Glossary
First-time fix rate
The first-time fix rate is the percentage of services resolved without having to go back. It is calculated by dividing the orders closed on the first intervention by the total orders in the period, and it is the indicator that best summarises the health of a field operation.
It matters because a second visit costs almost as much as the first one and is not invoiced: you pay the travel, the technician hour and the opportunity cost of the order that went unattended meanwhile. Raising this indicator by ten points is usually worth more than adding a technician to the team.
When it is low, the cause is almost never the technician. It is that they arrived without the spare part, without the equipment history or without the required certification: three things decided when the order is assigned, not when it is executed. That is why the indicator moves by improving planning, not by pushing harder in the field.
It is known in the industry as first-time fix rate and appears abbreviated as FTFR in sector reports. It is worth measuring by service type rather than as an average: an installation and an emergency repair are not comparable, and the average of the two describes neither.
Where GoDoWorks handles this:GDW Services