Field service KPIs: the ten numbers worth tracking, with formulas

The field service KPIs worth tracking are the ones that change a decision: first-time fix rate, callback rate, utilisation, jobs per technician per day, average job value, quote win rate, time to invoice, debtor days, revenue per technician and on-time arrival. Measure each the same way every month, set targets from your own baseline, and ignore any number nobody would act on.

Published benchmarks for these vary widely by trade, job length and how each company defines them, so they make poor targets. Your own trend is the honest comparison: is this month better than the average of the last three?

The ten KPIs and how to calculate them

Fix the definitions before you track anything

A KPI is only useful if it is calculated the same way every time. Decide once, write it down and keep it:

• Does a planned second visit (parts ordered, a two-day job) count against first-time fix? Most businesses exclude it; whatever you choose, be consistent.
• How long after a job does a return count as a callback: 7 days, 30 days, 90?
• Are travel hours billable? Only if the customer is charged for them, for example through a call-out fee.
• Is revenue counted when invoiced or when paid?

The four to start with

Ten numbers is too many for a small team to act on at once. Start with the four that most often hide money:

1. Utilisation. If technicians are billable for five hours out of eight, every percentage point you win back is revenue with no extra wages. The utilisation calculator shows what a change is worth.
2. **First-time fix rate.** Every return visit costs a full trip and pushes another job back.
3. Quote win rate. A falling rate points at price, speed or follow-up; see how long a quote should stay valid and how to follow it up.
4. Debtor days. Profit on paper is not cash in the bank. Clear payment terms and prompt invoicing move it fastest.

Setting targets without inventing benchmarks

Take the average of your last three months as the baseline. Set a target that is a realistic step from it, for example two points of utilisation or five fewer debtor days, and review it monthly. Look at the trend per technician as well as for the team: one person with a high callback rate is a coaching conversation, a whole team with one is a process problem.

How often to look at each one

• Weekly: jobs per technician per day, first-time fix and on-time arrival. They move fast and a problem shows up in days.
• Monthly: utilisation, callback rate, quote win rate, average job value, time to invoice and debtor days.
• Quarterly: revenue per technician and your prices, alongside your costs.

Share the weekly numbers with the team. Technicians who can see the first-time fix rate start asking for the parts that would have saved the second trip.

Where the numbers come from

Most of these fall out of records you already keep if each job has a start, a finish, a status history, time entries and an invoice. The difficulty is usually that they live in different places. When jobs, quotes, time and invoices sit in one system, the KPIs are reports rather than a monthly spreadsheet.

Tracking them in Primemgr

Primemgr includes reports for revenue, daily sales, job profitability, utilisation, customer retention and lead conversion, calculated in your business’s own time zone. Time is recorded against jobs with weekly timesheets, and every job keeps its status history, so first-time fix and callbacks can be counted from real records. You can try it free for 14 days on your own jobs: see pricing.