Managing Uncertainty, the No. 1 Field Service Management Challenge During COVID

29/07/2026
15:10

reading time : 2 min

Lucie Monnot

Content Marketing Manager

The health situation has brought the organizational challenges of field operations to a peak. In a persistently uncertain environment, the ability to prioritize and reconcile constraints, including staffing, deadlines, and service-level agreements, is more vital than ever to protect business activity.

At the beginning of this year, while everyone was hoping to see the epidemic subside, the fifth wave and a particularly contagious variant of the virus once again placed society under pressure. Although the current health measures are not as radical as those introduced during the “major lockdown” two years ago, they are confronting all companies whose teams work in the field with the greatest challenge for planners: uncertainty, a lasting uncertainty that makes it impossible to forecast and therefore to plan.

Uncertainty changes the situation

There is always an element of uncertainty in the work of planning teams, but it is generally quantifiable and can therefore be taken into account and handled as one constraint among others. Typically, analyzing activity statistics makes it possible to determine the average number of customers who cancel their appointments at the last minute each week, the number of field operatives who find no one at home despite prior confirmations, or the percentage of sick leave during a given period of the year.

In all Field Service Management activities, these data points are part of the known variables. They may occasionally disrupt operations, require adjustments, and demand responsiveness, but they do not fundamentally challenge all planned activity and the overall organization of operations.

The uncertainty associated with the current management of the COVID crisis is different in nature and scale. It concerns the complete unpredictability of the number of employees available to carry out operations.

How can you establish reliable schedules and routes when, from one day to the next, 5%, 10%, or 25% of your technicians may be required to self-isolate for 7 days or more because they are close contacts, have tested positive for COVID-19, are ill, are asymptomatic, or are parents of children who have tested positive and suddenly need childcare?
How can you respond to urgent requests when teams are already understaffed for their regular routes?
How can you offer new customers acceptable delivery, installation, or service lead times without dramatically increasing overtime for available employees and, incidentally, the number of kilometers they travel?
How can you smooth the workload and catch up on delays when it is impossible to know how the health protocol may evolve and, consequently, how many employees will be able to work tomorrow, next week, or next month?

Of course, it is always possible to multiply scenarios on paper. But what is the point of scenarios to which it is impossible to assign a probability of occurrence because of the largely unpredictable evolution of the pandemic and the health measures introduced by the government?

Putting priorities into perspective

In this tense context, companies often have no choice but to manage operations from day to day, according to the staff actually available to carry them out. Although this criterion takes precedence over all others in practice, it does not eliminate the other constraints and forces companies to make trade-offs that must be based on informed decisions.

The criteria used for these trade-offs, and the weighting assigned to them, obviously depend on the business sector and, first and foremost, on whether or not the services are critical.

It goes without saying that if your business involves delivering parcels for an online clothing retailer, you have much more room for maneuver than if you deliver, install, and ensure the proper operation of respiratory assistance devices in people’s homes.

In the first case, delivery delays due to an insufficient number of operational drivers are unfortunate, of course. But however demanding or even uncompromising your customers may be, no human life is at stake.
In the second case, you simply cannot postpone any operation. No installation to which your company has committed can be delayed, and no inspection visit, let alone an adjustment or equipment replacement, can be canceled, at least not without putting patients’ health at risk and exposing your company to liability.

How can pressure be reduced?

In this second type of activity, the only way to overcome these difficulties is to minimize the number of essential on-site operations by strengthening your diagnostic and remote troubleshooting capabilities. Technicians who are currently self-isolating can still perform these tasks and, whenever possible, guide the patient or a relative step by step in adjusting the device, using video conferencing for greater safety. The unavoidable on-site operations can then be assigned to technicians who have the required skills and can travel to customers without violating health regulations.

The smaller the available workforce, the more important it is to take geographical criteria into account when assigning missions and determining their execution order. The fewer kilometers your technicians travel, the more operations they can complete during the day. This is the priority at the moment, and it is precisely what our route management and optimization software makes possible.

Similarly, as circumstances may require technicians to visit customers they do not know, it is essential to provide field operatives with all the information they need to reach each service site quickly, including the exact address, floor, access code, telephone number to contact the customer, and so on. This is obviously much easier to implement when this information is already centralized and can be associated with the route sheets sent to them.

Whether or not your field activities are critical, meaning that they involve health, life, or safety, the current situation requires you to strengthen communication with your customers. In both B2C and B2B, delivery delays and postponements of non-urgent operations are much more acceptable to customers if you take the initiative and keep them regularly informed by email or SMS. A lack of information and transparency only leads to a surge in customer service calls and increased dissatisfaction.

What are the longer-term consequences?

No one is now willing to predict how the epidemic will evolve or what the consequences of this seemingly endless crisis will be for companies in the medium or long term. What we are observing in Field Service Management is that companies that invested in advanced planning and route management tools before COVID or at the beginning of the crisis are coping better today than others.

Why? Because they are more responsive and able to quickly adjust their operations to their actual service capacity at any given time. They also have better control over operation durations and can therefore create “exceptional” routes that remain realistic because they take execution constraints into account.

Finally, companies whose activities allow it have also developed their remote diagnostic and intervention capabilities, starting with the first lockdown, as we explained in this article. In doing so, they have gained a head start and are now better equipped to ensure business continuity despite challenging conditions. This is a competitive advantage they will be able to capitalize on, whether the crisis continues or finally comes to an end.

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Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ – The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Nomadia

Why Choose Nomadia?

As France’s leading publisher of Smart Mobility SaaS solutions, Nomadia supports more than 175,000 field professionals every day. Our solutions are easy to use, quick to deploy, and deliver significant and immediate return on investment.

Drawing on the expertise of both a software publisher-integrator and a consulting firm, Nomadia’s teams provide tailored support, from data consulting to the deployment of mobile devices. Finally, our technical support team is available 24/7 to assist you.

Who Are Nomadia Solutions Designed For?

Nomadia solutions support the digital transformation of all mobile professionals: field sales representatives, delivery drivers, technicians, auditors, healthcare workers, inspectors, service providers, security patrol officers, experts, and more.

Whether for SMEs or large enterprises, our solutions adapt to businesses of all sizes and across all industries.

How Much Does It Cost?

Nomadia Delivery offers transparent and flexible pricing, which primarily depends on the number of users (for example, planners and dispatchers) rather than a fixed cost per parcel.

Thanks to this model, you can control your delivery costs based on the number of resources (users) involved in route management, providing great flexibility to adjust your subscription according to the size of your fleet and your operational needs.

Is It Compatible with My Current ERP System?

Yes! Nomadia Delivery has been designed to integrate quickly and easily into your existing environment thanks to our powerful and secure APIs. Our solution is compatible with most ERP systems on the market. API integration enables the automatic synchronization of your transport orders, customer orders, and customer information, ensuring smooth and error-free delivery tracking. The solution also offers user-friendly import capabilities with data validation controls, as well as export options in multiple customizable formats.

Is It Suitable for Our Delivery Volume?

Yes, Nomadia Delivery is ideal for companies that manage a high volume of deliveries and want to optimize their routes, create balanced territories for their drivers, and ensure precise tracking of every parcel. Nomadia Delivery adapts to fleets of all sizes!

Can Multiple Warehouses or Depots Be Managed?

Yes, our solution allows you to manage multiple warehouses or depots. It centralizes data and optimizes routes or service operations for each of them.

Is There a Limit to the Number of Stops in Route Optimizations?

No, there is no strict limit to the number of stops in route optimizations. Our solution can handle large volumes of stops and quickly calculate optimized routes.

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