How to Defeat Downtime with AI-Enhanced Visual Assistance

Downtime.

The dreaded D-word.

Whether planned or unplanned, operational downtime of key equipment is costly if not resolved effectively and efficiently.

Sometimes maintenance tasks can take longer than expected to diagnose and resolve, delaying operations and reducing productivity. Other times, time and resources are wasted sending a field service technician out to a site to resolve a simple problem (or worse, to find that there was no problem at all).

And issues that are not resolved quickly can lead to dissatisfied customers.

Situations that lead to downtime will always require time to resolve. But with the right tools, repair and maintenance tasks can be streamlined to reduce days to hours and sometimes even minutes... saving you time, money, and irreplicable customer relationships.

One of these tools is AI-enhanced visual assistance, the core of the SightCall VISION software solution for enterprise service organizations.

AI-enhanced visual assistance tools (such as AR-enabled live video, digital process automation, and multimodal generative AI) add a visual component to typical customer service methods like call centers, chatbots, and email support.

These visual tools allow field service technicians and customers to communicate information to remote experts visually, reducing the potential for misunderstandings from verbal descriptions of situations or solutions. They also can reduce the need for communication with an agent altogether, with multimodal generative AI capable of interpreting visual information from a field technician or customer (such as an image or video of broken equipment), and automatically generating a comprehensive solution to the problem.

By integrating AI-enhanced visual assistance into standard practices, customer service providers can elevate the customer and field service experiences by enabling clearer communication and faster problem solving.

Real-Time Diagnostic Assistance

Sometimes diagnosing a problem can be the most time-consuming part of the troubleshooting process. A customer may not have the expertise to quickly diagnose problems when issues with equipment come up, so they call your customer support team and attempt to describe the issue. Then when a solution cannot be achieved over the phone, they schedule a date for a technician to come out to the field, only for the technician to finally arrive and fix the problem in two minutes.

The wasted time, travel, and money associated with this process can be saved by giving your customers self-service, easy to follow visual instructions for independent repair.

For example, a customer can receive a product specific link for a kitchen appliance when they upload a photo of the item or image of a barcode. If the customer needs more help, they can switch to visual support from an agent who already has the customer’s appliance information in hand.

WATCH: Visual AI & Self-Service with SightCall VISION

Enhanced Communication Between Experts and Field Technicians

Field technicians know their stuff and are highly capable of addressing most problems when working onsite. But sometimes, even they need a little help from the experts back at headquarters.

With AI-enhanced visual assistance, your technical experts can assist their colleagues in the field beyond the standard phone call using two-way visual conversations. A field technician can provide a live video and audio feed of the issue they are working on back for the expert to review and analyze, who can follow up with augmented reality guidance that the technician can see and follow along with in real time.

For example, Hako Machines, a global leader in eco-friendly cleaning machines for municipal and other applications, wanted to improve mentorship and support for field engineers and decrease machine downtime. With SightCall VISION, Hako remote experts can support field teams with complex fault diagnostics anytime of the day.

Automated Documentation and Reporting

Documentation.

The other dreaded D-word.

Oftentimes the most time-consuming part of a maintenance call are the administrative tasks that follow the actual work. Recording all the observations, diagnoses, solutions, maintenance actions, and final decisions in a report once a maintenance visit is complete.

AI Report Summaries reduces manual effort by creating reports from images, video, audio, and text compiled over the course of a given site visit. These reports can go as far as including annotated images, audio transcriptions, and detailed procedure notes, all automated using AI and eliminating the need for a field technician to manually create the documentation.

For example, of one of the leading field energy services companies uses digital process automation available in SightCall VISION to create standardized maintenance procedures with all documentation saved digitally.

Predictive Maintenance and Preemptive Repairs

AI-enhanced visual assistance can help minimize downtime even before it happens, by providing automated visual guides for maintenance, repair, and installation.

AI tools can analyze equipment to identify replacement parts and provide automated recommendations based on voice, image, and text diagnoses of situations. Field engineers and customers can use these tools to handle maintenance tasks without the need of remote expert engineers. And remote support with human-guided visual assistance is at the ready and can be called upon if needed for complex situations.

Training and Skill Enhancement

Knowledge is power. Empowering customers and field technicians through AI-facilitated visual training can help them tackle issues more confidently, competently, and efficiently, cutting down on time spent resolving problems and reducing the need to call for expert support.

From sharing best practices to facilitating knowledge transfer within your organization, AI-enhanced visual assistance can help your service teams provide more robust support to your customers.

For example, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) provides their 1,600 global retail dealerships with remote technical support and education. JLR Help Desk Engineers remotely guide dealer service technicians through complex car repair work. All sessions are saved for future guidance and training.

As we look to the future, the synergy between AI and communications technologies like 5G networks holds the promise of revolutionizing customer service through visual assistance.

The increased bandwidth and lower latency of 5G will enable near-instantaneous communication between field technicians, customers, and AI systems, facilitating crisper live video feeds and more responsive augmented reality (AR) overlays. This integration is poised to unlock new levels of efficiency, allowing service professionals to conduct complex repairs from afar with the same precision as if they were on-site.

AI's evolution will be instrumental in promoting sustainable practices within the service industry. By optimizing maintenance schedules and extending equipment lifespan, AI will play a pivotal role in reducing environmental impact.

As these technologies continue to evolve, they hold the promise of not just enhancing service quality but also fostering a more sustainable and knowledge-driven future for customer service professionals across the globe.