Our latest webinar “Optimizing Service Processes: Enabling Uptime & Efficiency” , we featured Mark Hessinger, a global services business advisor with over 25 years of experience in industries like manufacturing, automotive, and aerospace. He shared insights on how businesses can use AI to drive value and a better customer experience.
Check out our key takeaways below or watch the recording on-demand here.
Service teams in manufacturing face daily challenges—managing workloads, finding accurate information quickly, and keeping up with technical advancements. As Hessinger noted, “We put our employees under a lot of pressure to work faster, get more jobs done in a week get more customers visited, and they're also commenting that their work hours are too high.”
To improve customer experience and drive revenue, you need to give your field and support teams the tools they need to work efficiently. Happier and more engaged teams mean happier customers. One way to achieve this is through AI-powered field service tools.
Disconnected knowledge sources and complex workflows often slow response times and limit productivity. Manuals might be stored in PDFs, training videos buried in an online archive, and troubleshooting guides scattered across different applications. This fragmentation leaves technicians constantly hunting for information, wasting time that could be spent solving customer issues.
Service AIdvisor offers a solution by connecting these scattered resources, making it easy for technicians to find exactly what they need when they need it. "Using a tool such as AI, you can connect these sources and present the most relevant information to the user at their right point in time." Hessinger shared. By consolidating knowledge like manuals, technical bulletins, product catalogs, and training videos, Service AIdvisor gives your teams the right information at every decision point.
Imagine this: instead of flipping through endless PDFs or hunting for a video tutorial, technicians simply ask Service AIdvisor a question and instantly get the answer they need, along with a link to the specific page or timestamp in a video where the knowledge came from.
Whether it’s a wiring diagram or a two-minute instructional video, Service AIdvisor connects all your resources in one place, cutting down on search time and keeping your team efficient and ready.
Time spent looking for information is time wasted. By having knowledge at their fingertips, your technicians can focus more on solving problems and less on finding answers.
Onboarding new technicians can be time-consuming and costly, especially in field service, where the learning curve can be steep. At the same time, many field service teams face workforce gaps due to high turnover, retirements, or difficulty in finding experienced technicians.
Service AIdvisor simplifies both onboarding and skill development by equipping new team members with on-demand, accurate knowledge that helps them feel confident and effective as they begin helping customers.
Service AIdvisor’s real-time guidance and verified answers mean technicians don’t have to rely on tech support or more senior colleagues for troubleshooting help. Instead, they can get specific error codes, diagrams, and step-by-step checklists through Service AIdvisor. This reduces onboarding time, cuts training costs, and improves overall team readiness.
Experienced technicians can also contribute their expertise to build a living knowledge base, capturing valuable insights for the entire team. This way, each new hire starts strong, backed by the team's collective knowledge.
First-time fix rates (FTFR) and first-call resolutions (FCR) are the gold standards in field service. Resolving issues on the first visit or call reduces costs, improves customer satisfaction, and lightens the workload for your team.
Many organizations are turning to AI to improve these metrics. In fact, the WBR’s AI in Field Service report found that 74% of respondents saw increased FTFRs after implementing AI.
During the webinar, we discussed how Service AIdvisor helps your agents and technicians resolve issues on the first attempt by offering AI-powered diagnostics and guidance tailored to each problem.
With Service AIdvisor, your technicians and agents have instant access to detailed job history, relevant error codes, and troubleshooting guides tailored to the particular issue. This level of preparation increases the likelihood of resolving issues on the first attempt, reducing the need for follow-ups and additional appointments.
By enabling your teams to handle a broader range of challenges independently, Service AIdvisor boosts productivity and helps them deliver a consistent, high-quality customer experience.
Fewer repeat visits and faster issue resolution translate into happier customers and a more efficient service operation overall. Service AIdvisor equips your organization to tackle these challenges confidently, building trust and efficiency at every touchpoint.
Field service technicians want to focus on what they’re hired to do—solve problems and help customers. What they don’t want is to spend valuable time searching for information or navigating complicated tools.
