Summary:
Voltas needed a mobile app that enables their service engineers to pull data off the company’s servers. But handling out preloaded smartphones based on established platforms was too expensive. Read the story of how Voltas developed a device agnostic mobile app that connects their ERP data to mobile phones and helped them reduce service cycle times by 50 percent.
Highlights:
Information related to a service call is available through the app including whether a product is still under warranty and previous complaints, among others. Once a service technician takes on a case, that update is visible to the call center, which is then armed to respond to customer queries.The mobile solution has slashed Voltas’ service cycle times by 50 percent (which means that a service technician can take on twice as many calls as he could before) and customer satisfaction has shot up.
Reader ROI:
How to leverage mobile apps on non-smartphones?How to deal with non-english users?
As organizations go, Voltas is a great place to implement a mobile strategy. Enterprise mobility enjoys top-level commitment and it gets real attention. Though this makes CIO, Asmita Junnarkar’s job easier, it doesn’t do a thing for the technical and operational challenges of a mobile app deployment. Before the company’s current mobile solution, customers calling for their ACs to be serviced were entertained either by the Voltas receptionist, a sales executive, a project manager – or anybody else who was available. The request was then handed to a third-party service provider who had to manually check for the availability of the components he thought would be needed for the job and then dispatch a technician via SMS.
I don’t think many service engineers can afford smartphones, so we had to ensure that the app could run on multiple mobile operating systems and on varying screen sizes and different orientations.
Not only was that process time-consuming and ridden with gaps, but being two-steps removed from the service process meant that Voltas had no data to update customers calling back. It also meant that they were sending technicians into service requests – with little more than a name and address – blind. Voltas needed service engineers to be able to pull data off the company’s servers. They needed an app that service engineers – who are not the company’s employees and number in the hundreds – could use. Handing out pre-loaded handsets was ruled out – it was too expensive. But finding an app that would work on the plethora of handsets in today’s market – including cheap Chinese phones – was no mean task. “We had to ensure that the app could run on multiple mobile operating systems and on varying screen sizes and different orientations. It needed to be device-agnostic. It was a major challenge,” says Junnarkar. To distribute the app, Junnarkar ensured that all service agents needed to do is download the app on their own phones – which ensures Voltas isn’t coughing up for everyone’s handsets, a large cost component of mobile initiatives. Within the app, technicians need to login and information is pushed onto their phone. Once a call is resolved, that update is entered and is pushed back into Voltas’ servers and is stored on a database. “To ensure it doesn’t hamper other mission critical systems, this data is not transferred from the database into our ERP in real-time but on a pre-designated time interval basis,” says Prasanna Wadke, senior manager-corporate IT, Voltas. That almost-constant flow of data is making everyone’s work easier, especially since the integration with a call center. “First, the call center logs a complaint on our Web portal, which ties back to our ERP and a decision regarding component requirements is made,” says Wadke. “From here it goes to service provider who then allocates work.” At the furthest end of this chain, a technician receives an SMS alerting him to check the app on his phone. Information related to a service call is available through the app including whether a product is still under warranty and previous complaints, among others. Once a service technician takes on a case, that update is visible to the call center, which is then armed to respond to customer queries. But Voltas’ third-party service strategy had inherent challenges: their technicians were spread across a nation with 23 official languages and they were not all English speakers. And that became an IT problem. It was not feasible for Voltas to create applications in all those languages. English was chosen as the standard for the interface. Their answer was to pare down the app to a minimum – two pages – to reduce the amount of English training that Voltas needed to do. Junnarkar says it took a few months to train the technicians to use the English interface and get out of the “SMS mentality”.
I don’t think many service engineers can afford smartphones, so we had to ensure that the app could run on multiple mobile operating systems and on varying screen sizes and different orientations.
The hassle has been worth it. With a budget under Rs 50-lakh (includes both hardware and software costs) Voltas has a mobile app that meets the needs of their customers. And it can cater to an unlimited number of service technicians. The mobile solution has slashed Voltas’ service cycle times by 50 percent (which means that a service technician can take on twice as many calls as he could before) and customer satisfaction has shot up. Now Voltas is piloting a sales CRM app which will run on internal employee smartphones. “This (mobiles) is the need of the hour. Because the technology is getting popular so fast, we have to take advantage of it to business our benefit. This is the way to go.” Asmita Junnarkar, CIO, Voltas, used low-end phones – instead of handing out expensive smartphones.
