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April 17, 2023 | 4 Mins Read

Whirlpool’s Winning Mindset Around Independent Service Contractors

April 17, 2023 | 4 Mins Read

Whirlpool’s Winning Mindset Around Independent Service Contractors

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

When I talk with organizations about leveraging independent contractors in service operations, the number one concern that surfaces is the lack of control such a model gives that company, with specific fears surfacing related to inefficiency and customer experience. But what if focusing on control is actually a part of the problem? Perhaps if the focus shifted to partnership and empowerment, control would be a non-issue. 

This point surfaced in my recent podcast conversation with Simone Silva, Sr. Director of Consumer Services and Matt Ganus, Director of Home Services, both at Whirlpool. Whirlpool is a well-known brand and has been selling appliances for more than 100 years, but even with that history and brand equity (along with its sub-brands like Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air and Amana), competitive differentiation is still critical in the appliance market. A few years ago, the company began to focus more deliberately on how service can help create that differentiation.

Appliances are some of the few consumer goods that, when they break, require in-home service. That makes the importance of the service experience unique. If your refrigerator is on the fritz, you have a technician in your kitchen while you worry about losing a few hundred dollars’ worth of groceries. Appliances are a long-term investment, and Whirlpool recognizes that service plays a big role in fostering brand loyalty. 

“When you go to market with a portfolio of products that carry that credibility of high quality service, of friendly service that will be available in any place where you need it, at the time that you needed, I think this gives peace of mind to consumers that is definitely part of the consideration set of whether or not they should be making an investment,”  Simone said.

But here’s what surprised me in our initial conversation – despite their focus on increasing brand differentiation through service, Whirlpool opted for an outsourced approach. The company’s field service model relies exclusively on authorized independent service contractors.

What Simone and Matt quickly pointed out is that using independent contractors does not need to mean a hands-off approach. We spent our time discussing exactly how the company has executed a strategy for service differentiation, relying on only independent providers, that’s working well. While I urge you to go and listen to the full conversation, here are some of the key points they shared. 

5 Best Practices for Working Well with Independent Service Providers

First, I will point back to the mindset of partnership rather than control. “Yes, there’s some fear. I think that fear keeps us on our toes and keeps us honest to what we intended to achieve with our model. It's not about taking control over their businesses; it's never been. It's all about the customer experience and together we succeed,” Simone explains.

Second, Whirlpool acknowledges the expertise of each independent provider and focuses on the mutually beneficial opportunity. The contractors in their network get to remain independent, while tapping into a reliable stream of service revenue; Whirlpool can benefit from the trust these service providers have built regionally, without having to maintain a vast network of technicians.

The authorized Whirlpool contractors are successful regional businesses that already know their markets well and often have a positive reputation in the community. Being able to plug into this customer trust rather than needing to re-create it provides Whirlpool a lot of flexibility and scalability. Matt says they really view these contractors as entrepreneurs, and that they are forming a partnership. “I think if we do it right, we've learned that these efficiencies not only help serve our mutual consumers, but they also can deliver higher profit margins to the bottom line. And together it becomes a very viable partnership.”

Third, the company focuses on building trust with each independent service provider. That means honestly and transparently recognizing the successes of the contractors and holding each other accountable when things go wrong. “[W]hen we signed the first exclusivity agreement, there was a lot of fear. That was a new thing. And a lot of companies were like, why would I put all my eggs in the same basket? How can I be dependent?” Simone said. “But I think time has shown them that we were true to that initial value proposition of the elevated experience, the highest quality levels. And by consequence they would grow their operation in a healthy and profitable way. I think the fear being there doesn't bother me. I think it is that constant reminder that we need to deliver on that value proposition and never deviate from it.”

Fourth, Whirlpool invests in the success of their independent providers in a variety of ways. The company relies on careful vetting, provides plentiful training, and has in place regional management to ensure good working relationships with each partner. 

Whirlpool also focuses on accountability. Regional managers work closely with the contractors to ensure consistent service delivery and customer experience and to help them apply best practices. There are training programs not just for technical repairs, but also for soft skills that can help technicians navigate the sometimes-complex emotional landscape of home appliance repair and add that positive personal touch that often sets service apart.  

Finally, Whirlpool takes care to recognize performance of its independent service providers and reward work well done. If issues arise, the company works closely with the contractors to diagnose and fix the problem. “When things don't go right, it's not about pointing the finger, it's about let's go to the data and understand what we can operationally change or adjust to put us back into a winning position,” Matt says.

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April 3, 2023 | 5 Mins Read

Here’s Why It’s Time to Set Your Sights to Total Experience (TX)

April 3, 2023 | 5 Mins Read

Here’s Why It’s Time to Set Your Sights to Total Experience (TX)

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

I’ve spoken with a number of people recently about how I feel like in field service we’re amid a bit of a reckoning at the moment, and here’s why. When service began to be viewed as a potential profit center, companies became hyper-focused on customer experience (CX) and many failed to recognize the correlation between CX and employee experience (EX). 

Layer on continuously increasing customer expectations resulting from our always-on, constantly connected environment; an evolution of what the frontline role consists of; a global pandemic and the resulting extreme talent pressures and now we’re grappling with the reality that seizing the potential of that service profit center simply isn’t possible without ensuring the employees who bear responsibility for that brand experience are not only engaged but fulfilled and empowered. 

As Elizabeth Dixon, former Chic-fil-A executive and author, said in our recent podcast, we must remember that our CX will never be more than the overflow of our EX. “And that's not to say that we don't have to be prescriptive and detailed and super intentional about the design of the customer experience. We do,” she explains. “But if we're only doing that, we'll never get to where we want to be because all of that is the overflow of healthy, happy, contented employees who are in a great working environment.”

So we’ve recognized the importance of CX, which is great. And field service organizations have deployed a range of technologies and strategies aimed at giving customers better visibility, improving response times, shortening technician arrival windows, improving SLA compliance, and generally giving customers more control over their experience – which are also great things. But, with service-centric industries across the globe struggling to fill technician positions thanks to accelerating retirements, the pandemic-initiated Great Resignation, and a general drop in people entering the trades, we have to do more – and a big part of that “more” is equalizing our focus on EX to be on par with our focus on CX. 

But like a sports team that over-invests in offense at the expense of defense one season, and then attempts to overcompensate by doing the opposite the following year, we must remember that the customer and employee experiences are inextricably linked and cannot be tinkered with in isolated silos. They feed into each other. So that, my friends, is why I think it is time to shift our thinking and approach toward the total experience (TX). 

