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Expanding the Role of Field Service Engineers

Frontline employees, including the sales force and service force, are crucial interfaces with customers for most business-to-business(B2B) firms. Traditionally, salespeople have been responsible for selling, while service personnel focused on service tasks. However, to maximize revenue potential ,firms are now incorporating active selling into the responsibilities of field service employees, effectively creating a "second salesforce" alongside the existing sales team.

A survey conducted among 115 managers from B2B firms in Germany revealed that 51%of respondents stated their service employees frequently perform sales tasks, and 63% expect more firms to expand service employees' roles to include sales tasks in the future. This expansion leverages service employees' customer knowledge to assess needs and make tailored offers, presenting unique sales opportunities.

Despite the potential, industry evidence of the success of this approach his mixed. While a study by McKinsey & Co. suggests firms can increase revenues by up to 10% through up-and cross-selling by service employees, other sources indicate that many firms struggle to achieve these benefits. Therefore, managers need to understand how to effectively utilize their service employees as a"second sales force."

A key factor in the selling effectiveness of service employees is the service situation in which they interact with customers. Unlike traditional sales situations, the primary reason for interaction in service situations is maintenance or repair tasks, with selling being secondary. This makes selling field service technicians highly contextual. Technicians may be more inclined to make sales offers after completing their primary service job, hoping to boost chances fora successful sale.

The challenge lies in identifying "good" versus "bad" service situations for selling success. Although academic research acknowledges the dual role of service employees, answers to these critical questions are still lacking. No study has yet examined the impact of service situations on employees' ability to engage in successful selling or how they can identify the right moment to make a sales offer.

Service technicians play a crucial role in customer management, especially industrial B2B after-sales services. Their primary tasks include the installation of equipment, routine maintenance, emergency repair, and parts supply, which require a technical background and are performed at the customer site. Besides these tasks, technicians act as the supplier's face to the customer, solve problems, collect valuable customer information, and identify sales opportunities. Their technical skills and direct insights into customers' processes make them ideal for cross-selling equipment and services during on-site visits. The concept of service-sales ambidexterity highlights service employees' ability to engage in both customer service provision and across-/up-selling during service encounters. Prior research has studied the effects of various determinants of ambidextrous behavior on selling activity and success. Assuming that service technicians can naturally function as an effective "second sales force."

May lead to lost opportunities and suboptimal economic outcomes. Sales literature focused on decision-making by dedicated salespeople offers limited guidance for optimizing technicians' selling behavior because it does not distinguish between primary and secondary tasks. Interestingly, literature onservice-sales ambidexterity, which considers dual job responsibilities, also neglects the service situation as a determinant of ambidextrous behavior. Unlike salespeople, service technicians have a choice to make sales offers, influenced by the service situation. Optimized revenues can be predicted byshifting sales offers from poor service situations to better ones and considering technicians 'technical specialization and sales expertise.

While the empirical analysis reveals inefficiencies in using service technicians as a "second sales force," abandoning their selling activities entirely would result in missing out on all cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Shifting these tasks to other employees could lead to issues like lack of customer trust and technical expertise, thereby reducing sales potential further. Instead, firms should optimize the selling activities of service technicians to leverage their revenue potential fully.

To achieve this, firms should:

1. Foster transparency

2. Provide necessary training

3. Track opportunities to address technicians' decision biases with a data-driven approach

Service situations asymmetrically affect technicians' selling activities and customer purchase decisions. Technicians may not be aware of their inefficient behavior, so reflecting on their selling activities is crucial. Companies can complement this reflection with targeted training, using real-world cases to help technicians overcome intuition-based decisions.

To optimize sales over time, companies need to establish a robust tracking system for sales offers and successes to gain nuanced insights and improve selling effectiveness, ideally at the individual technician level. Current tracking methods are often anecdotal or fragmented, making timely insights difficult. Highly automated tracking systems that link sales to service visits are necessary but challenging due to long B2B lead times .Implementing recommendation systems, similar to "next best action "software used in B2C, could be a long-term goal.

Additionally, service technicians need to embrace their dual role in service and sales to create value. Despite high success rates in selling due to established customer relationships, many technicians with high technical specialization and little sales knowledge are reluctant to sell. To address this, firms should implement both monetary and non-monetary incentive systems to integrate selling into technicians' routines.

Managers need to understand what motivates their service force and use technology to address these factors. They can create support systems to highlight successes, foster internal competition, and use congratulatory emails. Experts suggest that technicians take psychological ownership of equipment operability—Managers should segment technicians by their drive and selling skills for personalized incentives. Balancing incentives for service and sales tasks is crucial to prevent neglect of primary service duties and unethical behavior and to ensure that selling enhances technician-customer relationships.

        To enhance the effectiveness of selling by service technicians, B2B firms should focus on actions directed at customers. Specifically, firms can increase customer awareness of the risks associated with machine downtimes and the importance of early prevention. Customers are more inclined to purchase additional equipment when downtime costs are highlighted, especially after unsuccessful service jobs. To evoke similar concerns after successful service interventions, firms should emphasize the consequences of customer inaction ,stress the advantages of proactive measures to prevent downtime, and train technicians to identify and communicate imminent issues. The threat of machine downtimes must not be exploited to sell unnecessary equipment; instead, technicians should use their understanding of customer processes to benefit both parties.

Berkman,Eisenbeiss, Reinartz, Schauerte

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (2024) 52:736–761

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00964-0

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