Leveraging IoT to Enable a Truly Effortless Experience

Tom van Leeuwen -
IoT Experience
Illustration: © IoT For All

The impact of the IoT and IIoT on customer service or field service experiences has introduced opportunities for boosting customer loyalty to previously unmined levels and has opened up new prospects for revenue creation. Yet, the challenge remains on how to translate IoT benefits into an Effortless Experience.

The principles of the Effortless Experience, based on the book by Matt Dixon, put a new spin on customer experience and reveal what makes customers loyal or disloyal.

“Loyalty is driven by how well a company delivers on its basic promises and solves day-to-day problems, not on how spectacular its service experience might be. Most customers don’t want to be “wowed”; they want an effortless experience. And they are far more likely to punish you for bad service than to reward you for good service.”

IIoT benefits, visible across all industries, take different forms for different applications. For example, industrial production facilities increase maintenance efficiency and labor safety, streamlining production and operational resilience.

However, IoT is not just about technology but instead about developing solutions that can drive meaningful results for your businesses. The importance of Field service organizations continues to rise for operations. The service experiences that your technicians deliver will have a lasting impact on your customers’ overall impression of your brand and impact satisfaction, retention, and future sales positively or negatively. As your customers’ expectations continue to rise as to what is considered good service, they expect effortless service.

It is time to reimagine how your organization provides service by ushering out the complexities of the past towards a future of effortless experiences.

Centralize Towards Effortless

Are you able to continue the conversation when customers ask a question via one channel but ask for an update via another? In the customer’s mind, regardless of how or when the conversation started, history and context need to be carried into future interactions. However, most organizations today still struggle, often having different teams for various service channels.

Combining the power of a centralized service console such as Salesforce Service Cloud with real-time and historical IoT telemetry from a Digital Twin will provide all of your teams with full transparency ensuring context and history are available at all times.

In addition, your service teams will be able to conduct diagnostics tests remotely while having direct access to historical data and cases as well as service contracts and KPI’s.

Move From Effortless to Predictive

Sophisticated analytics tools and connected products have changed the landscape of what we know about our customers and their assets and equipment. As a result, you have tons of relevant data at hand that enable you to predict a customer’s need for service before they experience the issue themselves.

Although this information is available, it is usually unavailable to service teams within their operational tool. Unfortunately, neither are these teams typically in the driving seat when defining the rules that are in place to monitor your connected assets. A no-code platform to unlock the power of IoT within their service console could be the solution. This approach proactively initiates customer service actions to offer an unprecedented level of customer and field service.

Make Effortless Your Differentiator

Achieving an effortless service can also help discover new growth opportunities via AI/ML insights, which can drive your topline. Second, you can improve operational efficiency by transforming how you connect people, data, and devices with automated workflows and inventory management tools. Third, risk can be reduced by effortlessly securing your organization, network, and people by detecting anomalies and vulnerabilities so you connect with confidence. Last, enhance your user experience by delivering differentiated and personalized effortless experiences to make your customers return and want more.

Customer Service organizations have been striving for years to achieve short wait times, high first call resolution, and extended support hours. Effective customer service programs not only offer these they also provide access to experts. First, however, customers need to know where to look. Recent studies show that organizations that can anticipate customer needs and make information easy to find rank highest in customer satisfaction. In addition, customers want self-service, and they want it to be effortless.

Conclusion

An effortless experience for your customers can be made possible by unlocking the power of IoT within Salesforce Service Cloud. When combining the power of a centralized service console enriched with real-time and historical IoT telemetry, your teams will be provided with total transparency ensuring the context and history of customer contacts are available at all times.

To achieve an unprecedented level of customer service, it is vital to predicting a customer’s need for assistance before they experience the issue themselves. Providing your service teams with a no-code platform within their Service Cloud or Field Service environment could be the solution. Many customers expect self-service next to an effortless experience.

Author
Tom van Leeuwen, Waylay

Contributors
Waylay
Waylay
Waylay is a leading enterprise automation software company at the forefront of digital transformation.
Waylay is a leading enterprise automation software company at the forefront of digital transformation.