Sharing virtual expertise can be rewarding and challenging all at once. If you’re not in the same room as the person you’re sharing it with, the challenge is even greater. Here’s just one example of that truth in action:
A Tough Spot For John
It was a Saturday morning early last summer, and I was at my daughter’s birthday party. I had stepped out to help a customer with a problem with their A/C. I know this HVAC stuff like the back of my hand. Really, I could have fixed my client’s problem in the dark if I had to. But I just couldn’t describe to him how to fix it over the phone. After 10 minutes of trying, I sighed. “Hang on Marc,” I said. “I’ve got my truck with me. I’ll head on over and get it done.” Hearing the disappointment in my voice, he told me I didn’t have to. Unfortunately, I’m on call on Saturdays…
How many times have you been in this situation? You have expertise and knowledge that you know will be helpful to someone. Maybe it is something relatively simple, but you just can’t clearly get the information you want across. You may have heard someone on your customer service team frustrated by the awkward descriptive language they are attempting to use. If you are frustrated, imagine how your customer feels! But what if you could take the knowledge of your company’s experts and place it in the hands of your field service engineers? Or, better yet, in the hands of your customers! What if your experts could be the eyes, ears, AND hands of the customer as they help them? Well, that is exactly what Help Lightning’s patented Merged Reality software allows you to do.
Science Indicates its Value
Every research project performed in this area finds that adding hand gestures and visual cues to verbal communication significantly increase its cognitive power. Enabling the use of nonverbal cues, gestures, and real tools into the process improves overall communication by a factor of 10. On average, we use 2.88 gestures when sharing expertise. And when we do, cognition and resolution are increased by 430%. These facts certainly indicate that Help Lightning’s virtual presence will allow you to solve your customer’s problems more effectively.
However, perhaps the most impactful scientific fact is yet to come. When people can see your hands, it increases their trust in you by as much as 250%! We all know that building trust with our customers will do more for our business than anything else.
Our Intuition Feels its Value
Imagine yourself helping a friend assemble the new grill that you convinced her to purchase. Luckily, you just put yours together last week, so you have intimate knowledge of the pitfalls. You wouldn’t stand with your hands behind your back and attempt to use simple verbal guidance. Instead, you would reach in and show her! “Look, you need to insert this dial here and turn it this way.” And: “I remember using this special tool on this part like this.” Helping people solve problems using our hands is obvious. We don’t even think about it.
Practice Proves its Value
OK, science tells us virtual presence is valuable. Our intuition tells us it is valuable. But is sharing expertise via merged reality really practical? What do the numbers tell us? We have been analyzing the value of the usage of this unique capability, and now we know. Using merged reality solves 22% more problems than using simple video with telestration. You don’t need to be a scientist to understand the massive impact this will have to your business.
Are you are ready to transform your service model and provide a customer experience that is second to none? Schedule your free demonstration today.
Written by Marc Guthrie, COO, Help Lightning