The Big Picture of TX

TX is a more unified view of the business that links the customer and employee experience across channels. It's a circular approach, where improving things for employees leads to better customer satisfaction, which in turn helps you align your team with your business goals. Gartner listed TX as one of the top strategic technology trends of 2022, noting that TX also incorporates user experience (UX) and multi experience (MX), with an eye on improving customer and employee confidence, satisfaction, and loyalty.

This more holistic view can give organizations a better chance to reach their business outcomes. In part, that is because to some degree employees and customers want the same things – more personalized and streamlined digital interactions; faster access to information about the service being performed; a more manageable schedule. Ignoring that fact can really erode your outcomes. Companies that have taken a more ham-fisted approach to customer service often do it on the backs of their technicians – insisting that they meet increasingly stringent CX requirements, but not giving them the tools or flexibility to do it without burning themselves out. 

Streamlining employee workflows and empowering them in the field and within the organization can help companies improve customer satisfaction, which is a theme we have seen pop up multiple times in recent podcast interviews. But being able to do these things well requires strong leadership skills and a genuine appreciation for the connection between EX and CX so that the TX approach is prioritized in earnest. 

In my recent conversation with Venkata Reddy Mukku, Vice President for Worldwide Service and Support at Bruker Nano Surfaces & Metrology, he shares some excellent input on how he and his teams focus on empowerment. “If they have that sense of ownership, they find creative ways of helping customers and also making sure the customer understands what our goals are so that we work towards a win-win situation,” he said. “With trust and ownership, people think out of the box, and they come up with solutions.”

You can also see the thread of importance of leadership pop up in my conversations with Dr. Elizabeth Moran about the neuroscience of helping lead your team through change, and in my interview about independent contractors with technician Tamika Fields. 

Gartner’s research points to a pay-off for coordinating your customer and employee experience efforts, with companies that take a TX approach potentially outperforming competitors by 25% in satisfaction metrics. By 2026, they expect 60% of large enterprises to leverage TX.

The problem right now is that while there are plenty of platforms that can help you measure all of the experiences that make up TX, there isn't a unified platform that can link them all together. Organizations have to do some internal work to get visibility into how the employee and customer experiences affect each other and understand the impact of their efforts.

That work includes mapping out the customer and employee journeys (and seeing where they intersect and defining where you need to make improvements); establishing cross-functional teams to lay out the business case for TX; creating workflows so that customer and employee feedback leads to an actual business response; and figuring out how to integrate and manage data from the multiple systems involved and managing and measuring customer and employee experiences.

I think TX also highlights the importance and increasing need for trust, with your customers and employees. You have to trust that your customers know what they want, even if it does not cleanly align with your own business strategies. You have to trust that your technicians really want to help your customers, and equipped with the right environment and resources, will come up with creative ways to get to those outcomes. When Eduardo Bonefont took his current role at BD, he was faced with a disconnect in the EX – listen here to how he tackled that challenge, using eNPS and other tactics to equalize the focus between CX and EX and realizing the benefits of a more TX-centric approach. 

Has your company tried to bridge your customer and employee experience initiatives? I would love to hear about your thoughts, insights and experiences.

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March 27, 2023 | 6 Mins Read

5 Pillars of People-First Leadership

March 27, 2023 | 6 Mins Read

5 Pillars of People-First Leadership

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Have you listened to last week’s podcast with Venkata Reddy Mukku, Vice President for Worldwide Service and Support at Bruker Nano Surfaces & Metrology? If you haven’t and have the time, I’d suggest you take a listen to his words of wisdom. For those who need the cliffs-notes version, I am aiming to share here some of Venkata’s key points – because the perspective he has is so important to leaders of today’s service organizations. 

We know the landscape of service has changed significantly in the last ten, even five, hell two, years. Yet many leaders cling to methods and tactics of leadership that simply don’t fit today’s needs – focusing on control that squashes creativity, all the while looking around and wondering why other companies are having more success remaining relevant, attracting talent, and innovating. Then there are the leaders who see the industry’s evolution clearly and who are stepping up to the plate by pushing themselves to learn, grown, and change to be effective by today’s standards. Venkata is one of those leaders. 

The foundation of Venkata’s approach is a very simple formula he follows to keep his priorities aligned in the way he feels is most important: 60/30/10 leadership. He focuses 60% of his time and efforts on his internal teams, 30% on customer KPIs, and 10% on commercial metrics. “It's the people that are delivering those numbers,” Venkata explains. “If you don't take care of people, those numbers will not come. When it comes to service revenue and growth generation, if we take care of our teams, if we take care of our customers, the commercial part becomes easier.”

I really appreciate how clear Venkata is in his prioritization of time, and how much conviction he has that if we, as leaders and organizations, do the right things by our people and customers, the numbers will follow. But what does people-first leadership look like in practice? Venkata shared some examples in our conversation, which I’ll break down into five pillars. 

#1: Change How You Hire

Like many service organizations, Bruker used to make its hires based on technical skill. As the role of the frontline worker has changed, and therefore the traits that contribute to success in that role, the company has updated its hiring process to reflect the importance of attitude, soft skills, and cultural fit. 

“We have equal weighting for our technical and non-technical skills. Communication, attitude towards work, teamwork, and the culture they were part of before and what type of culture they would want to be in. We try to make sure that by the time our recruitment team filters the CVs most of them are technically capable,” explains Venkata. “But what we really look forward to seeing in a candidate is how they approach if we use some scenarios. We try and understand their behavior, their thought process, and then how they would fit into our organization.”

#2: Take a Human-Centric View

Another point that came up in conversation is that Venkata is sure to treat employees, “as humans, not resources.” I think this is such an important point and one of the core ways a leader’s view must evolve – yes, numbers on the balance sheet matter and all employees can be viewed in terms of their contributions. But when we view them as people versus resource, perhaps they’ll contribute more?

Beyond making the distinction that employees are human beings versus simply company resources, Bruker encourages behaviors, actions, and decisions that support this belief. “We try and make sure that people put themselves first, and we try and put it in action. Whenever someone is sick, we try to be empathetic. When they come back, they know that my team has been rooting for them, they come back with full energy and do their best,” says Venkata. “It's not always easy; there are challenges here and there. But at a high level, if you really create that environment where people can be themselves, take care of themselves, and then take care of their family, they actually can contribute more to the organization than if you just say, you’ve got to do your work. We don't care what's happening with your life or with your family. That detachment is not going to help in the long run.”

