How To Deal With Revenue Losses Due To Moonlighting In The Service Industry?

By Author: Rakesh Kumar
Total Articles: 33
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Apart from multiple pilferages in after-sales service operations, one common yet unattended problem is of Moonlighting. Although moonlighting is not considered to be ethical in the industry, yet it is a prevalent practice among service engineers. While Moonlighters discreetly indulge in a second job, after and sometimes even during their working hours, the companies that hire them have to suffer a substantial burn on their bottom-line.
Many companies, despite knowing about the pilferage and loss due to such moonlighting, struggle to prevent such practices. In this post, we would highlight the scenarios during which Moonlighting in service industry could be active and ways to deal with this malpractice:
Widespread in On-Site/ Field Service Industry- Moonlighting has become a way of life especially in Onsite/Field service industry. This is typically because in a Walk-In service scenario, technicians/engineers cannot go out of their ambit to tell the customer to deal offline. Since they cannot, literally, move out of their office premises, chances of Moonlighting decreases. While in a field service job, the technicians ...
... have great liberty to present a particular call as broken and deal to it personally.
To back this by an instance, a service engineer coming to repair your air-conditioner or washing machine on behalf of the company may just identify the problem and mark it as broken call; while he may ingeniously carry forward the same call after work hours, or ask the customer to get it fixed at a much discounted price that company offers without creating a work-order. More yet, if the companies do not have an established system in place that manages the spare part inventory; the Moonlighters can even use companies’ spares unethically and cause substantial loss.
Moonlighters often work from their home, or from customer’s home- no overheads and no taxes involved. On the flip side, the company pays them salaries, incur their expenses and in return it realizes that the moonlighters have eaten their maximum profit share! So here are few steps on how to deal with them:
Eradicate the root-cause behind Moonlighting- Many moonlighters in The 1995 Survey of Work Arrangements admit that they don’t do it because they want to steal work, but because they don’t get enough pay. Service engineers are the face of the after-sales business and hence you may devise salary plans that are commensurate to employees’ skills and work experience. Occasionally, you may also distribute some bonus plans for employees. When they would be paid satisfactorily at work, chances of moonlighting may decrease.
Random Customer feedback- Customers may not always come to know that the technician who visited them, wearing company’s ID badge in his pocket has actually moonlighted. Companies can get it checked by circulating questionnaires to customers and ensure whether the job was done satisfactorily; any spare part was replaced or not; and if they signed the workorder. Carrying this idea forward, companies may even register pseudo calls and check whether their technicians indulge in moonlighting or not.
Standardized system for monitoring real-time activity- Implementing a service management system that captures real-time activity of on-field service technicians can be a sensible solution to the gripping problem of moonlighting. The technicians will be asked to record their daily movement in the field and their repair/service time be captured in the system, and failing to do so may call for a strict action. It can provide a one-stop window to the top management to track and control SLA and other related factors. With Repair Management Systems like this, you may never have to lose sight of repair TAT, returned-to-bench (RTB) products, and product replacements done, warehouse stock and service technician’s efficiency.
Are moonlighters stealing a portion of your after-sales service revenue? Are they committing to infidelity by cheating you and eating up your profitability? Get rid of this nagging problem with the help of possible solutions mentioned above. While many companies from Home Appliances, Electric & Electronic Appliances, and similar industries have leveraged the benefits of end to end service management systems to eradicate the pilferage and moonlighting practices, it may now be your turn to reduce the revenue-loss and embrace a streamlined approach to after-sales service operations.

Rakesh Kumar is an after-sales service process optimization expert and associated with Zed-Axis Technologies Pvt. Ltd & Zed-Service™ - A 360 Degree Field Service Management Software, Claim Management Software - one of the flagship products of Zed-Axis Technologies Pvt. Ltd. For any queries/feedback please write to rakesh.kumar@zed-axis.in or visit www.zed-service.in or call +91-11-4564-1145