ISG Research is happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Field Service Customer Engagement: ISG Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by ISG Research.
ISG Research defines Field Service Customer Engagement as tools that facilitate interactions and communication between businesses and customers throughout the field service
Field Service Customer Engagement systems are customer-centric tools that enhance the on-site service experience. These systems prioritize proactive communication, real-time updates and remote troubleshooting and fully integrate with core field service management (FSM) software but are distinct from tools that manage the mobile workforce or parts and assets. They focus on physical, on-site interactions unique to field service environments.
The history of customer engagement within field service management has evolved significantly over the decades, shifting from a predominantly reactive approach to one that is increasingly proactive and customer-centric. In the early stages of FSM, customer interactions were primarily limited to the initial service request and the communication of appointments. Engagement was largely one-dimensional, reliant on phone calls or in-person visits for information exchange, often resulting in delays and a lack of transparency for customers and service providers.
The advent of mobile technology made real-time communication between technicians and customers feasible, leading to the development of sophisticated engagement features like self-service portals, SMS notifications and live tracking of service requests.
Enterprises need systems that facilitate real-time communication between technicians and customers, ensuring that service updates, appointment reminders and troubleshooting assistance are readily accessible. Data analytics capabilities are essential for understanding customer preferences and behaviors, enabling organizations to tailor their engagement strategies and proactively address needs. Ultimately, enterprises seek solutions that streamline operations, help build lasting relationships and maximize loyalty in a competitive market.
When evaluating field service management tools specifically for customer engagement purposes, enterprises should prioritize features that facilitate seamless communication and enhance the customer experience throughout the service lifecycle. First, evaluate the tool's ability to integrate multiple communication channels to provide customers with options to connect with service teams. The platform should offer self-service capabilities, allowing customers to track service requests, access relevant information and provide feedback. Data analytics features are critical to understanding customer preferences and behaviors, enabling organizations to tailor engagement strategies accordingly.
In addition, enterprises should consider ease of use and accessibility for customers and technicians. This will ensure that the software fosters a positive experience, encouraging quick adoption.
Another important function is the ability to gather customer feedback and link it to technician performance, scheduling accuracy and other process inputs that affect the experience. The stakes for field service interactions are much higher than for contact center interactions, so the need to understand customer perceptions is much more acute. Some FSM platforms contain features for surveying customer responses and assessing the results.
When purchasing field service customer engagement systems, enterprises should consider the platform's ability to integrate seamlessly with existing tools and workflows, ensuring a unified approach to customer interactions across multiple channels. Additionally, organizations should evaluate the system's scalability and flexibility to adapt to changing business needs and customer demands, as well as its user-friendliness to encourage quick adoption among staff and customers.
Field service technology is available both as part of broad-based customer experience management tools and as standalone platforms or those built for a particular vertical industry. As a result, the presence or absence of customer engagement tools like those described above can function as a differentiator for software providers in this space. It can also help a business buyer tie the different forms of service relationships together into a holistic approach to the customer experience.
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Field Service: Customer Engagement evaluates software providers and products in key areas, including support for mobile applications, mobile workforce management, scheduling and dispatch optimization, work order and asset management, customer engagement and experience, automation and AI integration, data and analytics, knowledge management, predictive maintenance and proactive service.
This research evaluates the following software providers that offer products that address key elements of field service customer engagement as we define it: Comarch, CSG. FSM Global, IBM, IFS, Infor, Kapture CX, Microsoft, Nomadia, Oracle, OverIT, Praxedo, PTC, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, ServicePower, ServiceTitan, Simpro and Syncron.
This research-based index evaluates the full business and information technology value of field service customer engagement software offerings. We encourage you to learn more about our Buyers Guide and its effectiveness as a provider selection and RFI/RFP tool.
We urge organizations to do a thorough job of evaluating field service customer engagement offerings in this Buyers Guide as both the results of our in-depth analysis of these software providers and as an evaluation methodology. The Buyers Guide can be used to evaluate existing suppliers, plus provides evaluation criteria for new projects. Using it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP and the definition of an RFI.
The Buyers Guide for Field Service Customer Engagement in 2025 finds ServiceNow first on the list, followed by Salesforce and Oracle.
Software providers that rated in the top three of any category ﹘ including the product and customer experience dimensions ﹘ earn the designation of Leader.
The Leaders in Product Experience are:
The Leaders in Customer Experience are:
The Leaders across any of the seven categories are:
The overall performance chart provides a visual representation of how providers rate across product and customer experience. Software providers with products scoring higher in a weighted rating of the five product experience categories place farther to the right. The combination of ratings for the two customer experience categories determines their placement on the vertical axis. As a result, providers that place closer to the upper-right are “exemplary” and rated higher than those closer to the lower-left and identified as providers of “merit.” Software providers that excelled at customer experience over product experience have an “assurance” rating, and those excelling instead in product experience have an “innovative” rating.
Note that close provider scores should not be taken to imply that the packages evaluated are functionally identical or equally well-suited for use by every enterprise or process. Although there is a high degree of commonality in how organizations handle field service customer engagement, there are many idiosyncrasies and differences that can make one provider’s offering a better fit than another.
ISG Research has made every effort to encompass in this Buyers Guide the overall product and customer experience from our field service customer engagement blueprint, which we believe reflects what a well-crafted RFP should contain. Even so, there may be additional areas that affect which software provider and products best fit an enterprise’s particular requirements. Therefore, while this research is complete as it stands, utilizing it in your own organizational context is critical to ensure that products deliver the highest level of support for your projects.
You can find more details on our community as well as on our expertise in the research for this Buyers Guide.