The Benefits Of Using Wearable Technology In Field Service
AC Repair On Air, At Las Vegas Air Conditioning
For the past few years, we have been conducting field studies on wearable technology in the HVAC industry. We have been sending our technicians out into the field to perform Live AC Repair in Las Vegas, NV. They are wearing Google Glass and a few other wearable tech pieces. We’ve tested the response from homeowners, response from technicians and ultimately noticed some very unexpected benefits. Some benefits were clear and some more hidden but the benefits were huge. In this piece, I’ll illustrate all the benefits I’ve seen or learned possibly from what we have done. I attended and spoke at the #EWTS15 Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit hosted by Brain Exchange and tried many products like the Vizix and tried software like XOEYE and Steve or Ubimax or even the Google Glass partner APX. With all these emerging software’s options are almost unlimited.
I’m Stephen Gamst of Las Vegas Air Conditioning; we’ve been servicing homeowners for all air conditioning and heating repair needs since 1969. We have an almost perfect record and no bad reviews in all the years but still, we needed to be better. Wearable technology is our answer. Since implementing wearable Tech we have tripled in size and our website has jumped in ranking so fast we could barely handle all the extra work. But, there are worse problems to have, so we manage. We have been written and talked about time and time again and recently were listed as #46 in Top 50 Businesses In America For Customer Service and Technology. Simply amazing is our thought and a wearable tech is a mandatory tool now, that we just can’t imagine going without. And, all that just because we use wearables to provide a better customer experience, don’t know if we deserve it but we won’t argue.
The Benefits!
- Efficiency: Productivity and Efficiency can be increased by giving field technicians a tool, that would allow managers or senior technicians to log in and view what the technician is doing. The senior technician could sit in the office, watching an entire team of lesser field workers and give advice when needed. That senio
r technician could actually grab a part, for instance a contractor, which is a regular part in an air conditioner. He could place the contactor in front of the screen, scan the part and it would upload onto the tec
hnicians display or pad using the HP My Room. The senior tech could then draw on the screen illustrating to the newer technician how to wire the part in the field. If a company had a process like this in place imagine every repair is done right - Customer Service: Imagine a mechanic, a plumber or an air conditioning repairman that knocks on your door in that dreaded time when something breaks. He hands you an I-Pad and says “Ok here’s your live feed, you will be able to watch as we troubleshoot, diagnose and repair your air conditioner or heater. That has proven to be valuable in basically all homeowner’s eyes as they already don’t trust service men, so why not give them a live feed as that’s hard to argue. That’s customer service that’s through the roof. Now imagine that you tell a wife that she needs to perform a $1000 repair. She say’s my husband is not home, can you come back later and show him. We can do one better, we can send him the transmission and he can watch from wherever he is.
- Safety: How many new Technicians get hurt due to inexperience or bad practice? Well with the wearable tech we can watch and guide the technician through the entire service call and in a sense he’s acting like a veteran and all he has to do is follow direction.
- Marketing: In 2015 Online marketing is very important and with all the companies out there doing it wrong and trying too hard to be at the top of search engines, competition is tuff. But I’m here to share one unexpected but very welcome benefit to wearable tech is that you are collecting data that can be used for your marketing purpose both online and off. The most important thing to Google is fresh and original contentment and with the digital era going more pictures and video how do you see the easiest way to collect video, wearable tech is it. With the ability to capture your work and stream straight to Google+ or YouTube or any other place you like, you are collecting great and original content. That content can be used for your website and give you some original content that you will be rewarded for, were proof.
- ROI: Ok, Wearable Tech cost money so is it worth it. Yes is the answer if you ask me, what’s it worth to get the right man to the job. What if a junior technician goes to a job and leaves only fixing the first problem he finds, he turns on the machine but unknowingly leaves another root problem the fails tomorrow or in 1 hour even. You have to drive back and that customer is pissed plus try telling them they need to spend more money and see what they think of you. So what’s the other options? You could send out only journeymen but let’s face it they are hard to find these days and when you do they can be expensive to have all journeymen. Or, you could have just a few journeymen at the office enjoying the col air and watching all you junior technicians work chiming in before any mistakes are made. So, you get to have “twice the manpower for the same rate or the same manpower for half the rate but still, the repairs get done right because someone is always watching them.” says David Tanner of https://electricsontap.com/.
That is the future of field service and if you don’t do it soon, you’ll be the only one who isn’t and get left behind.
Stephen Gamst
Las Vegas Air Conditioning Inc
6220 Kimberly Ave unit 13
Las Vegas, NV 89122
702-437-1888
