Things seem to be slowly loosening up.  How is your service and support team gearing for how to best support your customers moving forward?  Would you like to know what your peers are thinking? Dave Bennet, VP RevTwo and his colleagues are hosting a survey to assess how we are approaching building the new normal. Here he outlines their thinking... 

Take part in the survey now by clicking the following link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/fieldserviceprioritiespostCOVID19 

Building the New Normal of Field Service

As we talk to service organizations, different technologies are getting a closer look now more than ever. We can group their post-COVID technology thinking into these areas:

1. Do more Remotely. There are a bunch of tools out there that enable an expert to talk to and see what someone in front of a machine is doing. They can use their own expertise to tell the user what to do. Some are just using the equivalent of Apple’s FaceTime.
2. Artificial Intelligence. Using AI to help call center agents, field service engineers and even end users to help solve problems, with the goal of reducing site visits and improving repair efficiency.  Some AI solutions focus on call center, some focus on the end user.  Some are web based, some aren’t.  Some can be used offline. Some use bot technology. 
3. Augmented Reality/Merged Reality. There are tools that enable an expert far away to actually draw or input on a screen with a person in front of a machine so they can not only tell the user what to do but show them how to do it.  
4. Building up Organizational knowledge. Companies that don’t didn’t have troubleshooting guides for their equipment are now building them. Some are beefing up their knowledge bases so that they have articles that provide more reach and cover more problems.  Some companies are actually building their own “learning tools”.
5. There is even more of an emphasis on implementing more training and apprenticeship programs. The Silver Tsunami was seen as a challenge before COVID.  Now the pandemic has brought this problem to the forefront.  How to leverage expertise, from supporting customers to training customers and technicians, will be an important component of any strategy moving forward.

As a technology partner for service organizations, we have also noticed that buyer behavior is a little more uneven than before.  Some organizations have decided to “pull in their horns” and wait for things to settle down.  These organizations are generally waiting to see what the others do.  The “Early Adaptors” are rapidly investing in these technologies because they have always been the first to buy.

The founders of RevTwo have more than 80 years’ collective experience working with service and support organizations such as yours.  We certainly have our own opinions on what you should be doing to adapt to the post-COVID world. 

But we (and everyone else) want to know what you think.  So we put together a simple 10 question survey to try and find out.  It timed out at about 2.5 minutes to complete.  Please take the time to do so, and we will publish the results in our next post.  Your organization as well as your customers can benefit by understanding how the rest of us are planning to deal with this new reality.

Take part in the survey now by clicking the following link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/fieldserviceprioritiespostCOVID19 

Further Reading: 

• Read the exclusive fieldservicenews.com eBook Ten Thoughts for Service Leaders Planning Recovery @ www.fieldservicenews.com/White-Papers/10-thoughts-for-recovery.pdf
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Read more about remote assistance in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/remote+assistance
• Visit the RevTwo website @ revtwo.com
• Read more about Artificial Intelligence in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/artificial+intelligence

AI firm join list of firms offering free usage of tools during pandemic.

RevTwo have made their AI-powered tool Navigator free of charge for the remainder of 2020 to support field service firms during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Avoid call-outs

The Navigator tool uses AI, which the firms says, enables technicians, call center agents and machine operators to resolve service issues faster. It comes at a time when large-scale social distancing and self-isolation means engineers are having to find different ways to complete tasks while avoiding call-outs.

"We believe that empowering end-users to resolve issues can help service and support teams in many important ways," a statement from the company explained. "Especially in these uncertain times, helping service techs avoid making some site visits is even more important."

The outfit have joined an array of companies offering their resources to the service sector during the pandemic including ServiceMax, Augmentir and Safeture.

"COVID-19 will be beaten with the cooperation of millions of hands doing their part," Dale Calder, RevTwo's CEO and Founder urged. "In that spirit, we have decided to make RevTwo Navigator free for customer self-service for the rest of 2020."

Navigator is available today on the Apple Store. You can download it here. Android support will be available March 30.