Field Service & Aftersales Insights

Perspectives on Service Growth, AI in Aftersales, Operation and Technology

This page brings together perspectives on field service, aftersales operations, and emerging technology in manufacturing and automotive service, grounded in real implementation experience.

The articles here explore what is changing, what is working, and where execution often breaks down. Topics range from KPIs and AI adoption to dealer operations, warranty management, and the day-to-day decisions that determine whether a transformation program succeeds or stalls.

Pick a topic below to explore further or browse the latest insights.

Explore Field Service Topics

Service Revenue & Business Growth

Field Service Transformation

AI & Emerging Technology

KPI & Performance

Tools & Case Study

Latest Insights

hart showing service efficiency rising while service revenue flattens over time, illustrating the service margin paradox

Service Revenue & Business Growth

Your Service KPIs Are Improving. Your Revenue Isn’t. Here’s Why.

Improving FTFR and MTTR often coincides with flat or declining service revenue is not a KPI problem. This article breaks down why efficiency erodes revenue differently across strategic, hybrid, and break-fix accounts, offers a four-point diagnostic, and explains why the real fix is repricing the contract, not reversing the efficiency.

Two hands reaching toward each other with a gap between them, representing the disconnected handoff between project and service teams in manufacturing

Field Service Strategy & Transformation

The Project-to-Service Handoff Gap That’s Quietly Draining OEM Margins

In project-based manufacturing, service inherits assets without their history such as warranty terms, commissioning data, configuration, because no one owns both sides of the handoff. Mature organizations send technicians to physically audit sites, but that only answers “what’s here,” triggering a tedious admin scramble to piece the rest together. The real fix uses the ERP…

AI in aftersales maturity framework — automation, agents, autonomous, shown as an ascending progression

AI & Emerging Tech

AI in Aftersales: A Maturity Framework for Practitioners

Most aftersales AI investments fail from bad sequencing, not bad technology. This guide maps the real maturity path from automation, agentic AI, to autonomous operations, showing where organizations actually stand today, what to invest in next, and why warranty claim adjudication is the clearest proof point for the whole framework.

Technician verifying service entitlement and warranty coverage for an industrial asset using a rugged tablet displaying contract, SLA, and parts coverage information.

Field Service Strategy & Transformation

Entitlement Management: The Moment the Contract Meets Reality

Manufacturers have gotten sophisticated at selling service contracts, yet when a customer calls, dispatchers still juggle six systems to answer one question: is this covered? The contract exists. The entitlement decision is still manual. Here’s why that gap persists, what it costs, and how to actually fix it.

Parts Fill Rate (PFR) KPI icon representing parts availability and inventory readiness in manufacturing and automotive after-sales service

KPI & Performance

KPI of the Month #6: Parts Fill Rate – The Hidden Driver of Service Performance

Parts Fill Rate measures the percentage of parts requests fulfilled immediately from available inventory. For manufacturing and automotive service leaders, it is a critical KPI influencing First Time Fix Rate, Mean Time to Repair, customer satisfaction, and ultimately service profitability and operational resilience.

Industrial machine displaying a high NPS score while showing multiple unresolved service issues, illustrating Goodhart's Law and the dangers of optimizing customer satisfaction metrics over service quality.

KPI & Performance

The NPS Trap: When Measuring Satisfaction Hurts Service

NPS was built to predict aggregate customer behavior, not to drive individual scorecards. When teams hound customers for higher scores, the number stops measuring satisfaction and starts measuring appeasement. This piece breaks down why the scale fails at the individual level, and what service teams can track instead.

Iceberg illustration showing the gap between a field service management software demo and the hidden operational complexity of real-world service processes including asset hierarchies, warranty rules, parts logistics, and system integrations.

Field Service Strategy & Transformation

Why Great FSM Demos Create Bad Decisions

FSM platforms get bought on what they promise in a demo, not on whether they fit your actual process complexity. This article traces a real implementation where that gap surfaced mid-project and lays out a pre/during/post framework for catching it before it costs you months and a vendor rebuild.

Four-horizon framework for OEM service delivery redesign amid technician shortage

Field Service Strategy & Transformation

The Technician Shortage Won’t Be Solved by Hiring. Here’s What OEMs Need to Rethink Instead

When a service leader spots a technician gap on the roster, the response is almost reflexive: open a requisition, raise the offer, wait. It feels like action. But in 2026, it is closer to wishful thinking. According to a 2026 manufacturing outlook study, 79% of manufacturing executives now identify skilled labor shortage as their single…

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next »