#3: Create a 3C Culture

Company culture plays a big role in the employee experience and, in my conversation with Venkata, there were three characteristics that Bruker is focused on that stood out: fostering creativity, creating connection, and connecting to a purpose. 

Venkata emphasized that it is important to give team members purpose in work beyond simply meeting commercial metrics. “Our technology helps people to find cures for cancers and to come up with the latest and greatest chips for all the cars and phones. We tell our engineers, ‘You are not just coming to just fix something or install something. You are changing how we live for future generations,’” he explains.

Another important aspect of the company culture is giving employees the freedom to be creative – and the awareness that it is OK to make mistakes. Encouraging input from anyone and everyone in the organization is a way for companies to aim toward being more innovative while giving high-drive talent an outlet for their ideas and a sense of contribution. “I always say, the best idea wins. It doesn't matter if it comes from a junior engineer or from a senior director. We want to talk. If you have a better idea, please speak up,” Venkata says.

And finally, creating a close-knit team helps promote commitment to the company’s vision and objectives because employees feel they are in it together. “Meeting everyone under one roof and having a bowling game or doing some activity takes us a long way, really makes them feel connected to different people that they talk or interact remotely all the time. That helps them build bonds and engage better,” says Venkata. “When people don’t have those connections, the attrition is much higher. So, it's very important that we create that bonding, we create that environment for people to meet, share knowledge and help each other.”

#4: Invest in Employee Success

Not only is Venkata investing 60% of his time into focus on his teams, but the company is committed to investing in employee success throughout the journey – and that starts with ensuring the onboarding process is smooth, effective, and impactful. 

“Once we get somebody on board, the next thing is making sure we have a good 30, 60, 90 plan, because that's when we can make sure that the team member gets settled properly. We can't expect them to do very well if we don't give them the right tools at the start, especially in the first 30, 60, 90 days. We try to make sure that those first three months are productive for the team and make sure that they get, not just the technical knowledge, but also culture and the process of organization,” explains Venkata. 

Of course, that doesn’t stop after an employee is onboarded. Bruker continually looks for ways to provide not only training to keep technical skills up to date but also to give soft skills training, remote and online trainings, and to try and get teams together once or twice a year to maintain that sense of connection. 

#5: Focus on Empowerment 

If there’s one lesson I want you to take from what Venkata shared, it is this: you will get far more from putting effort into empowering your employees than you ever could from trying to control them. What Venkata’s efforts really center around is creating employees who are empowered and who feel a sense of ownership in what they do. THIS is how you end up with employees who delight your customers and help spur innovation and growth. 

“If they have that sense of ownership, they find creative ways of helping customers and also making sure the customer understands what our goals are so that we work towards a win-win situation,” Venkata says. “With trust and ownership, people think out of the box, and they come up with solutions. If you have rule book and say, this is it, people will stop thinking, stop coming up with innovative ideas to help customers, to help themselves and the company.”

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Tips for Creating an Outcomes-Based Service Strategy

March 20, 2023 | 4 Mins Read

Tips for Creating an Outcomes-Based Service Strategy

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

The majority of service-centric businesses are somewhere on the continuum today of moving from reactive, transactional service delivery to outcomes-focused service models, and this evolution means putting customer needs front and center. Sounds simple, right? It is – in theory – but it is in reality a very significant shift from the break/fix model to an approach that moves beyond what the customer wants done at a given moment (fix this broken machine) to why the customer needs service in the first place (i.e., to improve uptime, efficiency, productivity, compliance, etc.).

At Schneider Electric, a focus on outcomes is a key aspect of the company’s goal to deliver 80% of services in a digital manner by the end of 2025. In last week’s podcast, I spoke to Ravichandra Kshirsagar, Vice President Digital Buildings Commercial and Services at Schneider Electric, and we talked a lot about the transition to understanding and meeting customer needs on a more holistic level and how the company is helping its customers retrofit and service their buildings to achieve cost reduction and sustainability goals.

When we dig into the layers of complexity that the shift to outcomes surfaces, two of the first hurdles to conquer are to really understand what its customers value and then determine how to categorize those needs. According to Ravichandra, outcomes is, at its core, about customer intimacy. “When you go deep into their organization with their people into their processes, that's where you find gold,” he says. “That's where you conceptualize the next level of service. That's where digital transformation actually happens.”

With a good understanding of what customers value, Schneider Electric then segments customer groups with fairly homogeneous needs across different markets, as well as what he calls global customers, with different needs based on geography. This exercise allows you to begin to define commonalities among what outcomes the customer groups want to achieve (i.e, improved sustainability) and establish baselines so that both the customer and service provider can measure success.

Prioritize Customers Keen to Co-Innovate

Another important point Ravichandra made is that Schneider also classifies customers based on their ability to (and interest in) take risks and innovate with new service delivery models and technologies. Determining those with the most interest helps you to define a top of pyramid to begin co-innovating with.  “Normally if you want to pilot a service and you want to go fast on outcome-based services, you focus on that top of the pyramid. This is where you can pilot, you can co-innovate, you can partner and you can ensure that dollars that you invest will get a return,” Ravichandra explains.

Assessing your customer’s interest in being more leading edge with how service is evolving helps you to focus your efforts on those who can help you shape and refine your outcomes-based offerings. “Not all customers are ready for the service of tomorrow,” Ravichandra adds. And that’s OK – that doesn’t mean those customers won’t also move to an outcomes-based model but having a realistic point of view enables service organizations to focus their efforts on those ready to evolve today while still meeting the needs of customers who prefer to stick with a more traditional approach for now.

While customer listening followed by appropriate segmentation are two of the early steps in creating outcomes-based offerings, you also must ensure you are capable of delivering on your promises. This means harnessing the power of today’s digital solutions. 

Schneider is focused on helping its customers achieve their sustainability and efficiency goals, while providing a comfortable environment to building occupants. Theirs, and any, company's challenge is to marry the technologies it has available to deliver on those needs in the right ways. Schneider has worked to retrofit existing buildings with modern technology to help deliver on outcomes, as well as provide software platforms that allow clients more visibility and flexibility when it comes to managing, monitoring, and servicing those locations.

Much of the evolution in delivering outcomes versus traditional services is adopting an outside-in mentality – creating a customer value proposition with the customers’ end goals in mind, rather than creating service offerings as an afterthought. Ravichandra emphasizes that, to seize the potential of service, it should be a consideration from the initial phase of product design forward. “When you are designing your offers, your products, you design services later, I think that is something we need to change,” he says. “You need to think about lifecycle, and that really changes the game with how we launch those offers, how we bring value to your customers. And the more we do that, the better we get at delivering services that bring value.”

