Our latest project aims at navigating challenges, transforming service operations, and redefining IT support by enhancing customer experience and reducing costs
Customer support stands as a fundamental component of every business, demanding significant resource investments to guarantee customer satisfaction.
Nevertheless, ensuring support and after sales service for customers can pose intricate challenges for companies operating in the IT sector. Installing or performing maintenance of complex devices often requires offering detailed instructions and guidance: a difficult task, especially when geographical distances require communication via phone or email.
Extended Reality solutions have the potential to revolutionize the approach to customer support and assistance in the post-sales phase, thereby reducing costs and enhancing productivity and the effectiveness of interventions.
For field service brands, XR might offer the solution they are seeking. By leveraging the appropriate tools, companies can offer their customers more immersive guidance and support, incorporating AR annotations, virtual reality, files, and real-time data delivery.
Our new project: introducing an innovoative XR customer service
Over the past few months at PIGIAMA KASAMA we have dedicated efforts to develop a platform that offers this innovative service, making the remarkable potential of XR accessible to brands for supporting their customers.
We are particularly focused on the IT sector, recognizing it as one of the industries with the greatest advantages in implementing XR for customer support. For us, the IT sector presents a particularly auspicious opportunity for introducing innovation in customer service.
Our goal is to furnish companies with a comprehensive platform for engaging in an extended reality environment with both customers and employees, regardless of their location. This platform aims to facilitate real-time issue checking and resolution, as well as training individuals to independently address and solve problems.
Specifically, PIGIAMA KASAMA is in the process of creating a new software designed to identify objects within an image and provide an enriched informational experience utilizing XR technologies.
It's about transforming customer service operations by introducing the latest digital and immersive innovations: generative AI, XR and IoT.
The challenge: bridging the support gap
Historically, guiding customers through the installation processes of intricate devices, such as servers and IoT devices, compelled manufacturing companies to dispatch technicians directly to the customer's location. This wasn't limited to installation alone; it also extended to resolving post-sales issues, resulting in substantial travel expenses for companies.
Unplanned downtime is expensive, incurring huge losses while waiting for an expert to arrive and fix the issue. When major clients required assistance from skilled specialists and tools for implementing their new IT systems, companies faced the challenge of hastily arranging intercontinental flights and accommodations to deploy their installation team on-site.
This not only incurred significant costs but also became more complicated with the emergence of travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, preventing employees from crossing borders and making it impossible for supplier companies to ensure a sufficient level of on-site assistance.
Since 2020, IT companies have been actively seeking innovative ways to remotely bridge this support gap. It was from this imperative that the PIGIAMA KASAMA project emerged, addressing these needs and pioneering new avenues to deliver IT support in diverse contexts, with reduced costs, greater speed, and enhanced performance.
Transforming customer service
In collaboration with selected partners, we are about to start testing the features of our project in the coming weeks. The primary goal is to assess how this new XR customer service project can enable our partners to remotely assist their non-specialized customers through intricate installation and maintenance procedures.
Leveraging real-time video feeds, an XR platform and standard smartphone cameras, customers will soon have the capability to exhibit precisely what they need to experts situated worldwide, receiving guidance in navigating complex processes. On the other side, specialists will be able to efficiently address issues from a distance and provide instructions to end-users through annotated captions and arrows.
This approach empowers IT specialists to deliver tailored support to their customers, offering expert guidance throughout the installation stages at significantly reduced costs.
A crucial aspect of this project is to provide customers an experience closely resembling the presence of an expert in person.
To achieve this, effective and intuitive communication through an Extended Reality-enabled live feed is essential, minimizing the risk of errors and costly problems. Moreover, an intriguing aspect is the potential to record and archive various stages of the installation or maintenance process, allowing the reuse of the same guide for future customers. The development of "XR guides", facilitated by AI, will enable the creation of interactive manuals capable of autonomously recognizing the needs and intervention methods based on the context.
This new concept of customer service holds the promise of delivering remarkable outcomes for numerous companies because it provides them with the means to offer customers a novel form of assistance, enabling them to overcome challenges and boost productivity without the necessity of travel and the associated costs of extensive journeys in terms of time and resources.
HoloLens 2: the ideal mixed reality device for businesses
Image via Microsoft.com
To carry out our remote customer service project we decided to exploit the potential of HoloLens 2, the ergonomic holographic device developed by Microsoft: the first to succeed in establishing itself in the corporate environment and in various businesses. HoloLens 2, the second generation of Microsoft headsets, is a device specifically designed and developed for industrial, design, and healthcare applications.
Unlike VR headsets, in the case of Hololens the visor is open and semi-transparent (more like a pair of glasses), thus allowing to see the surrounding environment onto which the "holograms" are projected. When worn a window appears in the center of the lens through which mixed reality takes shape. Its function is therefore to recognize the surrounding environment and draw the hologram in real time thanks to sensors and cameras.
The Hololens 2 is just the ideal tool for the application we at PIGIAMA KASAMA have in mind!
The widespread adoption of the Microsoft HoloLens 2 headset in enterprises is still pending. However, those organizations that have incorporated it into their operations have observed that the augmented reality device not only reduces time consumption but also lowers expenses and boost productivity. An innovation that cutting-edge manufacturers such as Rolls-Royce, Lockheed Martin, and Toyota have already chosen to implement in their production processes, reducing downtime, transforming their workforce, and creating more agile, productive, and innovative factories.
PIGIAMA KASAMA is ready to boost customer support
This ongoing project we're engaged in underscores the expanding possibilities of extended reality within the corporate arena. Beyond enhancing collaboration, training, and team innovation, companies can also leverage XR technologies for sophisticated customer support.
At PIGIAMA KASAMA, we are poised to address the escalating demand for remote guidance and workflow solutions, aiming to reduce travel, downtime, and unwarranted business expenses. All of these advancements come through a groundbreaking immersive service, offering a compelling investment to elevate team productivity and ensure optimal technology uptime.
