Join John Ragsdale, Distinguished VP of Technology Research at TSIA from Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA) as he kicks off this panel discussion and webinar with one of the top augmented reality companies, Help Lightning.
John introduces the following additional panelists for the webinar:
- Gary York, CEO at Help Lightning
- Edward Krzysik, VP of Customer Value and Strategy at Help Lightning
This webinar recap has been edited for clarity and length. You can also watch the full webinar on demand.
Augmented Reality and Remote Visual Assistance Technology
What is augmented reality?
John Ragsdale: Over the last year, we have seen that our Remote Visual Assistance software has been widely adopted across industries. It has adapted for different uses industry-wide.
Today, we will focus on ways to increase your digital customer engagement through augmented reality. This technology merges real-world environments with computer-generated information.
Typically, we use this technology for situations in which technical representatives need to assist customers in real time. For instance, it is useful if a field tech cannot be on site to provide hands-on support.
However, in the past year, we have seen additional use cases. These include customer training, technical sales, and technical audits.
Edward Krzysik: Remote assistance and augmented reality are also very useful for reaching sustainability goals. Today, we can use this technology to avoid dispatching workers in many cases. This means fewer miles traveled.
Also, this software is useful for remote auditing. For instance, we can use augmented reality enabled software to review and remotely inspect a customer site. These are only a few of the creative use cases that we have seen.
Gary York: That’s great, Edward. At Help Lightning, we also see use cases in manufacturing. It can be used to increase launch time for new products and solve problems in the manufacturing lines quickly.
JR: Some people worry that customers will be uncomfortable adopting this new technology. I have always found that convenience overrides paranoia.
Once customers realize how useful augmented reality can be, they are happy to adopt it. In fact, our TSIA Channel Preference Study shows that 71% of customers are already willing to use this type of software.
Now, let’s turn it over to Edward Krzysik.
Adoption and Uses for Remote Visual Assistance Technology
EK: Thank you, John! Our Remote Visual Assistance technology allows technicians to interact with service experts from anywhere in the world. In this way, techs can work remotely with experts as if they were physically side-by-side.
Our metrics show that this technology makes our technician visits more streamlined and efficient.
However, there are many other uses for this software, such as:
Remote Visual Assistance allows for up to six participants on a given call. This means that designers, engineers, and other specialists can pool their knowledge to solve a given problem.
One of the key elements of promoting this technology is to encourage adoption. To encourage implementation, Help Lightning focuses on three primary factors:
Each of these steps is crucial for helping businesses to make the most of our Remote Visual Assistance software. We run unique ROI metrics for specific clients to ensure that we track results and drive toward valuable business outcomes.
We want to guarantee that we are not only thinking about adoption in terms of user numbers. Rather, we are considering real value to our clients.
We want executives and enterprise leaders to find that Help Lightning is the common thread connecting their business goals with real increased value.
Remote Visual Assistance can be helpful in reaching a range of diverse business goals, from customer experience to sustainability to market growth.
Recent Case Studies
EK: A client of Help Lightning was recently facing a 30% year-over-year decline in core business. This was affecting their revenue, tech utilization, and expense management.
Responding to this, the executives saw an opportunity for an effective retraining approach. The client centralized their expertise and retrained others as field techs.
This was a good business model, but Help Lightning made it a game-changer. After incorporating Help Lightning’s Remote Visual Assistance, they saw growth in OEM, core services, and IT.
This case study shows that the market is ready for Help Lightning, one of the top augmented reality companies. Now, I will turn it over to Gary York.
Customer Success Stories
GY: Thanks, Edward. We will wrap up our webinar panel with a few customer success stories.
Becton Dickinson (BD), a global medical technology manufacturer, has partnered with Help Lightning to great success. They have been using our technology for about four years.
In that time, they have seen a significant decrease in their time-to-problem resolution. They have also experienced increases in overall customer satisfaction. As a result, BD decided to roll out Help Lightning across their global operations.
BD manufactures medical technology used in COVID-19 testing. Fortunately, when the pandemic began, they were already using Help Lightning. Our software allowed them to comply with public health travel restrictions without slowing their sales.
BD used Help Lightning’s technology to remotely complete:
During this time, BD secured their first-ever perfect customer satisfaction score.
COX — a digital television, telecommunications, and home automation company — is another client. The company partnered with Help Lightning during the early stages of the pandemic.
They rolled out our Remote Visual Assistance technology to their field service technicians. COX trained more than 3,000 service techs in our technology in the first week of adoption.
This helped COX to remain productive and avoid layoffs during a difficult economic period. The proof of Help Lightning’s technology is evident in the value gained by our clients.
Thanks very much to our presenters and thank you for joining us. This webinar was brought to you by TSIA and sponsored by Help Lightning, one of the top augmented reality companies. You can also watch the full webinar on demand.
