Intelligent visual guidance helps field service teams solve problems faster

The impending workforce crisis service organizations have been fearing is no longer impending – it is here.  Field service leaders are working harder and paying more to identify, hire, and retain workers just to meet existing demand. At the same time, they must innovate service delivery, meet their customer satisfaction goals, and grow service revenue.

That’s why it was no surprise to me to see new research validate how – from top-to-bottom – service organizations are adapting:

• According to IDC, nearly three-fourths of manufacturers (73.3%) indicate artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) would have a modest or significant impact on the field service management (FSM) process in the next 24 months
• The Service Council notes in their Voice of the Field Service Engineer study that Live Video (up 4%) and AR/VR (up 5%) are gaining in popularity as technology areas that can positively impact field service performance

At Oracle we’ve continued to layer artificial intelligence into our applications portfolio to empower users and accelerate workflows across the entire business. And, as far as IoT goes, we’re helping asset-intensive companies connect equipment and devices to enable remote triage and predictive maintenance activities.

But what about when a customer or a service technician is on-site and needs help identifying and fixing an uncommon issue?

Recently we partnered with TechSee, a leader in intelligent visual assistance technology for customers, agents, and field technicians, to integrate intelligent visual assistance technology into Oracle Field Service.

TechSee delivers a platform that teaches itself to recognize thousands of hardware products, models, parts, and components, which it can use to provide end users with step-by-step visual guidance via an augmented reality (AR) layer.

This helps companies troubleshoot issues faster, decrease truck rolls to reduce cost, improve case resolution rates, and ensure safe outcomes by delivering contactless support which is especially important in this current climate.

The technology is useful in several service scenarios, including providing remote guidance to customers for self-service repairs as well as expert support for field technicians who need to escalate unique or uncommon issues where answers aren’t readily available in a knowledgebase or employee portal.

“Adding visual guidance capabilities to our leading Oracle Field Service applications is a game changer for our customers in asset-intensive industries like manufacturing, utilities, and communications” says Jeff Wartgow, Vice President of Outbound Product Management “we’re excited to partner with TechSee to give our customers the best tools to service their customers.”

Ari Rosenstein, Vice President Marketing at TechSee, concurs "TechSee is excited to partner with Oracle. Oracle Field Service and Oracle's focus on mobile field services solutions makes this a natural partnership. Together we will help the world's largest field service teams drive better customer experience, improve technician enablement, and dramatically cut operational costs by reducing truck rolls.” He adds “by adding TechSee's communication capabilities like augmented reality, live remote video, and computer vision AI, Oracle Field Service can offer amazing employee and customer experience from anywhere."

Learn more about Oracle Service, Oracle Field Service, and TechSee.