How to use customer location data to make clear decisions

And, why customer location data helps plan resources

This is a real story. On how a service customer location data tracking helped a customer do better resource planning.

Our customer runs an all-India sales and service network for machine components. And we help them run that using Simply C2 CRM.

Till 2 years back, he had many service centers, all over India. Then they dwindled in numbers- as business took a hit. It’s roaring back, thankfully and they are adding them back. With one difference.

Earlier it was gut-feel. Now he can use data. Here’s what we did.

A brief background: how our location tracking mobile app works

Field service operations let their technicians use a location tracking mobile app. That is not new. Simply C2 CRM mobile app has been using location tracking for the better part of the past decade. The Simply C2 CRM location tracking mobile app has been used to help technicians navigate, comply with client requirements of proof of physical presence, and so on.

A year back, we introduced what was quite unique.

Simply C2: location tracking mobile app that lets your customer have control

We introduced Simply C2 (Customer to Companies- C2. Simply C2!)- which was an app for the customers to log and track their repair requests (and do many other things, besides – read more, here). Simply C2 customer app works with a Simply C2 CRM engine at the back.

This means that the user of Simply C2 customer app is a customer who needs service. And the users of Simply C2 CRM are companies and their employees who are providing post-sales service. The user of Simply C2 customer facing app, does not know, about the CRM backend.

Path-breaking innovation using customer location data:

1. A simplied but secure mobile based registration and logging experience for the customers.
2. We allowed the customer to take control of his data- he could register, login, create his profile, add his equipment under his care to the “installed base”.
3. While creating his profile, using the location tracking mobile app- we made it easier for him to create his profile by querying Google Maps using his GPS co-ordinates. And, when he shared his profile with the service provider (the relevant one using a Simply C2 CRM account), he shared his location- GPS co-ordinates and postal address with the company as well.
4. This made it easy for the service provider company to

   • send technicians to his site to attend to complaints
   • ship equipment back to him after repairs- if the repair was done at the service centre.

Over the last many months, a tremendous amount of data has come into the system, rich customer data: his installed base of equipment, warranty vs out of warranty status of his installed base. And, we have now extremely authentic service location tracking map data.

Customer location data in map

The customer ran a report with the “live cases”- the open tickets and the sites.

Downloaded the .csv file which had columns like Customer Account Name, Site name, GPS location, postal address, Ticket nos, aging, and so on. Pushed the data to Google Sheets and then onto Google Maps. This is what he found.

It is clear where the installed base clusters are. So, he has important pointers about where to locate his service centers. And, since in his business installed sites are a good proxy for sales as well, he can decide on where to re-double his sales efforts.

The above is just an example of the decision-making that is going on the basis of location data. Great data, simple querying but very rich analysis, and tremendous actionable insights.