Listen to the podcast to hear more details about how Schneider Electric is achieving service transformation and what Ravichandra considers the key three pillars (and key challenges).  

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AI in Field Service – Practical Today, Promising for Tomorrow

March 13, 2023 | 5 Mins Read

AI in Field Service – Practical Today, Promising for Tomorrow

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is steadily working its way into a lot of different applications and has certainly received a lot of media attention – including some over-hyping of its abilities as well as hand-wringing about unintended consequences.

San Francisco-based OpenAI has garnered a lot of recent coverage thanks to its ChatGPT, an AI-based chatbot with an uncanny ability to create literate responses to a wide variety of questions across areas of expertise. This type of advanced AI can potentially revolutionize some functions (like online help desk functions), or be used for less-than-desirable applications (generating more believable phishing emails or helping kids write term papers), and has even inspired some eccentric experimentation – everything from creating a biblical verse that explains how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR, to an unnerving exchange between a New York Times columnist and the Microsoft Bing chatbot.

In field service, AI holds a lot of promise, but companies are grappling to understand what’s fit for purpose today and what headline-inducing aspects are better left for the future. Today, a properly trained AI algorithm could be useful for troubleshooting, help desk, and predictive capabilities. Longer-term, advanced AI engines could diagnose and potentially even manage equipment repairs.

While we tend to get caught up in the more futuristic, modern interpretations of AI, there’s a good chance it’s already in use in some capacity in your business. Right now, most of the major field service software vendors have already incorporated some level of AI or machine learning (ML) functionality into their solutions, allowing organizations to use AI to improve and automate workflows.

Today’s AI ROI

These integrated, impactful AI capabilities are already helping field service organizations in a number of ways. Here are some examples:

Help desk chatbots. Many companies already leverage chatbots for website interactions that help guide users to the right resources. In field service, an AI algorithm can help guide customers through a lot of level-one help desk support questions to properly escalate their query. For phone-based systems, help desk staff can feed customer information into an AI-based solution that can more accurately help them triage the customer and make sure the right parts, technicians, and other resources are dispatched to help them.

Job scheduling and planning. AI-based planning & scheduling eliminates manual efforts to automate scheduling based on customized parameters (like customer status, complexity, parts inventory, location, SLA requirements, etc.), maximizing utilization of resources and efficiency. With these capabilities, dispatchers can focus on exceptions and customer experience. 

Predictive maintenance. AI solutions can be trained to analyze failure rates for parts and equipment and make educated predictions about when a machine might experience a problem. This data can help guide technicians when it comes to pre-emptive part replacement or inspections, and ultimately improve equipment uptime. Not only are organizations using these insights to offer outcomes-based service, but also to incorporate back into R&D to improve product development. 

Knowledge management. This is one area where AI can help create an all-new workflow (instead of just improving an existing one). Most field service organizations have a lot of repair data across disparate systems, but right now the only way to access it is to rely on the institutional memory of employees to help navigate through it. Using natural language processing, AI could sift through that data and respond to technician queries about prior repairs. This type of application would require more work on the front end to organize and clean-up data, but could be a boon in markets where a lot of veteran technicians are retiring and taking that information with them. 

These are just some examples of how AI is providing practical value to organizations today. It’s worth noting that in all of these cases, AI is not replacing employees, it is augmenting their ability to make better decisions faster. AI can simplify complex or repetitive manual tasks, improve efficiency, increase productivity, and help create better customer experiences, but one of the major fears of the technology is that it exists to take the jobs of the frontline worker. When you think about the talent shortages companies face, it helps to frame the use of AI as a way to work smarter versus harder and to allow the role of the frontline to evolve alongside customer needs. 

AI Into the Future

The important thing to remember about these current AI solutions is that while they can quickly ingest data and generate responses (schedules, maintenance recommendations, etc.), those results are best seen as suggestions that should be evaluated by expert staff members. AI and machine learning are vulnerable to the same types of mistakes and biases as the people who program them. They are evaluating the same data to reach a conclusion, just doing it faster and on a wider scale. The only way to compensate for potential flaws in the underlying data is to leverage human experience and expertise. 

And speaking of human experience, another caution of AI is to remember the need to balance the increasing use of advanced technologies with maintaining the human feel. I spoke at a conference last year where a leader shared a very transparent tale of how her company had experienced great success incorporating AI into customer service, but even though it was working well (not the frustrating automated experience you may be familiar with) the customers really missed the personal touchpoints. So, the company reflected and revisited the ramping up of AI to ensure a better balance between tech and human engagement. 

There’s no doubt that the use of AI and ML will continue to ramp up in field service, both in terms of use cases and sophistication and seamlessness. But there are real opportunities to leverage today’s AI-based solutions like planning and scheduling to create measurable improvements in current operations. Learning to work with AI now in these practical ways helps prepare you for the emerging uses that will continue to support the industry in its journey to outcomes. 

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Celebrating the Voices of the Women of Future of Field Service on IWD 2023

March 6, 2023 | 9 Mins Read

Celebrating the Voices of the Women of Future of Field Service on IWD 2023

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

This week is International Womens Day (IWD) and in recognition of that we have some great women-led content to feature! Coming up Wednesday, I talk with a woman field service leader about her journey, lessons learned, and vision for the future. For today, I thought what better way to celebrate than to showcase some of amazing women I’ve been fortunate to have as guests on the Future of Field Service podcast.

The IWD theme this year is #EmbraceEquity – with an emphasis on understanding the difference between equality and equity. Equality means opening up opportunities to all, while equity-based solutions to inclusion take into account the diverse experiences of individuals. That is a critical difference, particularly in industries (like field service and others) where the workforce is not exactly as diverse as it could be. There are barriers to entry that go beyond just the existence of available opportunities. 

When it comes to the idea of embracing equity, I believe listening to women’s stories is a powerful way to learn. I am so thankful to the women who take the time to share their stories and insights with me and with the Future of Field Service audience. I love that there’s a good range of industries, roles, and topics represented – along with their own unique experiences – and today I’m reflecting back on some of the wise words of the past year. 

At the Future of Field Service Live Tour event in Austin last year, I had a conversation with Sonya Roshek, VP Field Services at B+T Group that focused a lot on the ongoing challenges of being a woman in this industry, how things have changed, and what work still needs to be done, particularly around the cultural assumptions that still dog a lot of managers.

