A significant and often overlooked impact of IoT is how it can transform the support revenue model into a usage-based pricing model. Selling a product as a service rather than simply as a product has created a wonderful opportunity for manufacturers to receive recurring and predictable revenues.
There is however a dark side to support. The welcome recurring fees also imply a recurring level of support. When the ceramic pot holding my plant broke, I went to the store and I bought a new ceramic pot. With IoT, my new connected pot sends an alert when the dirt has become too dry because my watering has leaked out of the crack in the pot. What do I do with my connected pot? Well, I expect the vendor to fix the pot.
This is not a new problem; multiple industries already deliver recurring support today. The new variable elements are volume and price.
In traditional industries, when you call customer service, you are either asked to return the product for a replacement or wait for a technician to come to repair it.
Does the traditional model work for my new connected pot?
- Companies managing high volumes of returns have a living nightmare. Their handling, testing, refurbishing and restocking efforts collectively are activities they would prefer to avoid. In addition, customer expectations have been changed by free return offers from Amazon and some other big brands.
- A single dispatch of a repair technician would cost the company more than the price of my pot.
And it is clear that none of these solutions, despite their high price will prevent my plant dying.
This raises the question … is there an alternative to a costly return or technician dispatch?
SightCall Visual Support provides support agents the ability to see what your customers see and enables them to provide live guidance to their customers for problem resolution, using their customers’ mobile. To learn more, watch the video to see how: https://youtu.be/I5LeF8jYlgI
The good news is that the feedback from the customers is amazing. More than 85% are willing to use their mobile phone to help solving a problem, since they see a path to a quick resolution.
One of my favorite quotes came from a customer who had contacted an agent using SightCall Visual Support: “The service you provided with is even better than the product I bought”.
