The document provides insights into customer experience in field service delivery, focusing on the multi-partner model employed by Viasat Communications. Brian Crouthers and Robert Hess discuss the importance of timely service, quality control, and automation in managing subcontractors to ensure customer satisfaction. They emphasize the need for technology, such as Comarch's Field Service Management system, to improve service delivery and maintain oversight of outsourced processes.

1. “Customer Experience in the
Multi-Partner Model of Field
Service Delivery”
Interview with Brian Crouthers and Robert Hess from
ViaSat Communications, Colorado, USA.
Conducted in Colorado by Szymon Uczciwek, COMARCH.
COMARCH: Customer Experience can be defined on different levels. One of the definitions says that customer
experience (CX) is the sum of all experiences at various touch points a customer has with a supplier
of goods and/or services over the duration of their relationship with that supplier. This can include
awareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy. It can also be
used to mean an individual experience over one transaction” (Source Wiki.org). From my experience
in the telecommunications industry, customer experience may be considered from at least three
perspectives: delivered product perspective i.e. what the customer gets for the money, the quality of
the delivered product or service and the way in which the customer interacts with the supplier. What
does Customer Experience mean for you?
Brian: You are right, when looked at from a broader perspective; customer experience can be defined as each of the three
mentioned aspects. In simple words, the customer must be happy with the product or service, with the way in which it’s delivered
and with its quality. From my perspective as a director who manages the field service department, the main focus is to serve
each customer in a way that is most convenient for him / her. Most of our field services are related to installations and service
calls. In both of these cases, setting an appointment and performing a quick installation or fixing a problem are crucial to achieve
full satisfaction at the service end point. We’ve introduced all the necessary tools to enable customers to set the time of the
technician’s visit during the first call. We’ve found that it’s really important, both for acquiring new customers and better serving
the existing ones who are experiencing any kind of issue related to our product.
Rob: Of course this is only one of our methods to increase client satisfaction. Imagine a customer who was booked for an
installation service during the first call, scheduled for to the next day, between 3 PM and 6 PM. He leaves work earlier, and
gets home to be there when the technician arrives, but nobody comes. He will probably resign from the product. So it’s very
important to monitor, whether the booked appointments are really executed on time. When the whole process is based on real
technician availability, it is easier to abide to set visit times, but we always have to take some unforeseen circumstances into
account. This is why we monitor in real time whether or not meetings are conducted according to the plan and always try to meet
the first scheduled date and time. As a satellite service provider we deliver our services all over the US, which is why we rely on
subcontractors in terms of field service. In such a distributed service delivery model getting the right level of customer satisfaction
is much trickier.

2. ViaSat Communications
The company that acquired WildBlue Communications
is ViaSat’s two-way satellite Internet service provider
division. Serving over 600,000 subscribers in the United
States,thecompanyoffersservicestohomeandbusiness
customers directly and via resellers including DISH and
the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative
(NRTC).
In January 2012, ViaSat launched a new, much faster
satellite Internet service called Exede by ViaSat. The
service increases the speed and capacity of satellite
Internet dramatically through the use of the ViaSat high-
capacity satellite system, which includes the 140 Gbit/s
ViaSat-1 satellite.

3. COMARCH: I understand you decided to outsource all of your field service to external suppliers – is it just one
company, a few big subcontractors or a whole network?
Brian: As Rob has already mentioned, in order to cover all the states we have to deal with different subcontractors. Having our
own field workforce support such a large area would be costly and very challenging in terms of time management. With the way
our business works, it is almost impossible to work with just one partner, so we deal with many companies and each one views
customer experience differently. We have our own team of “fire fighters” to deal with complex or emergency situations; the rest of
our field service is outsourced to other companies.
Robert: These subcontractors vary – we deal with large fulfillment partners who cover multiple states and have their own well-
organized structures. We also deal with a network of smaller partners self-employed technicians, who cover smaller areas. A third
party may have different priorities than we do and we also have limited influence over individuals who are not our employees.
COMARCH: By definition, outsourcing should be based on strictly defined KPIs, which must be met by the
contractor. It is aimed to make any process simpler - instead of having to manage your own workforce,
you pay and demand — isn’t it like that?
Brian: Outsourcing means that the work is provided on customer location by a third party. This does not change the fact that it
is still our customer, and ViaSat is the supplier of the final product. Of course, we have strictly defined KPIs in place, and it helps
to motivate subcontractors to care about our customer experience. The most important factor is that the settlements between
every contractor and our company are precisely defined. It would be too risky to just leave everything in the hands of a third party.
We have an advanced product that works really well, but today a good product is not enough for a telecom company to compete
on the market. You have to win customers with excellent service. This is why we decided to support the delivery of ViaSat services
with our own tools. From the time of the sale to a new customer, installation of services and customer support post installation,
these processes are all supported by Comarch Field Service Management (FSM).