Sonya said: … I actually remember having my supervisor in Idaho, he's like, "I don't want to hire women, they can't lift." I'm like, "Our job description says 50 pounds, go get a bag of dog food, put it in your office. They can pick it up, put it on their shoulder, you're hiring her." [There is just a] mindset of, women can't do this. Not, "How can we engage women?" It was just, "Women can't do this." And so when I look at women in the workplace, I was talking to somebody in the back there and the reality is, it starts when we have children. We give girls a doll and we give boys a hammer and drills and a toolbox and let them go take things apart.

We don't do that with girls. I mean, so why are we expecting girls to be in field services and be technical, because we just don't train our girls to do that? I think it's getting better. Title IX helped a little bit. But … I think that's where initially I think we need to start looking.

Last November, I spoke with independent IT services contract technician Tamika Fields who had this to say about the value of both full-time and contract technicians, and the diverse points of view, talents, and experiences available for service companies: I feel like the available independent contracting opportunities in addition to the full time employment opportunities, they're going to continue. As you say, the need is there. It's just that if we keep open dialogue with the diverse sums of experience that are being leveraged, it allows capable talent and intelligent technicians to just contribute in a way that's more sustainable in the long run. It just allows individual contributors like myself to make a greater impact. And now, I think that'll just make us all stronger than any one individual part of the whole.

I recently interviewed Danielle Waterworth, VP-NA Dealer & Customer Solutions and Global Maintenance & Service Development at CNH Industrial  (which specializes in agricultural equipment) about how the company is segmenting and evolving its service offerings, and the importance of considering the end-to-end use of the equipment when differentiating your service offerings. 

Danielle shared: At the end of the day, you can design the perfect widget and think that it's wonderful … [but] then if you haven't figured it out though, how it's actually going to be utilized and acquired into the market – that's the key point, that should drive everything that you do. How is this actually going to provide value back into your customer and dealer base? And if it's not, then you need to go back to the drawing board because it's probably not something that you need to spend your time on. 

And it's really important that when they're in the field harvesting that they have that assurance that their machine is going to perform, or that there are people behind them that are going to enable that to occur. So we look at not just selling them an asset anymore, but the whole captive finance model, base warranty, extended warranty. How can we make sure that we're looking at you and your dealerships from a maintenance and inspection perspective before you go into a planting and harvesting season, which are their heavy times of use? So it's looking at that in that holistic picture, and that really starts defining how you go to market versus your competitors.

I had a really interesting and thought-provoking discussion with Amy Herman, New York Times Best-Selling attorney, former Frick Collection Head of Education and art historian, and author of Fixed: How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving about the power of thinking out of the box. 

Amy said:…Let me try something different this time to see if it works. And you know what, sometimes it doesn't, and it's an epic fail, but sometimes you fail forward. It doesn't work out, but you say, you know what, I tried it because I learned something. And sometimes you go back to your default thinking, but I want to give people another avenue because of all the problems we're facing right now, some of them are just intractable. Some of them are just such new dilemmas that I want to give people a new way to think.

Sometimes good is just good enough. Sometimes you have to solve a problem and you need to put all the pieces in place because you gotta get out the door or you can't let everything fall apart. So I don't think we need to strive for perfection every day. I don't. And you know what? That's hard … So, one of my biggest takeaways is don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. We don't have to be perfect all the time.

I recently welcomed Dr. Elizabeth Moran, former VP of Global Talent Development at ADP, who now works as a consultant and executive coach and recently published the book Forward: Leading Your Team Through Change.

Elizabeth shared:…As soon as you shift your mindset that somebody's reaction or tough question is not a barometer of my change-leadership ability ... And it might not even be a barometer that they're resisting change or not. Resistance is simply concerns that haven't yet been addressed. So, if you can shift to that, that often helps again ... As I like to say, as soon as we trigger curiosity in ourselves, that oftentimes alone reduces our own anxiety. In the brain, there's a different emotion that's now in line in your amygdala, and it's not fear or anxiety. 

What I like to say to leaders is across the board, the one tip that will really help is, "Stop thinking you have to give an answer right away."

Last fall, I spoke with Elizabeth Dixon, who previously led Strategy, Hospitality, and Service Design at Chic-fil-A Corporate and has authored the book The Power of Customer Experience: Five Elements to Make an Impact.

Elizabeth said:…What's amazing is that the frontline employees typically are going to be the ones who come up with the very best solutions and they can anticipate the problems faster than anybody else. Why? Because they're dealing with it. And they're the ones who are thinking, you know, how we could do this better.

And so if we can go ahead and in that moment when someone comes along and says, "I have an idea," and we want to be like, shut it down, the best thing as leaders we can do is to just say, tell me about it. Open up the space. Give enough oxygen in the room for people to share the ideas that they have. We don't have to act on it, but let's at least be able to talk about it. And once we can talk about it, if we can then move to the place where we can actually have a system and a process for collecting pain points and solutions and making those connections better, and finding those people who are great at identifying the pain points and finding the solutions and put them in positions to be able to do that more often, then that's the next level.

In an important discussion with Darcy Gruttadaro, former Director of the Center for Workplace Mental Health, part of the APA Foundation, we discussed employee mental health and how to avoid burnout. 

Darcy explained:…If you're an employee in an organization that shows they care about you, not just your physical health, but your mental health too, you're going to walk into that business every day, or get ready to go wherever you're going in the field, and you will feel much better about the fact that your organization cares about you. And in turn, you will be a high performer whether you live with a condition or not.

And the more they feel good about what they're doing because they're being treated well and they're in a culture that cares about them, the more they're going to project a positive image for the brand, which really matters at the end of the day with the competitive marketplaces we all work in.

In a conversation last year at the Live Tour in Stockholm, Berit Hallgren, Program Director at Tetra Pak, shared some excellent advice on strategic alignment, prioritization, and change management. 

Berit said:…[Be] clear on why you are doing this. What are the problems you want to solve? Because if that is not clear, how can you communicate to your audiences? And then, what are the areas you want to transform in the end? It needs to also be very clear for people, so they understand we are not going everywhere. We are going in these specific areas.

So, bringing that and also showing to the organization, "This is where we want to go. This is where we are." That becomes really, really powerful. And then, I mean, "What's in it for me?" You need to be able to explain that for the customer, for the employees, and for the company as well, because it's not the same message to all of these people. And finally, I will say, have courage because it takes... That's probably one of my stronger skills. I'm persistent, "So, okay. Didn't go this way. Let's try the other way." Because you need that when you drive a big transformation. You have to be persistent because it will take time. There will be challenges, but it will happen if you have decided it will happen, it will happen, but you need to be persistent.

