1 week ago
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Tradespeople and technicians estimate they waste nearly a full day's worth of work every week on paperwork, according to a new Salesforce survey. Data was sourced from a double-anonymous survey of full-time tradespeople and technicians in the US.
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Respondents included professionals in roles such as equipment installation, maintenance and repair, skilled trades, public works, on-site medical care, and building inspection. Technicians estimate they waste more than seven hours per week -- nearly a full work day -- on inefficient, unproductive, or low-value tasks, like inputting manual data or summarizing jobs. Skilled professionals spend as much time on administrative tasks and information gathering as they do on the highly skilled work they are paid to do.
The business impact of tradespeople wasting their time
For a company with 1,000 full-time technicians, the weekly loss is over $260,000 based on the US average hourly wages. The shortages of tradespeople and technicians also mean that service organizations must find opportunities to massively scale operational efficiencies and overall output.
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The key takeaways of the survey were:
- Scheduling is the No. 1 efficiency blocker.
- Administrative work is adding pressure to technicians.
- AI agents can improve technician productivity and safety -- 81% of technicians believe AI agents can help them do their jobs more efficiently.
Scheduling is the No. 1 efficiency blocker
The time to make an appointment on average is 17 minutes; to change the appointment is 14 minutes; and to cancel it is 12 minutes -- this in a world where most digital services can be created and modified at a tap of a screen.
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In some industries, the reported time to create an appointment was as long as 20 minutes (telecommunications) or 14 minutes to cancel (energy and utilities). This makes scheduling conflicts, such as changes and cancellations, the technicians' top efficiency barrier. The added complexity is that nearly half (47%) of service appointments do not go according to schedule.
Thirty-eight percent of technicians said their schedules are often mishandled due to factors such as customer miscommunication, unaccounted parts and inventory, or insufficient appointment length or travel times.
Administrative work keeps technicians from doing their jobs
The vast majority of time spent by technicians is on administrative work rather than on delivering service. Administrative tasks include information gathering -- like job briefs, customer documentation, permit filings, and other related tasks that require 30% of an average technician's working hours -- slightly more than the 28% they spend actually delivering or performing services.
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Time spent on low-value tasks versus on service delivery is even worse in sectors such as energy and utilities, and telecommunications. The impact of these inefficiencies translates to 81% of technicians reporting working overtime on administrative tasks at least monthly, leading 66% to feel burned out as often.
Thirty-seven percent go as far as saying that admin tasks keep them from doing their actual jobs. Sixty-six percent of technicians and tradespeople say they experience burnout at least monthly, with those in sectors such as manufacturing (71%) and the public sector (72%) reporting even higher rates.
Technicians are overwhelmingly optimistic about use of AI agents
The survey found that technicians are overwhelmingly enthusiastic after seeing a definition of AI agents and use cases.
Eighty percent of technicians reported that AI agents would allow them to focus on the more fulfilling aspects of their jobs that led them to their professions in the first place. Technicians estimate that AI agents could take 35% of their administrative tasks off their plate entirely -- a savings of over two hours per employee, per standard 40-hour work week.
Estimates were even higher in consumer business services (39%) -- which includes skilled workers like contractors, plumbers, electricians -- and manufacturing (39%) sectors.
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In addition to agents, respondents are bullish on the impact of hands-free technology -- like voice commands -- that can empower them to ask questions and record information while keeping them focused on the task at hand:
- 94% of respondents believe hands-free technology would improve their efficiency
- 94% of respondents believe hands-free technology would improve their safety
- 93% of respondents believe hands-free technology would improve their quality
The use cases that tradespeople are most interested in with regards to AI agents include: troubleshooting with AI text and image recognition, suggesting products and services relevant to customer needs, smart scheduling, automatically summarizing appointments, predictive service needs, automatically filling out forms, automatically creating work order and job briefings, locating required parts and equipment, and filling schedule gaps.
The world of field service will greatly benefit from wider adoption of agentic AI.
As tradespeople and technicians vastly improve their productivity and work satisfaction, their customers will also greatly benefit from faster, more personalized, and better quality service delivery. It is wasteful to see skilled professionals spend as much time on administrative tasks and information gathering as they do on the highly skilled work they are paid to do.
All waste is costly, but not all costs are wasteful. One of the superpowers of AI agents is to help technicians remove wasteful activities so that they can better service their customers. Humans and AI agents working together to deliver the best possible customer experience -- this is what AI is meant to be.
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