Volvo Ditches PCs and Paper In Favor of iPhone and Apple Watch (9to5mac.com) 63
Volvo has unleashed a big improvement in customer satisfaction after equipping its 1,500 service engineers with an Apple Watch to use during their day. What, on the face of it, seems a small change reflects extensive cultural change across the company, which is actively engaged in digital transformation across its business. Computerworld's Jonny Evans reports: Volvo has equipped its engineers (Personal Service Technicians) with an Apple Watch and iPhone (running the Volvo Service app) to help them work more efficiently than before. The company's primary focus is to improve customer service, as it recognizes that technicians are the main point of customer contact across the life of the Volvo they drive. So, how can an Apple Watch in a garage improve customer service?
- In use, the engineer will receive a Notification when a customer arrives at the garage with their car.
- The watch will show the customer's name, relevant notes, and car details.
- During the repair, engineers can access information -- and once the repair is complete, they can directly call the customer to tell them.
- They can also schedule and make a subsequent follow-up call.
The benefit is that with all this information being made available through the Watch (and accompanying iPhone app), engineers don't need to use printed records, or access a PC to stay up to date. That's not only time-consuming, but learning how to use these systems takes up time. The company told me it took up to 6 months to train new recruits on the 15 different IT systems Volvo used before. Now, thanks to smart analysis and smart integration of legacy systems, what technicians need to know is always with them. The result is that paperwork doesn't disappear, technicians/engineers can stay focused, essential customer contact records aren't lost and engineers always have clarity and purpose. It all sounds so simple. It should sound simple. But it isn't simple. [...]
The project is already generating positive results. The company told me that 80% of technicians who use the app have increased their total customer satisfaction scores. Volvo also cites a 30% increase in post-service follow up calls and emails to customers, thanks to the tech pushing complex processes out of the way. Digitalization Director Markus Lundstrom said: "With the Volvo Service app we're connecting people through technology. At one workshop, customers report a 37% improvement in the ability to access their Personal Service Technician." The company also reported a 40% decrease in paper printouts. Volvo is also seeing the technicians use their new kit to get other tasks done. "Some of our teams use the Walkie-Talkie feature to communicate with each other across the facility," they said.
- In use, the engineer will receive a Notification when a customer arrives at the garage with their car.
- The watch will show the customer's name, relevant notes, and car details.
- During the repair, engineers can access information -- and once the repair is complete, they can directly call the customer to tell them.
- They can also schedule and make a subsequent follow-up call.
The benefit is that with all this information being made available through the Watch (and accompanying iPhone app), engineers don't need to use printed records, or access a PC to stay up to date. That's not only time-consuming, but learning how to use these systems takes up time. The company told me it took up to 6 months to train new recruits on the 15 different IT systems Volvo used before. Now, thanks to smart analysis and smart integration of legacy systems, what technicians need to know is always with them. The result is that paperwork doesn't disappear, technicians/engineers can stay focused, essential customer contact records aren't lost and engineers always have clarity and purpose. It all sounds so simple. It should sound simple. But it isn't simple. [...]
The project is already generating positive results. The company told me that 80% of technicians who use the app have increased their total customer satisfaction scores. Volvo also cites a 30% increase in post-service follow up calls and emails to customers, thanks to the tech pushing complex processes out of the way. Digitalization Director Markus Lundstrom said: "With the Volvo Service app we're connecting people through technology. At one workshop, customers report a 37% improvement in the ability to access their Personal Service Technician." The company also reported a 40% decrease in paper printouts. Volvo is also seeing the technicians use their new kit to get other tasks done. "Some of our teams use the Walkie-Talkie feature to communicate with each other across the facility," they said.
dealer service fee just went up 30% and no hope (Score:1)
dealer service fee just went up 30% and no hope of non dealer repair
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They should have gone with Android.
Why tie it to a particular platform?
The watch app is a silly gimmick and will be dropped in a few months. Otherwise, this is just a phone app like other companies have been doing for a decade. There is no reason to tie it to either iOS or Android. A simple customer interaction app can be implemented in HTML5 and run on any phone, laptop, or desktop.
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Do you really think a mechanic can operate an Apple Watch with greasy hands or gloves?
How long is the watch going to last while banged around in an engine compartment?
If Apple Watches were useful for practical purposes, they would be far more popular. My spouse owns one. She only puts it on as a fashion accessory when she is meeting someone she wants to impress.