And Carolyn Stern, emotional intelligence and leadership development expert and author of the book The Emotionally Strong Leader: An Inside-Out Journey to Transformational Leadership spoke with us about how more vulnerable leaders are taking center stage.

Carolyn:…Here's the biggest thing that I get asked by executives. You do not need to be a therapist or a financial advisor or a lawyer for any one of your employees' problems. All you have to do is listen and coach them … [C]oaching others is really about asking them questions so that they figure out the answers, so you don't have to be the problem-solving hero, right?

I just hope if I could get leaders to just learn one thing, it would be [to] stop being so afraid of your emotions. They're just feelings. Feelings are not facts. They're not always factual. They can be factual, but they're not always. But they're fleeting, and we feel thousands of them, hundreds of them, lots of them throughout a day or throughout a week or throughout a month.

They're transient. They're incredibly personal. And it's hard to be an objective bystander from your own emotions, but that is the key to your success.

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The Significance of Optimizing Spare Parts Management

February 27, 2023 | 5 Mins Read

The Significance of Optimizing Spare Parts Management

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

Supply chain and logistics challenges have been in the news a lot the past three years, and parts availability (or lack thereof) has certainly been a challenge in the service sector. In last week's podcast, I spoke to Ivo Siebers, Senior Vice President of Global Logistics at TK Elevator about how his company has fundamentally changed the way they manage the flow of parts to technicians. Those efforts resulted in huge gains in how frequently technicians had the right part in their trunk (or readily available from the depot).

In manufacturing, supply chain management is complicated by the whims of consumer demand. Field service logistics, on the other hand, is governed by the installed base of equipment in a given industry – that makes it a little easier to predict and manage.

But knowing what equipment is installed where is only part of the challenge of service logistics. It has traditionally been difficult to forecast what parts were going to fail when, and at what locations. New technology is making it easier to analyze maintenance histories, spare parts consumption, and other data to make those predictions even more accurate. Real-time operational data can add another layer of reliability.

At TK Elevator, technicians service a wide range of elevators and escalator systems, and having the right parts on hand for a given job was a huge challenge. According to Ivo, technicians generally only had the right parts in their trunk around 10% of the time and were able to obtain them from the depot same-day for another 10% of jobs. Most of the time, they had to order parts and then wait, impacting service level agreement (SLA) compliance, first-time fix rates, and customer satisfaction.

Data-Led Approach Drastically Improves Parts Availability

Using data and analytics, the company has been able to make impressive improvements in spare parts availability. Right now, Ivo says that technicians have the right parts available 80% of the time. To get there, TK Elevator leveraged different types of data, including parts usage and failure rates. “We want to avoid breakdowns or down time of the equipment,” Ivo said. “We try to better understand our portfolio, we try to better understand each and every type of equipment that is under maintenance with us and try to use this knowledge, this big data, in order to become more predictive.”

One part of their approach has been more intelligent forecasting. The company is using the data it already has on hand about parts consumption, previous maintenance, and condition monitoring, to predict the parts the technicians are most likely going to need in their trunk stock or positioned at regional depots. That data also guides the technicians to pay close attention to certain parts during regular inspections and maintenance, so they can service those parts before a breakdown occurs.

Data analysis has played a big part in TK Elevator’s success in optimizing spare parts, but the other aspect is how the company has changed its approach to storing and delivering inventory. The technicians have access to a digital catalog of roughly 100,000 different parts that can help them accurately identify what they need. With the digital catalog, technicians can send orders directly to a central warehouse to fulfill the request instead of using the local branch office as a sort-of middleman. 

“And instead of sending it to the branch as formerly done, the warehouse will send it directly to the technician. That might be a pick point, that might be the car trunk, that might be a PUDO, that might be a location close to his workplace. Wherever it suits, it'll be sent as close as possible to in order to save his travel time,” Ivo told me.

As more data is collected about the systems each technician services on their route, the trunk stock can be replenished and updated proactively, which helps reduce the number of special orders the technician has to make.

Having these capabilities can have a significant effect on SLA compliance and other critical metrics. It has also led TK Elevator to question some of its own biases and old practices when it comes to spare parts inventory. In supply chain management, inventory has been a dirty word since Lean and Just-in-Time practices came to the fore, but cutting inventory can make it hard to meet SLA requirements when you have to wait for parts.

With predictive data about what parts you are likely to need, you can improve service levels without increasing stock or obsolescence. 

The key is having the right stock. TK Elevator has already cut its warehouse stock 30% while still improving SLA performance. With input from the field service operation, the ERP system, and other systems, the company has been able to rebalance inventories, so the stock is optimized based on actual utilization.

A misperception that Ivo says the company had to work around was the idea that the technicians and the depot managers would resist the new inventory management approach.

On the technician side, the worry is always that staff will see the new technology as a way to reduce employee workload or headcount. The company also feared that supervisors might feel cut out of the loop since techs could order parts straight from the warehouse.

But Ivo says that the frontline techs quickly saw the value in eliminating the aggravation of showing up on site and then not being able to complete the job because they did not have the parts. With better stocking decisions and more visibility, technicians can do a better job of keeping the customer informed and happy. Supervisors were also happy that they no longer had to manage parts logistics.

“[The technicians] feel really empowered and they took it really [as a] positive. And from the field supervisor's side, they said, "Nobody likes this task, so taking it away from us, it's great." So sometimes you are a victim to your own biases,” Ivo said.

During our conversation, we also covered a lot of ground about employee buy-in, the need for accurate data, and how TK Elevator plans to leverage condition monitoring to do a better job of predicting future part failures. You can listen to the full podcast here to find out more about how predictive inventory management can boost service performance.

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You Encounter Resistance to Change, But Do You Understand It?

February 20, 2023 | 4 Mins Read

You Encounter Resistance to Change, But Do You Understand It?

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

A few weeks ago I spoke to Adam Gloss at McKinstry about the role leaders play in service transformation, and how such an important part of that role is in getting buy-in from team members during what can be pretty tumultuous shifts in how service organizations do business. On last week’s podcast, we had to opportunity to dive a bit deeper into the art of just how leaders manage change – even those that are pretty resistant.

