Field notes · 2026-05-28
Reading field-service completion rates without fooling yourself
Completion rate looks simple until cancelled jobs, part delays, and reopens sit in the same column.
Field apps often mark a job complete when the technician closes the ticket. That may ignore a reopen the next morning or a part that never arrived. Managers who celebrate a high completion rate sometimes discover the customer still waited.
Separate first-visit close, deferred for parts, and customer cancel. Present them as a small stack, not a single percentage. The story changes when deferred work is visible.
Ask supervisors to flag jobs that bounced twice in seven days. Those pairs rarely show in a headline rate, yet they consume the same crew hours.
In a briefing, spend more time on the deferred pile than on celebrating a round number. The deferred pile is where roster and inventory decisions actually live.