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You should get one too so you can send each other your heartbeats. It'll make a lot more sense then.
Re: Apple (Score:1)
That was exactly what I was thinking as I read this. Everything mechanics have on them while they're working gets quickly banged up, grimey and greasy with what's basically used motor oil mixed with dirt. Apple watch isn't really that rugged, I could see it looking like it has aged 10 years after only 10 days.
Though that kind of fits Volvo's personality, as rugged has never really been their thing. Pretty much the crappiest, most unreliable cars ever made, only slightly better engineered than Fiat, which sa
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The Apple Watch is by some margin the most popular watch in the world. It's got over 100m users. You might not like it. Your wife might not use hers much, or in ways that you approve of. But others clearly do, and find them plenty practical.
Re: Apple (Score:2)
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Are mechanics even supposed to be wearing wrist watches? Seems like something that could easily get caught on machinery.
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A simple customer interaction app can be implemented in HTML5 and run on any phone, laptop, or desktop.
That would be the sensible thing to do, yes. They, er, think different.
I wonder how many watches the average engineer will smash each week...
Re:Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
The watch can be a much better interface for people, especially ones that are working with their hands all day. It forces developers to really cue into the most important information and display it at the right time, and give a concise set of options for the user to respond with.
As for platform agnostic, if you are gluing together 15 IT systems I’m sure you would have a backend that is extendable if the need arises. The first challenge though is getting it out there and getting feedback on what should change. Today you could even go with a custom device if it really helped.
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The watch can be a much better interface for people, especially ones that are working with their hands all day.
Can you cite an actual example of Apple Watches successfully used in workflow automation?
It forces developers to really cue into the most important information
So the "most important information" is going to be determined at compile time by someone who has no experience as a mechanic.
give a concise set of options for the user to respond with.
What if none of those options are correct?
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Maybe the OP can't re Watches and workflow automation, but I can: Epic's Limerick app for test results notification. Hospital physicians love being able to know about dispositive test results as soon as available, and ditto for discharge notifications, which increases bed capacity.
On your second point, obviously enterprises use combined design & dev teams with input from expert end users to make key decisions on features, what information to display, and how.
Re: Apple (Score:2)
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HTML5 means latency issues. It's a pain in the arse. It also means far fewer native features can be leveraged.
And you've misread the article: they didn't build a "simple" customer interaction app. They built a technician app with a simple* front end to multiple complex back-end legacy systems. Having to deal with multiple complex back-end systems is absolutely par for the course for any enterprise.
It's also pretty weird to dismiss wearables in 2022. They have the obvious advantage that technicians don't nee
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The point, of course, is that a watch is a small notification device, much easier for a mechanic than a phone, laptop or desktop because it's small, durable, and doesn't require any manual interaction. While you're working on a car, you're not fiddling with your phone, you're using tools, and a watch is the least intrusive way to get the notification.
Yes, they could use an android watch app, but in terms of market share that wouldn't make much sense, since very few people wear them.
Re: Apple (Score:2)
Re: Apple (Score:2)
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Maybe they looked at those risks, and then thought about the risks with Android -- security issues, fragmented hardware base, lack of support and patching, poor UX, etc -- and decided that the cost-benefits came down strongly in favour of choosing Apple platforms. Seems the most obvious explanation. Sure, you'd have made a different choice if you were in charge. But you aren't.
Re: Apple (Score:2)
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"How smart is it to double down on Apple? Apple can at any time start imposing fees, taking away the app .. whatever. They should have gone with Android."
Volvo is a Chinese firm, they build iPhones and iPads themselves.
So (Score:2)
Why does it need the watch if they have the phone?
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Probably for when their hands are busy with wrenches 'n' stuff.
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Probably for when their hands are busy with wrenches 'n' stuff.
If their hands are busy with wrenches 'n' stuff, how do they use the watch? They would still have to put down their tools to use it, even if only for speakerphone. The same thing which could be done with the phone.
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I assumed the watch had a voice interface like the phone. But I really wouldn't know -- my watch is analog.
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Re: So (Score:2)
Yes, which is why this whole thing seems a bit silly to me.
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My first thought was that these devices don't work when wearing gloves, and if you don't wear gloves your hands are going to get really, really dirty and then transfer that to the screen.
Maybe they go through a lot of disposable gloves.
