Customer satisfaction, simply put, determines the growth or decline of your business. And the after-sales-service industry is no different.
The deliverance of quality service requires the finest of field service hands and an ideal platform. Traditional methods are, as you may have experienced, a time-consuming, costly, and complicated affair. What the field technicians need today is a simple, fast, and reliable access to the experts and the digital resources to accomplish tasks. This article points out why Augmented Reality field support matters in today’s very competitive service market.
Why the Old is Not Attractive Anymore?
“OEMs may find untapped gold mines in aftermarket services by strengthening their core business in parts, repair and maintenance.” – Says McKinsey & Company
Today’s customers expect quick, reliable services, with a supreme value quotient. The status quo is no longer sufficient; the companies of today must invest in human capital, new technologies, and change their business practices to provide satisfying and effortless experiences to customers and thereby succeed.
The current season is perhaps an indicator of the many challenges being faced by the service industry – which include massive customer complaints, satisfying increasingly demanding customers, mismatching customers and service centre agents, inefficient and manual service workflow, lack of automation, knowledge gap among field teams, the need to maintain numerous records and documents, increased operational costs (blame it on frustratingly slow resolutions), the probability of human error, etc.
Overall, there is a noticeable absence of a well-designed customer service support model embedded with a ticketing structure to raise issues or a self-support system.
The Augmented Reality Difference – A Brief
According to a recent prediction by Goldman Sachs, AR and Virtual Reality (VR) will turn into a USD 80 billion market by 2025.
There is indeed a huge value proposition in integrating AR with Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Machine Learning. The platform makes customer service easier, as manual services like small repairs can be delivered to a customer from a remote location. Likewise, field forces can be astutely guided by experts seated in a remote location.
So, what cuts this platform apart from other communicative support platforms such as oral communication and home-based videoconferencing? Its intuitive ability for gestures such as showing and pointing. Contact centres can have various kinds of communication with agents and customers in a fraction of a time, incredibly reducing the error rates.
Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text
92% of service executives indicated they need to transform their service models to keep up with consumer needs, says a study by Salesforce.com.
How Does it Work?
Remote AR support combines live Augmented Reality video streaming and automation features to simplify the work of your team while changing the face of customer service.
Field technicians and customers can connect and receive guidance with a simple four-step procedure:
Step 1 – Receive support requests using ServeVis or any other channel.
Step 2 – Invite customers or technicians using a web browser or SMS.
Note – Our visual service works seamlessly without the need to download an app. Just send a link over SMS and get started with the visual service experience.
Step 3 – The expert gets to see what the technician/customer sees and guides them using AR tools such as step-by-step visual guidance, photo/video (annotations), sticky notes, and other interactive means
Step 4 – The issue is quickly resolved, with the video being saved for future use.
Note – While working on the maintenance or repair task in the field, the field forces have the option of recording all evidence and the details of work for quality verification, knowledge base, training, creating customer and issue-wise databases, formulating smart recommendations, etc.
Features
Here’s a look at the many facets of this visual and automated platform:
- Knowledge Gap Addressed – Enables customers/field teams to get in touch with an expert seated at a remote location, through live audio/video calls. This removes barriers to communication while addressing any knowledge gaps faced during an issue. As the flow of communication is faster, issues are resolved fast and downtime costs are lowered.
“84% of millennial customers have used a self-service portal for customer service” – Aberdeen Group.
- Work is Complicated? – AR applications could easily and effectively replace huge, complicated operator manuals with simplified customer experiences and hands-free operational capabilities. This results in cost-efficient and speedy work processes, which creates happy customers in the process.
- See it Right Ahead – The platform comes with an algorithm that can predict potential customer issues before they even show up. Moreover, it is effective in gathering connected equipment data for quicker diagnosis.
- Automated Documentation– No more searching age-old documents for details related to a product. AR’s remote support feature helps in the identification of products using images, barcodes, or text in a product, and quickly brings up related product documents, updates, and other product details such as service history and warranty status.
And Now, the Benefits
Here’s a glossary of the many benefits offered by the Augmented Reality remote support platform:
- Reduced Truck Rolls – Technician dispatches, especially to clients located in remote locations, incur travel expenses for fuel, vehicle, maintenance, and other misc. causes (truck rolls in fieldwork terms). AR remote support helps a technician/expert to guide customers on small repairs or maintenance issues through assisted video streaming, thus reducing the cost of truck rolls & equipment downtime.
- Record Every Service Call – An AR support system allows technicians/customers to record every service call. This captures the knowledge and track record of the entirety of completed services while serving as training material to new workforces.
- Troubleshoot Faster and Better – A technician who is dispatched, or a customer looking for self-service guidance, is never alone with AR remote support. Their job gets more and more easier with remote expert support, powered with AR annotations, sticky notes, and other interactive features.
Introducing ServeVis
That’s why we introduced ServeVis. A one-stop solution for field services powered by Augmented Reality & AI. From automating service workflow to remotely resolving issues through Visual Assistance, ServeVis executes field services faster and more effectively. With our visual assistance platform, expert help is always available at the user’s fingertips through mobile and AR glasses, with just an SMS.
Registrations for a free demo are now open. Contact us for more details.
Who Can Use it?
ServeVis is a multi-purpose field service platform that can be used across various industries. A few of such industries that require customer support include:
- Business-to-Business (B2B) equipment & machinery manufacturers
- Consumer equipment manufacturers
- Service companies involved in providing AMCs and other services
- Audit companies dealing with inspection and compliance, home-services, mining fields, construction grounds
- BPO and telecommunications companies, etc
Looking Ahead
The technology industry, of which field service is a subset, is expected to be the biggest stimulant for the growth of Augmented Reality (AR). The timeline for the adoption of the technology may vary across industry, business size, and the type of market, but we would witness a paradigm shift in after-sales service support. Here’s to a future that is more effortless, cost-efficient, productive, scalable, and profitable.