Agilent’s Service Manager Talks Remote Resolution, Customer Satisfaction, and the Metrics that Matter

What does it take to make customer experience a top priority in today’s service industry? We launched the Service Intel Podcast to answer that question. In each episode, service leaders join us to discuss turning status-quo service into exceptional experiences. 

Recently, we were joined by Marco De Sanctis, Service Manager at Agilent Technologies. Marco joined Agilent in 2015 as a Field Service Engineer, eventually becoming a team lead and later a manager. Along the way, he gained a wealth of experience and learned what makes a great service organization. 

While Agilent has multiple divisions, Marco’s team is focused on ensuring service is going smoothly for hospital pathology labs. And as you might expect, working on service delivery in the field of diagnostics has some unique challenges compared to other industries. Here’s a preview of what Marco taught us in this episode: 
 

The Value of Modular Assessments:

Uptime is critical in all industries, especially in a hospital setting. Marco and his team keeps instruments running even if one step is failing — and the positive results of these efforts.
 

Setting Goals for Repair Metrics:

First-time fix rate can be a misleading metric, as it can be hard to tell if a return visit is related to the original problem. Marco sets goals around repair metrics to better understand success in the field and get more clarity on first-time fix rate.
 

Putting Customer Satisfaction First:

Agilent’s service team has a monthly meeting just to understand customer satisfaction, leveraging technology, as well as service engineer training, to put customer happiness first.
 

Avoiding a Silo-Focused Mindset:

Marco discusses the value of looking at Agilent as a global organization when understanding — and improving — the role of service. Providing a great solution to customers globally requires all departments to prioritize the best experience possible.
 

Maintaining Confidence by Anticipating Problems:

Customer perception is difficult to repair once trust has been broken. To ensure Agilent’s customers remain confident in the technology and its reliability, he focuses on anticipating certain problems and understanding how to get ahead of them.
 

The Critical Importance of Making Data Driven Decisions:

Marco stresses the importance of a clear dashboard that allows service leaders and managers to quickly and easily evaluate the direction of service troubleshooting performance — and how a good dashboard can make the difference between success and failure within a service organization.
 

Keeping Your Team Motivated:

Marco takes us behind the scenes of Agilent’s weekly engineering meetings where everyone is invited to share special cases from the week before and get suggestions from colleagues. The outcome: the whole team is more aware of what’s happening in the field and comfortable speaking about technical issues. Engineers may be out in the field alone, but these meetings remind everyone that great service is a group effort.
Listen to the full 30-minute episode to get all of Marco’s advice on everything from remote resolution to the metrics that matter most to preventative maintenance best practices. And subscribe to the Service Intel podcast to make sure you don’t miss future conversations with service industry leaders!