Have Service Engineers become your company’s brand?

Matt Hayes gives his thoughts on the importance of Service Engineers and the influence they have on your brand as a whole.

Maintaining, servicing and repairing machinery and equipment around the country: for many firms, it is their Service Engineers who come into closest contact with clients. This makes them not only a vital asset of your organisation’s service offering, but also a core part of your brand itself – they are your ambassadors.

So, what are the three key points you need to consider to get the most out of your team of engineers?

Your customer

Service Engineers aren’t just your boots on the ground, they’re also the face of your company. Coming into daily contact with your customers, Service Engineers symbolise your organisation — reflecting your values, your service and your competitive advantage.

It is therefore crucial to consider how your engineers come across to clients. While cutting costs is important to businesses, studies have shown that people are willing to pay more if it means they get a better level of customer service. Therefore, while technical ability will always be the most important virtue of your engineering teams, it is important to also invest in softer skills such as customer relations and preparing engineers to deal with tough situations. Things like this make clients stick with you over your competitors.

Your Service

As a company, you are there to provide a service, and what constitutes a ‘good service’ involves many facets — from ensuring parts are dispatched on time to good account management. However, all of this becomes irrelevant if your service engineering team falls short of the passion, empathy and knowledge they need to assure your customer that they are the best person to carry out the job at hand.

Set your Service Engineers clear standards and expectations and give them all the training they need to get the most out of each and every customer visit. Like all relationships your Service Engineers need to develop a sense of connection with the customer. If a customer feels valued, they’re far less likely to change service provider, even if a competitor tries to undercut you.

Your Service Engineers

Just as it is important to set standards and expectations for your engineers, they too need to know what they can expect from your company and the senior management team. It is vitally important that your engineers feel recognised for their work and appreciated for everything they do. Research carried out by job search website, Monster, found that 41% of employers admitted they do not thank staff enough, while 54% of employees say they do not feel appreciated.

Simply put employees who feel underappreciated are going to be demotivated to do their job, so the only way to get your staff to go above and beyond is to be an employer who goes above and beyond too. Invest in your Service Engineers and you are investing in your brand. A Service Engineer who feels, both figuratively and financially, rewarded for their efforts will go on to retain, grow and win business for your company.

Are you looking to fill a Service Engineer role? Get in touch to see if Hunter Selection can help you find the perfect candidate. Click here to contact Matt Hayes