Zinc and Field Technologies Online recently announced findings from a new report “Effective Enterprise Communication: The Foundation Of Strategic Field Service” and some of the key findings include:

• 23% of respondents are using consumer messaging apps - i.e. text, WhatsApp, GroupMe, etc. - which pose risks with security and administration.
• 90% of survey respondents indicated that real-time communication is either mission-critical (50%) or very important (40%) to their field workers being able to do their jobs effectively.
• 70% of field service organizations surveyed say their visibility into field operations could use improvement.
• More than half of survey respondents (53%) reported that their field workers are only somewhat engaged or even somewhat disengaged.
• Further, 50% of respondents said that they need to improve upon their methods of enabling field workers to provide feedback to management.

The report examined how effective enterprise communication enables field service organizations to be more intentional and strategic in their service delivery.

Field service, and deskless workers, comprise anywhere from 72-80% of the global workforce, or about 3 billion people. These workers include field service technicians, hotel staff, utility workers, flight crews, warehouse staff, manufacturing plant engineers, etc.

As these workers are always on the go and not sitting at a desk, the tools and technologies they use to communicate in real time on the job are explored in greater detail in the report.

The findings from the report reinforce what we already know. Real-time communication drives measurable results for field teams, yet deskless workers aren’t armed with easy to use technology built with their unique needs in mind.

Innovative field service organizations who embrace a communication platform built for deskless worker will improve the productivity of their workforce by giving them real-time access to the information and resources they need to get their jobs done.

Zinc CEO Stacey Epstein talks about the new report and the role Zinc plays in the deskless worker industry.