The Hottest New Technology You Don t Know About: Live Video Streaming Helps Field Service Techs Offer Better Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction A Technical Paper prepared for the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers By Romulus Pereira. CEO and Founder, Vidcie 1196 Borregas Ave., Suite 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 +1 408-935-2600 info@vidcie.com WHITE PAPER
Overview In an era where telecommunications companies face increased competition and serious problems with churn, customer satisfaction has never been more important and field service technicians can play a key role in building customer loyalty. Unfortunately, many technicians are on their own when it comes to addressing today s increasingly complex situations in the field. Streaming video has emerged as the best solution for enabling them to collaborate with experts when they encounter problems, providing maximum clarity of information for faster problem resolution. A changing telecommunications environment in the field Historically, field service technicians in the telecommunications industry focused primarily on one piece of technology: the coaxial cable. Coax cables connected directly to the TV or VCR, and if something failed, a field service tech was sent to find the break in the cable and re-terminate it. The issue was typically resolved within an hour. This is no longer the world that we live in. Today, the same service technicians must be able to troubleshoot much more complex systems that may include routers, STBs, Wi-Fi, VoIP, Smart TVs and DVRs. In addition, with the introduction of bundled service packages, many homes now have at least three services installed: cable, Internet and landline telephone. This triple-play service delivers incredible benefits to the customer, but often creates a support challenge for front-line field technicians. In addition to the challenge of being multi-domain experts, field technicians are under increasing pressure to perform with a more mission-critical mindset to quickly restore service. In the past, losing one s cable was merely an inconvenience, but with voice and data tied to the same cable, downtime isn t merely inconvenient; it s catastrophic. Phones, security cameras, email and basic business activities depend on cable-dependent technologies to run 24/7, and customers expect quick turnaround and resolution. While today s field service technicians are more highly trained than ever, they often find themselves dispatched with limited knowledge of the actual situation they ll face at the service location. As a result, they can t determine the required expertise until they arrive on site. For example, a technician might be dispatched with the understanding that cable service is down, but determine upon arrival that the issue is with the customer s Wi-Fi or internal network. Describing the details of the problem via telephone could be difficult, if not impossible. The result at best would be wasted time, and at worst, a second truck roll. Live Video Streaming Helps Field Service Techs Offer Better Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction 2
Rising costs of field service The challenges do not stop at the field level. Service organizations at the corporate level are being tasked with increasing the quality of service while simultaneously shrinking the budget. In order to succeed, new processes must be put in place and new technologies must be adopted. Service costs can be broken down as follows 1 : Volume: job volume classified as good, avoidable and bad Utilization: a crew s productive hours percentage (actual work vs. downtime) Work Rate: the rate at which jobs are complete due to optimization of resources and tools Hourly Cost: total cost of labor Overhead and Other: off-site, non-field related costs In addition to the Hourly Cost for technicians increasing, service providers are seeing the Volume of jobs increasing while Utilization is decreasing. Management is challenged to find the optimal way of dispatching technicians for the right jobs as well allocating the right amount of time for each job. Mobility budgets have also decreased as companies try to better focus on training field service technicians with current tools. However, spending is increasing for field service automation with 62 percent of companies increasing budgets for better cloud computing platforms to speed up deployments and mobile applications to help technicians better support different technologies 2. For samples for more relevant data, go to the following sites: http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2013-us-residential-televisionservice-provider-satisfaction-study https://www.ncta.com/ Enhanced support through video In addition to ongoing technical training, many companies have implemented phone support systems to allow collaboration between technicians in the field and remote experts. But, as noted, voice-only support is often ineffective due to the challenges of verbally describing complex issues involving multiple pieces of equipment or software. Live video collaboration between agents in the field and remote experts overcomes many of these challenges and dramatically increases the flow and reliability of information. Live Video Streaming Helps Field Service Techs Offer Better Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction 3
The consumer grade video conferencing products now available appear attractive for this purpose, but relying on them for use the field can result in video with poor resolution and choppy transmission. This is because they were never designed with field service in mind. In the field, 3G and/or 4G are often the only available connection channels, and both are set up so that the upstream bandwidth is much lower than the downstream bandwidth. To be successful, a live video streaming solution must be able to deal with this reality. Otherwise a clear video feed will be impossible. The Vidcie Live Video Service was specifically designed to meet the challenges of field service work, as described in detail below. A video assist solution designed for the real world In order for a video assist solution to truly function in a real-world environment, three factors must be present: fidelity, reliability and mobility. Fidelity. First and foremost, the clarity of the image must be maintained over the limited upstream bandwidth connections typically available. A purposedesigned solution will target Information Fidelity to ensure that the remote support technician has a clear view of the situation and sees everything the field service tech is seeing. The Vidcie Live Video Service achieves this by prioritizing image quality over frame rate. Reliability. Video assist solutions must be as robust and worry-free as every other tool in the field service rep s arsenal. This requirement goes beyond the physical components of the system. Also critical is a narrowcasting network designed for the single purpose of getting video information from point A to point B. The ideal solution is a complete end-to-end system such as the Vidcie Live Video Service, which was designed from the ground up to deliver information fidelity video over unpredictable networks, whether through mobile hotspots or Wi-Fi networks. Mobility. When a technician is in the field, there is no room for bulky or fragile equipment. The input component in this case the camera must become part of the uniform and be ready to go at a moment s notice. What s required is an array of body mountable cameras and specialty mounts to ensure that the field service technician can quickly and easily get eyes-on whatever the remote assistance tech needs to see at any given moment. Live Video Streaming Helps Field Service Techs Offer Better Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction 4
Remote tools improve field service ROI Live video streaming is one of the most important remote tools available to help service technicians do their jobs better. These tools are helping service organizations send the right people and equipment to the field, monitor equipment performance, provide better remote repair support, alert customers to impending downtime and forecast failures. Ultimately, this results in important benefits, including improved customer satisfaction, asset uptime and availability, SLA compliance and service profitability 3. Live Video Streaming Helps Field Service Techs Offer Better Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction 5
Bibliography 1. Field Service: Reenergizing a Hidden Asset. N.p.: Bain and Company, n.d. PDF. 2. Ragsdale, John. 2012 TSIA Member Technology Spending Report: Field Services. N.p.: Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), 7 May 2012. PDF. Survey bases = 24 areas of services and technology surveyed and 250 responses included. 3. Pollock, Bill. Service 3001: An Odyssey to Smarter Services. N.p.: The Service Council, 1 May 2012. PDF. Survey bases = 215+ (Field Service) and 490+ (Remote Services) respondents Live Video Streaming Helps Field Service Techs Offer Better Support and Improve Customer Satisfaction 6