4. Technicians access the system through their smartphones or tablets, using a special application managed by our company, which
enables them to finish work, provide our product on the customer’s site and close the order. Such a toolset helps us automate
certain processes, such as provisioning, remote diagnosis, etc. Having our field staff equipped with access to the FSM system
provides them with the possibility to interact with our other IT systems and activate or change the product on location, without
extensive efforts. In fact, considering a 6-hour difference between time zones and thousands of miles between the customer
location and our headquarters, it wouldn’t even be possible.
COMARCH: So how exactly should you divide responsibilities between a field service subcontractor and a provider
of a final product / service? Which parts of the process did you outsource and which ones stayed in-
house at ViaSat?
Robert: From the technology perspective, the end-to-end process is still managed by ViaSat. The FSM tool supports this
process at every step. When we look at the people involved in the process, the process is divided between us and third parties.
Here’s what the process looks like. Orders get createdby external sales teams, the system assigns these orders to outsourced
field workforce, usually automatically), then dispatchers (who in most cases work on a subcontractor’s side) monitor these
assignments. Field technicians get their tasks through mobile devices and once they execute these tasks, the system automatically
closes them. All of these people involved are employees of our suppliers, so in this respect the process is totally outsourced.
ViaSat’s involvement is only required when there is a problem or in the case of smaller / local tasks that are covered by our own
technicians.
Brian: That’s true, but on the other hand we have full insight into the process, we can monitor it at every step and react when
anything goes wrong. This way we can, for example, provide special support for a new inexperienced technician. So in fact no
part of the process is “fully outsourced” to a third party. From our viewpoint, this is the best approach. We rely on automation
tools, we track the whole process, we know exactly who will execute the task but we do not have to interfere with how the
workforce is organized on the subcontractor’s side. Subcontractors define the availability of their resources themselves, based on
workforce capacity, skills and areas covered. We based the performance of these outsourced fulfillment and assurance processes
on strict KPIs that are important for our business. We outsource processes and workforce activities, but do not outsource the
responsibility and control over these processes.

5. COMARCH: You mentioned that automating the process is
important. From the technology perspective,
what technological improvements do you see as
mandatory to make field service optimal from
both your company’s perspective and that of
your customers?
Brian: Automating the process is crucial, I’m quite sure about that.
Once the order is created, the scheduling that follows must be
automated.
I think it is necessary that all parties involved in the process can
at all times access their work orders and calendars. Centralized
management of field service delivery requires tools that can collect
certain events and allow us to react accordingly. I am talking about
potential events during the process that may affect our KPIs. A
customer escalation is a good example. Once customer service
registers an escalation, the information gets propagated via the
FSM system to a responsible party, who should react. At this stage
we do not participate in the process. However, if the escalation is
not resolved immediately, then we must get involved.
Mobility is another important factor that supports automation — once tasks are assigned, they can immediately be allocated
to a responsible technician (without a need for an office visit or time-consuming explanations), together with all data needed to
perform a given field activity.
Rob: From a technology perspective, the IT solution supporting the process must also be well integrated. In the case of field
activity there is no space for swivel chair integration (i.e. copying data from one system and pasting it into another one). The
technician must activate the service on site, be able to check signal quality and send necessary data to the billing system, all with
the use of one single tool. There is no room for mistakes in our business. When a technician drives three hours to install a service
in the mountains, he can’t go back later to fix or finish his work — he must do it on his first visit.
The FSM system that we use also enables us to automatically generate reports related to our specific settlements with
subcontractors and to monitor all KPIs. I think these functions that we named here are the most important in terms of how field
service can contribute to enhancing your customer experience.
COMARCH: Automation, mobile access to necessary data and tools, monitoring the process and the KPIs. Is that all
you need to achieve excellence in customer experience?
Brian: In an ideal world, it may be. But in reality we must constantly monitor the quality of the delivered service, looking not
only at the technical perspective, but also at the customer’s perception of the provided service quality. We perform audits for
selected work orders and check various measures related to technical and non-technical aspects of the service. Well-documented
work orders (complete with measures and pictures) help us to
go through the first quality check, which is done remotely. But in
order to truly improve the quality of service, field audits are crucial
and we cannot resign from them.
COMARCH: Do you face the same challenges with quality
audits performed in the field, as you mentioned
with regards to delivering a service in vast,
rural areas?
Rob: Technology helps resolve many of the issues that we encounter
here. First of all, auditors have on-site access to all data related to
work orders and to qualitymeasurements.That’s crucial, but it is not
everything. It is necessary to determine locations that need to be
checked – those with the highest risk related to service quality.
We found Comarch FSM to be very helpful, also in this space. The
system ranks work orders and indicates those with a really high
BRIAN CROUTHERS
– Director of Field
Operations
ViaSat Communications
– Denver, Colorado
Brian has been with ViaSat for
6 years and has been directly
responsible for the Field
Operations team during this
entire time. Brian is directly
responsible for the field installation teams to include training,
logistics, vendor management, Quality, technician support and
system support.
ROBERT HESS
– Field Operations
Manager of Systems
and Support
ViaSat Communications
– Denver, Colorado
Robert has been with ViaSat for
over 6 years, and was part of
the initial FSM implementation
team. During his time with Vi-
aSat he has been directly in charge of the Installer Relations and
Partner Support teams responsible for field technician and FSM
support. Roberts teams covers a wide variety of functions from
supporting over 6000 technicians and dealers dealers via phone
and email, to managing all of those users and work orders in the
Field Service Management system (FSM).