"Our field technicians, what they like to do is what they’re employed to do. Solve problems, work with customers. What they like least is spending time looking for things and finding things to do their work.” Hessinger observed.
According to the Service Council’s Voice of the Field Engineer 2024 Survey, live troubleshooting steps and quick access to videos for repair procedures are at the top of technicians' wish lists.
Service AIdvisor delivers on both these needs with instant AI-powered troubleshooting and video navigation down to specific timestamps, letting technicians jump straight to the content that addresses their issue. No more combing through unnecessary content—just fast, targeted help.
For technicians, Service AIdvisor becomes an AI-powered expert who’s there whenever they need it. Instead of pausing to search for solutions, a technician can ask Service AIdvisor about a specific issue, access prior visit notes, and pull up the exact troubleshooting procedure, even while en route to the next job.
Why shouldn’t I just try to build a system like this with my internal development team versus buying or implementing a tool like something that Circuitry.ai offers?
Show answer Mark Hessinger: I'm going to give you the reasons why I think buy is the right answer. I'll first give an example of when I introduced the IoT years ago. I started working with the build concept working with engineering, and the struggle I had was product management had their road map and their priorities, and we were not the high priority, and it just moved very slowly.How fast and what are the components of getting ROI out of AI systems or Circuitry.ai?
Show answer NT: I would say our system helps you really achieve ROI quickly by, you know, driving time savings, reducing transactional costs, increasing first-time fixed rates, thanks to our AI-powered diagnostics and guidance, which allows technicians to resolve issues on the first visit, reduce repeat visits, improve customer satisfaction.How do you ensure technicians will actually adopt and use this?
Show answer NT: Great question. First of all, we take a lot of pride in our user experience, and we spend a lot of time and energy to craft a modern user experience with all the best practices that you probably have come to expect from using other popular tools online. So, we try to really work hard to make our tools very intuitive. That being said, the best and easiest tool to learn is something where you don't really need to learn much at all, right? You don't want to spend a lot of time learning a new tool; you want it to be as intuitive as possible. We've designed our system to slot in with your existing system, so it fits in right where you work naturally.How does this knowledge application fit in with CRM and FSM systems, and where else can I use it?
Show answer NT: In a word, seamlessly. We've set up our system to integrate with any number of external data sources for both input and output. It's something that, you know, when we get to know you, the customer, during the POV, proof of value process, we'll get to know how your employees work, what kind of systems they use on a day-to-day basis, and be able to design our implementation on top of and within those current systems so it's a true augmentative type of system.I see the benefits for new and inexperienced engineers from the tool, but only them benefiting from the tool won't bring the 35% savings estimated. So how can experienced field engineers benefit from this tool?
Show answer MH:The last place I worked was 3D Systems and I was told this person, that person, that person, they're the experts. They know everything. They don't need anything. Then, set up chat groups by technology, and you'll see that even your experts are asking questions. Depending on how broad your product portfolio is, there's a lot of things they need to know and be able to do, and not every issue comes up every day. One, getting to information quicker, which we talked about a few times, will benefit everybody in the organization. Yes, it will benefit to a higher level those with less experience, I agree with that. But even experienced people, if they can recall something quicker by using the tool, they'll gain some benefit as well.How can I try this out and see if this system will bring value?
Show answer NT: We've alluded to the POV program. It's a program where you can try out the product; we’ll set you up with a white glove experience so that you and your team can dive in and see the value with minimal time spent and minimal risk for your side. It's a highly structured program. Basically, we follow a long checklist. So you and your team can try out every single feature.The challenges in field service are real, but with the right tools, your team can handle them head-on. Service Advisor reduces the time technicians spend looking for information by using your company’s knowledge and data to provide instant answers to technical questions. Whether troubleshooting an issue or finding the right part, Service AIdvisor helps technicians get answers fast, allowing them to focus on delivering effective service.
We’re sponsoring Field Service Connect 2024. Visit our booth to learn more, see a live demo, and discover how Service AIdvisor can make a difference in your team.