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
I know a doctor who uses a smart watch to check notifications from his phone so that he doesn't get germs on his exam gloves. By similar logic, glancing at a watch with dirty hands keeps your phone from getting greasy before it goes back in your pocket.
However, an awful lot of this seems to be less "iPhone and iWatch are so great" and more "integrating 15 silos into one coherent system saves labor". The big win seems to be having a mobile device that can access the integrated business logic.
Using Modern Technology to present bad news (Score:2)
From: Volvo Service
Your engine's fucked mate
That is not how it works (Score:1)
Customer satisfaction come from the customer, not the vendor. The vendor cannot just order his customers to have higher satisfaction.
Smells fishy (Score:4, Insightful)
While it may be possible to squeeze all that functionality into a small form factor in a practical way, it takes a lot of trial and error to get right. The "tighter" the UI, the harder you have to work at design to make sure it's smooth, intuitive, and practical. Users (mechanics), developers, and analysts would probably have to spend a lot of time collaborating and reworking the app(s).
I suspect Apple subsidized the development as a showpiece. Either that Volvo got lucky and accidentally got it mostly right early (IT sites rarely publish failures). Yes, it can be made to work, but I bet it's too expensive for most orgs, or at least more than they are willing to pay. With a bigger screen (PC), it's cheaper to just tack on features without rearranging everything. Yes, it gets a bit messy that way, but it's a cheap mess.
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Bloatware usually implies too much code, too many frameworks/libraries/layers, and/or too many features. In this case, the "too many" may be too many person-hours needed to make use-able software on a small device. It's kind of like mowing the lawn with tweezers: do-able, but not practical without subsidies from outsiders like Apple.
Don't call me (Score:2)
I don't want you to call me -- when my car is done, send me a txt message.
If something comes up while you're working on the car and it needs more work, send me a link to a new estimate, optionally along with pictures documenting what needs to be done.
I don't want you to call me to say my left phalange needs a new seal and it'll be $700 to fix it -- show me a photo of exactly what's broken and an itemized bill for what it will take to fix it. Then I can easily look it up online and find out that my model car
Re:Don't call me (Score:5, Informative)
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That's for this. It seems we've all forgotten that a 5 minute phone call can save you hours of email exchanges.
Why does everyone suddenly hate using a phone to talk anyway?
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Personally because all my calls seem to be spam, and the ones that aren’t people speak too slowly. I get GP’s desire to get a text that the car is done, and that would be my preference as well. If it is not finished then I would say a phone call is better to get through the muck, but I really prefer a prepared conversation that doesn’t waste too much of my time.
I’ve gotten to the point where one vendor that checks up on me once a month knows to lead in with the pertinent informatio
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So it's about selfishness then. Ugh...
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No, it is about efficiency. The caller needs to make hundreds of calls, and answering and actually talking to me helps his stats. Fortunately he put simple instructions into his CRM system so it is always clear, even if someone else needs to talk to me. His idea, not mine. Also helps to keep people from being offended.
Normally he spends about 10 minutes per person per month; if I can get him down to 30-60 seconds everyone is happy.
One of the things that puts me on the spectrum. . .
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Your complaints tell a very different story. "my calls seem to be spam" "people speak too slowly" "doesn’t waste too much of my time." Me me me me me.
Selfishness, pure and simple.
one vendor that checks up on me once a month knows to lead in with the pertinent information and not be offended when I say
Why should he have to learn not to be offended by your behavior? The problem, very obviously, lies with you. That you clearly don't care is a sign of, say it with me, selfishness. I can't believe that you'd brag about this!
One of the things that puts me on the spectrum. . .
That's no excuse for your poor behavior. You clearly know you're being rude, which means you're
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Who gives someone the right to spam someone else?
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Having worked as a mechanic, it's pretty ineffective having a one-sided text/email conversation with customers. Despite best efforts to guess what a customer wants to know (when forming a text/email), they inevitably have 27 different, often unrelated, questions and need to have their hand caressed through the process. Even when the car is fixed and done, they tend to ask a bunch of additional questions.
I've never had a call with a mechanic that couldn't be replaced with an estimate to do unexpected work.
And I've never had a mechanic be able to send me a picture. "Your CV Boot is cracked, do you want me to replace it?" "What do you mean cracked? Is it torn completely through or is the rubber starting to show cracks" "Well, you know like little cracks" "I don't know, can you send me a picture?" "What? How?"
