By: Akhil Rajan
A significant role is being played by emerging technologies like Augmented Reality, the Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence in field service management business worldwide. What started as a hi-tech trend for a select few industries has grown into a best practice for large enterprises and smaller companies in field service management services.
Simply put, these emerging and immersive technologies have enormous power of the data collected and maintained in field service management systems that can be repurposed and made available to field technicians, empowering them to work faster, safer and better.
So, what will be the impact of AR and VR on the future of the field service management industry? Read on.
AR and VR will improve service operations in the following ways:
“There is an old saying that “Seeing is believing.” But in this case, it’s important to know that this phrase does not say, “reading is believing.” Augmented Reality (AR) is an excellent field management solution as a field technician can really “see” how to repair a piece of equipment rather than only “reading” about how to repair it.”
AR/VR is accelerating the process of troubleshooting in the following ways:
Employee training is critical for any business. Unfortunately, it can be costly and time-consuming, reducing its ability to respond to skill gaps and resource shortages. AR/VR technology can record the workflows and provide a step-by-step visual run-through of a process. Moreover, this training material remains accessible for future purposes. Thus, the implementation of technology for the training program will help:
At present, the technology is adopted by very few organizations. But, as the technology matures, their benefits will get more pronounced, and more and more service organizations will be compelled to use technology to remain competitive.
However, the early adopters of the technology will earn a strategic benefit as they would have a significant competitive advantage against their competition.
Final thoughts
Customer satisfaction is essential for any business growth. And to deliver excellent customer service, you need the best field service abilities. The traditional ways of field service management consume a lot of time and are fast becoming obsolete with the advent of new technologies like AI, AR, and IoT. Augmented reality and artificial intelligence are rapidly growing and will continue to evolve because of the vast benefits they behold for field service organizations.
Akhil Rajan is a Customer Success Specialist at Zuper, an intelligent workforce management platform for service-oriented businesses. Akhil writes about a variety of issues, including how to enhance workforce utilization, reduce service turnaround time and increase worker efficiency, customer adoption, cost-cutting measures, and so on. He spends his leisure time burying himself in books or playing chess.