6. probability of quality issues. I won’t reveal all the aspects of this sophisticated mechanism, let me just say that it calculates both
obvious factors, like the result of the last audit and the trickier aspects, such asmeasuring the preformance of each individual
technician. If the given technician fails an audit of his work, he may expect another one. At the beginning, when we introduced
order ranking, 80% of all audited tasks didn’t pass the audits. Now it is less than 50%.
COMARCH: Was it really so bad? Maybe the survey questions were too detailed or too strict?
Brian: On the contrary, it was so good (laughing). We used the same surveys as before. The audit procedure, excluding the
mobility part, was also performed according to our previous standards. The ranking tool pointed out work orders necessary for
auditing, so our auditors didn’t have to waste their time anymore on auditing services where the quality was high. That was a huge
and positive change.
COMARCH: What about a situation when a customer complains about a technician’s visit? What are the usual
reasons for such complaints and how do you face them?
Rob: Outsourcing field workforce is a game where sometimes not all the parties play fair. Thanks to the fact that the whole
process is documented, we have photographic documentation of all field activities, so we can reasonably face customer
complaints related to private property damage or even theft. Having good, quality data enables us to easily check what had really
happened and professionally resolve the problem. This way we can turn even the most unpleasant circumstances into a situation
that builds a positive customer experience.
COMARCH: As a final question, can you provide some key takeaways for other service providers? A lot of them are
currently considering resigning from outsourcing completely, as the cost proves to be too high and the
quality is below their expectations. You are an example of a company where outsourcing really works.
Do you have some advice for these other companies?
Brian: It depends on the business conditions. For example, as in our case, building your own workforce in all covered regions
may not be reasonable. In this situation, dealing with subcontractors is the only way to do business. At the same time I can’t
imagine that this crucial process would be simply left without our control at every stage. We trust and rely on our partners, but
we can’t risk that any issues on their side would affect our business and our relationship with ViaSat customers. Fortunately,
technology allows us to do it with limited risk.
COMARCH: Brian, Rob thank you for your time and letting us take a little peek behind the scenes of your business,
I am sure this will be a great insight for many other service providers that read our magazine.

7. Why Comarch
“Comarch Field Service Management enabled ViaSat
to automate order and resource management processes,
which has enabled us to provide an excellent customer experience
in fulfilling customer orders.”
__________________
Brian Crouthers, Director of Field Operations, ViaSat Inc.
telecom.comarch.com
More information: telecom.comarch.com
Comarch Headquarters
Al. Jana Pawla II 39 a
31-864 Krakow
Poland
phone: +48 12 646 1000
fax: +48 12 646 1100
e-mail: info@comarch.com
About Comarch
Comarch is a global supplier of IT products and services for the telecommunications industry and has been present
on the market since 1993. Comarch provides solutions in the areas of BSS/OSS, M2M and Cloud Service platforms,
as well as a range of Managed Services. Comarch’s uniqueness lies not only in the compliance of its products with
industry standards, but also in the flexibility and high competences of its engineers. Having completed projects for
over 50 telecom operators, Comarch has accumulated vast experience in the fields of designing, implementing,
and integrating IT solutions. Current customers include Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, E-Plus, MTS or KPN.