There is always a high need in all industries and across all countries for excellent Field Service Managers. So, what makes an excellent Field Service Manager and what sort of background do they need? This article discusses the key skills needed to be a successful Field Service Manager.

Finding and retaining good Field Service Managers

Ideal Field Service Managers

Ideal Field Service Managers are those with a strong technical background, who is happy to move into managing and to be primarily office based rather than out in the field. Strong communication skills are essential for two main reasons. Firstly, to make sure that every member of the team wherever they are based are listened to and that communication is regular, honest and open. Secondly, for effective working with other departments within the organisation and for creating strong relationships with customers.

A lot of Managers say that being office based after perhaps a whole working life spent in the field, is not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes because of stage of life or family reasons, a role with less travel is attractive, but some engineers find office life like being in a cage.

Ideally, a Field Service Manager will arrive in the new role with some experience of training or team leading.
Finally, and perhaps key, is to keep hands-on technical ability and to remain up to date with industry developments and in field service in general.

What do typical Field Service Managers’ roles involve?

It doesn’t matter the industry or the country, all Field Service Managers say that they have two competing parts of their role.

Daily or Urgent Tasks

Firstly, there will be things which have to be done either daily or urgently:
Dealing with paperwork (often a lot)
Making and taking client calls
Keeping a track of where people are each day
Making sure team are properly briefed before they go out on a call or visit
Being the person who solves everyone’s problems.

Building a Team

Then there are the things which are key to building a strong and effective team:
Getting involved with actual jobs and being hands-on
Building a good relationship with each member of the team individually
Supporting each engineer as they work even when they are at a distance and not easy to contact
Staying ahead on dealing with queries and concerns – putting out fires before they are fires
Appreciating and feeding back positives.

How do Field Service Managers do all this?

The stars say that they keep these tips in mind:

Deal calmly and patiently with the unexpected, even when multi-tasking

Explain and be honest about delays and problems

Treat your team as you would like to be treated – work for them

Involve everyone in decision making and ideas, and always be fair

Make sure you are always thinking about the best for the whole team not just one or two individuals

Lead your team, don’t manage them; show trust by delegating

Build and maintain a positive team environment even when members are not often in the same place

Keep and show a positive attitude

Balance serving both the customers and your own service engineers/other employees

Be clear about what is non negotiable and what you can be flexible with when dealing with your team and with the customer

Have vision and keep an eye on the big picture and keep the team moving forwards.

Always keep learning.

Photo montage shows current and former Field Service Managers who are The Field Engineer community members or have featured in other blog posts.

I hope that whichever team you are part of is having a good week. What was the key quality of the best team leader you have ever worked with?

Further reading

Do you REALLY want to be a manager now?

What is the profile of a great Service Engineer?

A look at how to become a Field Marketing Manager