Most of us are aware that many IT projects fail not because of the underlying technology but due to the lack of user acceptance. However this is often one of the last things to be taken into account in enterprise mobile rollouts - as Julie Purves, Managing Director of B2M Solutions explains.
Even if the desire is there, it can be difficult to understand what issues your users are experiencing. This is especially true when you are deploying to large numbers of mobile workers, where the level of interaction with them is very limited.
As mobile projects now extend from hundreds to many thousands of people, it’s critical to address these user concerns. And whilst the task may seem daunting, the potential benefits delivered from a properly managed mobile enterprise are immense.
Understand your users
When considering field service workers, it’s essential to recognise and respond to their specific needs. Their mindset is likely to be totally focused on a specialised role - such as ensuring the timely delivery of a parcel or providing a professional service to their customer. These people rarely encourage changes to the way they work and they often have little time for or no understanding of complex handheld computers.
To ensure acceptance, those in field service need to have total confidence in their mobile device and regard it as just a “black box” – as they would any other tool they use. This means that they need to be confident that it will do the job i.e. provide them with the information they need and deliver accurate reports back to their organisation consistently, without the fear of data loss or corruption.
Improving support
We are now at a point where an IT team can manage huge numbers of mobile devices from a central point, and it’s this central management function that is the key to a successful large-scale mobile operation.
With this high level of remote support, the field service user is assured that their device will be kept up-to-date automatically and that they needn’t worry about “tecchie issues” such as “system crashes” or batteries failing. If a problem does occur, they can contact their help desk and have the device up and running in the fastest possible time with little or no downtime.
From this overview position, usability problems can also be detected and managed automatically. With full diagnostics and detailed information on how someone is using a mobile application, issues can be identified easily and then fixed – with, for example, suitable training, or input into future application enhancements if appropriate. This automatic feedback from the device ensures the operations managers can see immediately if a user is having difficulties. Without this assistance such problems would go unnoticed.
Don’t hide from the issues
Unfortunately, you cannot afford to work on the basis that “no news is good news”. There is a mass of evidence which shows that around 9 out of 10 dissatisfied users will not complain. At best the user becomes disenchanted. If things get bad enough, and they have the choice, they will simply refuse to use the system. From this position, it is extremely difficult to win them round to the benefits of using the mobile solution regardless of how great the business advantages.
So it is essential to take particular care of your users when introducing new mobile technology. And wherever possible, make sure your central operations team has full visibility of how these devices are being used so that they can get on top of problems quickly.