Are you sending your customers on the best journey possible?
2020 didn’t turn out like it was supposed to. It has impacted service and support as much if not more than most other disciplines. And it will alter the course of these organizations through the foreseeable future as well.
Before Covid, service engineers were leaving their homes Sunday night, visiting customers, putting out fires, then getting home Thursday night or Friday. Now, sending out a service tech is a last resort. Moving into 2021, how are service organizations changing? What are customers demanding?
A newer, better journey
Research has shown that 70%+ of customers will be loyal to you if their experience with your product and support is positive. Before, speed of response was the major factor in that experience. Now, it’s more complicated. You don’t want to send someone, and they don’t want someone coming to them, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Customers are also valuing self-service more. They want to help themselves before calling you. And if they do call you, they want better and faster issue resolution. To meet this new reality, companies are changing processes and investing in technology to improve the customer experience. As far as we can tell, the new journey looks like this:
Customer self service
Most efforts are centered around establishing self-service portals that have FAQ and article sections, how-to videos, etc. Many also have IVR systems where the customer can interact with a computer operated phone system to get answers. Chatbots are often used here.
Call Center
Chatbots, Virtual Personal Assistants, which all use some form of Natural Language Processing, are being implemented more and more. If those don’t work, then a human agent gets on the phone and talks the customer through their issue. Call Center Applications such as CRM, FSM are getting more sophisticated, with parts and skillsets being figured into work orders
Remote Support
Covid took this technology from a commodity to a must-have. If an issue is escalated from call center, now a service engineer can use any one of dozens of technologies to do screen sharing or “facetime-like” applications to see what the customer is doing and guide them through resolution. AR/VR solutions are also being invested in here as well.
Dispatch
The emphasis is on “informed dispatch”. Since sending someone is the last resort, you want your technicians arriving onsite with as much information as possible so they can fix the issue right the first time. This leads to minimizing their visit time, improving most service KPI’s and getting everyone back up and running asap.
The role of AI
According to Microsoft, by 2025, 95% of all customer interactions will be through channels supported by AI. Most of the AI-related technology being deployed today is in the form of chatbots and virtual assistants. These have limitations. Many companies are choosing to invest in data scientists and creating an entire discipline around collecting and mining huge amounts of data so the scientists can identify trends and make predictions. This is time-consuming (as in years) and very expensive.
Here’s how we see that the customer journey can be even better
Customer Self-Service with RevTwo
At RevTwo, we strongly believe that AI can be part of the customers’ journey at every step of the way. Starting with self-service. Our customers want their machine/plant/production line/maintenance operators to have the capability to resolve more problems on their own. When the operator sees something irregular, he goes to his tablet and our Navigator app asks them:
Navigator then provides step by step guidance towards resolving the issue. We have seen significant improvement in issue resolution time when customers or end users can solve some of their issues on their own.
Call Center with RevTwo
If the issue needs to be escalated the user can hand it off to an agent who can see everything they need to know to hit the ground running. The user calls help desk, provides them with a code, and upon entering the code the problem has now been handed over to the agent. The agent can now continue to interact with RevTwo AI to resolve the issue:
Instead of having to ask 20 questions to get up to speed, Navigator also provides the agent with a complete diagnostic history for that issue so they know what’s been done so far:
The call center agent can also access Navigator through their CRM, so they don’t have to toggle back and forth between apps. Navigator can integrate into all major CRM and other back office applications. Here we see how it looks with Microsoft Dynamics 365:
Remote Support with RevTwo
Remote support has been around for decades. The founders of RevTwo revolutionized it 20 years ago when they founded Axeda (now part of PTC Thingworx). The challenge today is that for it to work, you still need an expert on one end of the line. We are currently working with some of the leading companies in AR/VR to integrate Navigator into their workflow. Today, you can visualize a device through AR/VR like you’re seeing it through an X-Ray machine. With Navigator, it’ll tell you what the problem is and how to fix it. For example, you put on Microsoft Hololens, scan the QR in Navigator, and Navigator launches the guide to help you replace the membrane in the example below. You don’t need the expert on the other end of the line to guide you.
Dispatch with RevTwo
If a call center agent has to dispatch a service technician, Navigator will arm them with a diagnostic/troubleshooting history, the parts needed to solve the problem, and skillset determination so that the right technician is sent. And of course the technician will have their own Navigator app to help them resolve that issue and others that they encounter throughout the day. That technician can even collaborate with someone else who’s a Navigator user if they need their expertise on a particular problem. With continued use Navigator improves and can solve more problems everyday
Choose the best journey
Navigator takes know-how from experts – much of which isn’t written down – and makes it available where you need it. For your customers, your call center agents, your service technicians, your machine operators. Imagine your best expert helping all of these people throughout the day, simultaneously, wherever they are. Would that be valuable?
Ask us how our AI can help give your customers the best possible journey with you.