Sitting down and composing an email, or generating a multimedia presentation, and then dealing with all the back-and-forth, takes a lot more time than making a phone call...and there is no way in hell I'm going to be diddling around texting someone back-and-forth for 20 minutes, while trying to get actual repairs done. My customers have always seemed appreciative of a phone call, and I've never had someone say "don't call me". If they want pictures, videos, links, or any other additional info...then it's easy to take care of...but those are probably about 1% of the cases.
Isn't that kind of the whole point of this Apple Watch/iPhone integration? You don't have to sit down
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Isn't that kind of the whole point of this Apple Watch/iPhone integration? You don't have to sit down and text back and forth for 20 minutes, you can stay under the car, take a picture, send it to the customer text "Hey, look at this oil leaking around the water pump, $250 to replace it, here's a quote, reply back with YES, NO, or CALLME".
It's rarely that cut-and-dry, and the customer is the one that gets to dictate how much back-and-forth occurs.
-Text customer, get back to work on their, or another customer's vehicle
-Customer texts question back
-Stop what I'm currently working on..Respond back to customer, get back to work on their, or another customer's vehicle
-Customer texts question back
-Stop what I'm currently working on..Respond back to customer, get back to work on their, or another customer's vehicle
-Customer texts question back
-Stop
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Long, long ago when I used to fix computers for customers, we found that implementing an automatic SMS system really improved our efficiency. As well as saving us time not having to write status updates by hand, they seemed to be better at prompting the customers to contact us when needed. We left voicemail messages, but for some reason SMS was better... I guess people don't check voicemail very often, but read SMS immediately.
We would always talk to them to discuss things, but more often than not when you
I would say (Score:5, Insightful)
that they finally put in a system that was designed to service the clients. It's not the watch or iPhone that makes the difference but the fact that it was designed properly.
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tthe fact that it was designed properly.
Why do you think it was designed properly?
TFA is about Volvo saying "Volvo is great!"
It is not about customers saying that.
My spouse has an Apple Watch. It is not an appropriate device for customer interaction. There is not enough screen real estate for any meaningful context.
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Alternative Headline (Score:2)
Volvo actually bothers with something resembling ISO-9000 compliance, but by using expensive gear.
We get all of this with three pieces of paper where I work. It's called a 'traveller' and goes everywhere with the job so anyone that touches it knows what it is and what stage of work it is in. End of job, it's filed away. Problem and it comes back? We reference the traveller. We can trace everything back to find the problem, down to a specific reel of components.
What the hell was so difficult about this that
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"Your traveller sheet sounds completely impractical for a vehicle repair shop: prone to being lost, torn, having oil spilled on it, plus where's the flat surface to write on it?"
It comes in a protective sleeve, much like it did at old tire shops and warehouses I used to work at in the summers when I was younger. Works as a flat surface for writing, generally keeps shit from getting on the paperwork, keeps paperwork from being torn during transport and most uses.
"Plus, the traveller sheet can't tell you, in
If it's so much more efficient... (Score:2)
Volvo also cites a 30% increase in post-service follow up calls and emails to customers, thanks to the tech pushing complex processes out of the way.
If it's so much more efficient than before, why are they making *more* phone calls and sending *more* emails to customer? Except for "hey, your car is done" what else would they have to say? Oh, right: upselling.
Not a fan (Score:1)
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"but where does that notification come from?"
From the front office (when the customer actually arrives).
Also from the scheduling software (when the time is approaching).
Not engineers (Score:2)
They're service technicians.
I also wouldn't want to be working on a car while wearing a watch.
I can see the benefit of a phone app to help them with the "paperwork" but a watch app?
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I also wouldn't want to be working on a car while wearing a watch.
Damn straight. First step of working on a car: remove watches and other jewellery. Tie up long hair and loose clothing.
Note also that paper works just fine even if your hands are grubby. You can hold a pen if your hands are grubby, or you are wearing gloves. You can drop a piece of paper on the floor of the workshop and step on it, and it will probably still work. Paper doesn't have a battery that will go flat.
I could go on...
Does it track technicians' movements too? (Score:2)
Do they tell the technicians that this will let Volvo know everywhere they go, who they hang out with, pretty much everything they do, and even which hand they wipe with in the bathroom?
The watch is worthless (Score:2)
To do most of that stuff you have to use the phone app. So why not use the phone for all of it?