To find out more about some of the science behind managing change, I talked to Dr. Elizabeth Moran, the former Vice President of Global Talent Development at ADP. A clinical psychologist by training, Elizabeth serves as a consultant and executive coach who works with teams from new start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. She also recently published a book, FORWARD: Leading Your Team Through Change, that provides strategies for navigating change based on neuroscience principles. 

As she points out in our conversation, the “people management" aspects of change often take a back seat to the project management component, which can create friction and even undermine the long-term success of a project. Change seems constant and accelerating at most companies, particularly when it comes to digital transformation and the rapid evolution of technology. It can be hard to keep up, and overwhelming to both team members and leaders alike 

This is where her neuroscience approach provides some very helpful guidance, because while we may think we are managing people and projects based on objective data and business goals, our brains (and co-workers’ brains) are reacting in ways that are not necessarily rational or readily apparent. Elizabeth outlines five neuroscience concepts that, when leaders understand and accommodate, can help make these transitions easier and, in turn, make change leadership more successful.  

The first is the threat of uncertainty. When people are uncertain, they get anxious. That ties into the second concept, negativity bias. Our brains are wired to expect the worst when we don't know what's going to happen next. For leaders, the key is to address that uncertainty (let team members ask questions and give them as much information as possible about what the change means for them), and then try to move them back toward a neutral or positive position.

“We started with uncertainty. Now, we're automatically tilted to what's going to go wrong. That's just a way that we are always hardwired to protect ourselves," Elizabeth says. “So, [that is] why it's so important to not only think about what could go wrong in a change and allow your people to talk about it. It's also important to basically think about, ‘Well, what could go right?’" 

The third concept is the switch-cost effect – basically, team members may think the personal cost of change (in learning new technology or processes) is higher than they are willing to pay. How do you deal with this as a manager? Make sure you help people understand what they are being rewarded for, and that they won't be penalized for the extra time (or increased errors) associated with learning a new system. “In this case, what we're looking for is not perfection in somebody doing a task or doing it the exact same way we've done. We're going to reward people for trying something new. And that's a way you can counteract the switch-cost effect," Elizabeth shares.

Balancing Analytic and Empathetic Skills

Elizabeth also explains the difference between the analytic and empathetic networks in our brains. The analytic network is the project management system in our heads that can analyze data and establish schedules. The empathetic network, on the other hand, takes a wider view of things and helps us tune into the verbal and non-verbal cues our colleagues are giving us. “The kicker is when one of those is active, it suppresses the other," she says. “And so hence, when we're very focused on a project in getting something done, we are not able to attend to the human side of change, which is why the best leaders who do this really almost have to specifically imagine they're putting a different hat on."

Finally, the fifth concept is the value of optimism and positivity. This is critical for counteracting the negativity bias mentioned earlier. A good leader helps the team imagine positive outcomes and provides feedback on incremental successes. In scenarios, which have become more and more common, of change fatigue, understanding and embracing the value of optimism is especially important. 

All five of these concepts really point to the critical role of communication in change management. That's more than just announcing a change. Leaders also must be prepared to answer tough questions, reassure team members about how the change will affect them, and admit when they don't have the answers. Using the neuroscience perspective, leaders can better understand that there is always going to be resistance, but that resistance is not a permanent state; providing the right information, feedback, and support helps employees shift their mindset. As Elizabeth puts it, “Resistance is simply concerns that haven't yet been addressed."

Our conversation covered a lot of great tips for managers that are trying to find a better way to address change fatigue and resistance, and the entire episode is well worth a listen! You can find the full podcast here to hear more about these fascinating neuroscience concepts, and how understanding them can help field service leaders be more successful in supporting their teams.

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Are EVs Ready for Field Service Prime Time?

February 13, 2023 | 4 Mins Read

Are EVs Ready for Field Service Prime Time?

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

Sustainability is an increasing focus for companies across industries and around the globe. When it comes to the ways that changes in field service operations can impact sustainability initiatives, the list is longer than you may think. Planning and scheduling solutions that help minimize necessary travel help, remote capabilities eliminate some travel need altogether, and Servitization has many ties to environmental impact (get a feel for exactly how by checking out stories on Kaer, Baxi, and Koolmill).

Another topic of conversation that comes up when we discuss how to make field service greener are electric vehicles (EVs). EVs have the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions, and a number of countries have pledged (or even passed legislation) to reduce or eliminate gas-powered vehicles over the next several decades. In the U.S., California is leading the charge with plans to ban gas–powered cars by 2035. 

I had an interesting conversation at Field Service Connect in Austin last fall with delegates on what exactly this will mean for field service organizations. For those in regions where regulations are looming that will force a shift to EVs, the pressure to purchase new vehicles is more intense. Other companies, though, have considered potentially shifting all or part of their fleet to hybrid or full-electric vehicles as gas prices have soared.

There are examples of EV fleet conversions going on right now – a number of cities have rolled out electric buses and garbage trucks. More significantly, the U.S. Postal Service plans to roll out 66,000 electric vehicles over the next several years. Beyond reducing emissions, there are other benefits to be had from EVs. For one, fuel prices continue to be volatile (and in many areas outside of the U.S., those prices were already much steeper). EVs also have fewer moving parts, do not require regular oil changes, and in some cases can provide businesses with valuable tax breaks.

What came into question during that conversation at Field Service Connect, though, is just how practical this change is in present circumstances. This varies, of course, depending on the type of service business you are running, and the geographic area served. 

Practicalities of EV Use in Field Service 

First, can you get an electrical vehicle that fits your business? If you primarily rely on cars or pick-up trucks, the number of hybrid and EV options is expanding. But the standard in many industries is a van, often with a fairly hefty load capacity. Currently in the U.S., there are only a few options when it comes to EV vans, and a further complication is that many of them offer a fairly limited mileage range. The Ford E-Transit, for example, offers versions with a range from just 108 to 126 miles between charges.

European firms have a better selection, and more electric vans are coming to global markets that offer longer ranges and a wider variety of sizes. You can read about some of them here and here. The cost of some of these vans is close to their gas-powered counterparts, but the limited range will likely remain a significant challenge for some organizations.

Which brings about the second major question, which is around how advanced the charging infrastructure is in the areas your field service teams operate. While EV charging infrastructure in the U.S. is coming along quickly, some of the participants in that conversation felt it isn’t yet extensive enough to support their operations. While some people envision gas station-like charging hubs, EV charging can happen just about anywhere a vehicle can be parked, so expect to see more of charging ports in parking garages and lots. If you service commercial customers, you may even be able to plug your van in while the technician is working. There are also portable charging units that can add range for vans that do not report back to the depot often.

