping the company save money and serve customers faster.
According to Yvan Lefebvre, IT Director for Gaz Métro Plus, the amount of paperwork was not only making it difficult for technicians to work efficiently, but also affecting the company’s interactions with customers. The technicians would send the paper work orders back to the client service centre on a weekly basis for entry into the company’s database.
“Often, when a customer would call back a day after inquiring about the status of their maintenance request, the call centre agent wouldn’t know about that visit because it still wasn’t entered in our system,” said Lefebvre.
The technicians also relied on cell phones to communicate with the dispatchers who took customer requests from call centre agents, which affected productivity.
“This process took up precious time because we had about 60 technicians and four dispatchers. The technicians were often stuck waiting on the line to get through to speak with a dispatcher,” said Lefebvre. “This created a bottleneck at the beginning and the end of the day when all the technicians were waiting for their first and last service requests.”
Gaz Métro Plus invested in tools that would enable the technicians to efficiently deal with logistics while in the field. Once the decision to move away from a paper-based system was made, they looked at several solutions, including laptops and PDAs. According to Lefebvre, they decided keyboards would be too awkward for the technicians, so they opted not to use laptops. They also ruled out PDAs because of their small screen size and lack of computing power, which is crucial for supporting the company’s large database. In the end, Gaz Métro Plus chose Motion Computing tablet PCs for the large screen size and Windows XP capabilities.
The tablet PCs are used as a broader strategy to improve logistical processes through mobile solutions. With the tablet PCs, dispatchers use ClickSchedule, from ClickSoftware. When a dispatcher receives a service call, the software automatically determines which technician should respond to the job based on the technician’s location and the stage of their current call. The software also matches the type of call to the technician with the appropriate skill level.
Because the tablets are wireless enabled, the technicians can enter customer information directly into the company’s database while they’re working in the field. When a technician is assigned a job, he can update the status on his tablet. If a customer calls asking for a status report, a dispatcher can accurately determine whether the technician is on his way.
Once a job is completed, the customer now signs a note of confirmation on the tablet and the technician supplies a receipt right away.
“One of the great things about Motion tablets is that they come with built-in Bluetooth capabilities, which means technicians can connect to a mobile printer to get customers a copy of their receipt right on the spot,” said Lefebvre.
“With technicians working inside and out, we were also looking for a screen that would reduce the amount of glare from the sun. With Motion Computing’s View Anywhere display, glare from the sun is eliminated and the technicians can easily see the data they need when working outside,” he added.
Gaz Métro Plus started equipping technicians with Motion Computing’s tablets in January of 2005. Since then, the company has improved internal efficiencies, seen increases in levels of customer satisfaction and reduced costs.
According to Lefebvre, the tablet PCs help the company save money due to the reduction of calls technicians need to make when processing a service request. Because the call centre function is outsourced, the average cost for a call is $5.00. Since the technicians began using the tablet PCs to communicate with the dispatchers, they’ve reduced the number of calls by 3,000 per month. As a result, Gaz Métro Plus saves around $15,000 a month in charges.
At the end of the day, the technicians are also much more productive. The tablet PCs allow the dispatchers and technicians to process calls more quickly, which means the technicians are completing 20 per cent more service calls each day.
“There’s no way we could take the tablets away from the technicians now, they love them too much!” said Lefebvre.
Customers are also reaping the benefits, because Gaz Métro Plus has narrowed its time windows. Before they started using tablets and scheduling software, customers could only expect a technician to arrive in the morning, afternoon or evening. Now Gaz Métro Plus can offer three-hour time windows because they can quickly pinpoint a technician’s current location and determine the status of their service calls.
“With the tablet PC, the information is updated to the company database in real-time. So five minutes after the visit is completed, all of the customer information is updated in our central database, including the customer’s signature,” he said. “At the end of the day, our interactions with our customers are much more positive and professional.”