Aberdeen Releases Major Study on Field Service Trends

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - February 9, 2011) -  The Service Management team at Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), recently published its 2011 report on Field Service 2011: Key Trends in Workforce Management. The report represents data captured from over 350 field service companies and highlights the key strategies that leading organizations are taking to ensure that their field service teams are equipped with the necessary knowledge, information and tools to deliver, meet and beat customer expectations. The report finds that top performing organizations are able to:

• Retain 93% of their customers compared to a 77% retention rate for all others
• Exhibit a 74% level of workforce utilization in contrast to 60% for all others
• Achieve an 11% increase in service revenues over the last 12 months as compared to a 6% increase for all others

"While scheduling continues to form the core of effective field service workforce management, service leaders of top performing companies are taking a greater stake in supplementing their day-to-day execution capabilities with improved workforce planning," said Sumair Dutta, Senior Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group. "More so, we are also beginning to see increasing concern from the leading service firms in monitoring and improving field employee engagement in order to drive improved service performance results."

Leading organizations represented in the Field Service 2011 study indicate a great interest in mobile solutions to ensure that their field workers have real-time access to necessary work information, thereby driving productivity and eliminating wastage. To support mobile deployments, leading organizations are 56% more likely to be leveraging field service management applications and are ensuring that their field workers are receiving constant schedule updates through the use of dynamic scheduling solutions.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Astea International, ClickSoftware, Metrix, Single Source Systems Inc., ServiceMax and ServicePower. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410182&cid=6837&camp=2, or compare your organization against the top performers with Aberdeen's free online assessment tool at http://assessment.aberdeen.com/x0ENk8l0mA/index.aspx.

Visit Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary Service Management Research.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

(C) 2011 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com