Fleet operators will likely have to install their own rapid charging infrastructure to use when vehicles are not in service, as well as charging hardware for technicians that take their vehicles home. The logistics of charging multiple vehicles are a little more complicated than just pulling them up to a gas pump one at a time, so that could cause complications, too, particularly if you are trying to take advantage of off-peak charging rates.

You also have to consider how you will manage a mixed or fully EV fleet. For companies that rely on fleet management solutions, EVs can currently pose a challenge. There is, in fact, a whole new ecosystem of fleet management solutions aimed directly at EV fleets. In addition to tracking EV-centric fleet metrics like charging status, these solutions are tailored to gather data from vehicles that do not necessarily conform to the same vehicle standards as gas-powered vehicles. 

While the cost of EVs is generally higher than traditional vehicles (for now), there can be some long-term cost savings both in fuel and maintenance, in addition to benefits related to compliance and tax savings. EVs are generally quieter than gas-powered vehicles, and in some cases can serve as a power source to tools and lights. There is also, of course, the impact on your company’s sustainability initiatives.

Cost, range, and overall practicality probably mean that in the U.S., outside of California, EV adoption in field service will remain relatively low in the immediate future – but I expect that will change quite a bit in the next three years. In Europe, where gas-powered vehicles will be banned after 2035, there will be more rapid adoption, but also more support from governments to make that practical. 

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How Much of the Potential of AR and VR Remains Untapped?

February 6, 2023 | 5 Mins Read

How Much of the Potential of AR and VR Remains Untapped?

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service 

Many would argue that virtual reality (VR) is one of those technologies that has generated more discussion than actual adoption over the past decade, at least outside of gaming applications. However, its close cousins, augment reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR), have a steadily increased presence in field service and other industrial spaces. And we may be reaching a tipping point.

IDC, as part of its FutureScape: Worldwide Future of Operations 2023 Predictions, noted that: “By 2027, the use of extended reality technology, including AR/VR/MR tools, will increase by 40%, creating a new breed of digital worker and reducing operator/field worker errors by 30%.”

I have also seen growth estimates indicating a CAGR of as much as 30.6% for extended reality (XR) and up to 43.8% globally for AR. The potential expansion of AR will not only change the way frontline field service technicians work but I believe will eventually create new roles and new types of service experiences that will fundamentally evolve service delivery in a variety of ways.

When we talk about AR in field service, traditionally what that has looked like is a technician in the field, armed with a tablet or maybe a VR headset, using the technology to overlay schematics or other data over an image of an actual piece of equipment. In some cases, remote technicians are aided by more senior technicians or other SMEs off-site, using the technology to provide a better view of the problem and allow for the benefits of “hands on” guidance without the need for that senior worker to travel on site. Other companies have seen success in using AR and MR for training purposes, speeding the time to value of new workers. And yet others have begun using the technology directly with customers to provide remote service and speed time to resolution.

These examples of the use of AR/MR and sometimes VR offer some valuable potential benefits:

  • You can accelerate and improve training for new hires
  • You can better leverage the knowledge of senior technicians by allowing them to assist multiple less-experienced technicians from a central location
  • You can enable remote service/support applications by allowing technicians to help customers troubleshoot or diagnose problems
  • Technicians in the field will have access to better diagnostic and repair information (without the hassle of paper manuals), which can make them more effective and productive
  • Remote service can improve response times and reduce the cost of truck rolls
  • And more

We’ve Only Just Begun

What is perhaps most compelling here is that these benefits target some of the most acute problems facing the service industry – the difficulty in hiring and training new technicians, the looming retirement of large numbers of older technicians, rising costs, and the increased complexity of the equipment being serviced.

Focusing on the staffing and efficiency benefits misses part of the story, though, and does not address some of the potential for virtual technology to change service in other ways. 

That's because there are other trends outside of service that are also pushing adoption of VR/AR/XR across different industries. As more firms adopt digital twin technology on the design and manufacturing side, for example, it will be easier to provide access to these virtual twins of equipment to service organizations. Potentially, that could provide a shared view of assets for both PLM and SLM solutions leveraging everything from CAD files to real-time equipment performance data.

Why is that important? There are already manufacturers leveraging that type of VR technology for everything from individual pieces of equipment to entire factories. At some point in the future, technicians could evaluate a virtual twin of a specific machine located hundreds or thousands of miles away, and then diagnose, recalibrate and potentially even (in some cases) repair the machine in an entirely virtual setting.

More immediate scenarios would enable customers and technicians to use AR as a link to enable better remote diagnostics and service as part of a remote-first strategy that can improve response times, fix rates, and technician efficiency.

While that will result in less on-site service and technical expertise, there will need to be a restructuring within service organizations to ensure that customers are getting effective remote service, that they can escalate to an on-site visit when necessary, and that the service organization can establish good customer relationships as they transition from a traditional break/fix to a more trusted advisor role. 

In an environment where most companies are having trouble hiring enough technicians, wasting a truck roll when the problem could have been solved remotely by a technician or even by the customer themselves is no longer an acceptable cost of doing business. The real value of AR/VR in service is not the ability to peer into a machine from afar (although that is important), but in how the technology can help service organizations provide the right type of service as quickly as possible.

When I spoke with Tony Black, President of Service at Husky Injection Molding Systems, last summer, he talked about the role of AR and artificial intelligence in helping create better informed technicians that can work in smarter ways. It has also allowed the company to create new roles and opportunities for technicians within the company to enable remote service without losing the human touch needed to provide a good customer experience. Technicians play a critical role, even if they aren't going to the customer site. “The type of techs and the number of super techs you need, the mix is going to change, but they will always be needed,” Tony said. “And again, what we’re doing is we’re creating more informed technicians.”

I heard much the same when I spoke to Munters about how their remote services strategy changed before and after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – their use of the technology was initially for business continuity, but has evolved into a more strategic play in allowing the company to focus on outcomes-based service. “When you want to reduce downtime, you cannot permit yourself to send a technician who goes on site, has to travel for two hours, does a diagnosis, comes back, orders a part, goes for a second time to fix it. You don’t have that luxury anymore. Remote Assistance can help reduce downtime, because that technician that did one visit during the day, using remote technology can maybe serve 20 customers that day,” says Roel Rentmeesters,

VP of Digital Transformation at Munters. 

Husky and Munters are just two examples that illustrate how remote service is increasingly an important part of staying competitive and profitable – and how AR/MR/VR technologies are going to be increasingly important enablers as organizations make that transition.

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