How Volvo put Apple Watch on the middle of its companies imaginative and prescient
In what may very well be a blueprint for digital transformation, Volvo is equipping service technicians with Apple Watch to assist construct buyer success outcomes — and it is working.
Volvo Sweden
Volvo has unleashed a giant enchancment in buyer satisfaction after equipping its 1,500 service engineers with an Apple Watch to make use of throughout their day. What, on the face of it, appears a small change displays intensive cultural change throughout the corporate, which is actively engaged in digital transformation throughout its enterprise.
What can an Apple Watch do for automobile servicing?
Volvo has outfitted its engineers (Personal Service Technicians) with an Apple Watch and iPhone (operating the Volvo Service app) to assist them work extra effectively than earlier than. The firm’s major focus is to enhance customer support, because it acknowledges that technicians are the principle level of buyer contact throughout the lifetime of the Volvo they drive.
So, how can an Apple Watch in a storage enhance customer support?
- In use, the engineer will obtain a Notification when a buyer arrives on the storage with their automobile.
- The watch will present the client’s identify, related notes, and automobile particulars.
- During the restore, engineers can entry data — and as soon as the restore is full, they will straight name the client to inform them.
- They can even schedule and make a subsequent follow-up name.
The profit is that with all this data being made obtainable by the Watch (and accompanying iPhone app), engineers don’t want to make use of printed data, or entry a PC to remain updated. That’s not solely time-consuming, however studying tips on how to use these methods takes up time. The firm instructed me it took as much as 6 months to coach new recruits on the 15 completely different IT methods Volvo used earlier than.
Now, because of good evaluation and good integration of legacy methods, what technicians have to know is all the time with them.
“With Apple Watch, I have everything I need for my job right on my wrist,” said Johnnie Andersson, a personal service technician for Volvo.” It’s also way easier to train a new technician on the Apple Watch and the iPhone than our desktop systems.”
The result’s that paperwork doesn’t disappear, technicians/engineers can keep centered, important buyer contact data aren’t misplaced and engineers all the time have readability and goal.
It all sounds so easy. It ought to sound easy. But it isn’t easy.
The app displays a cultural shift inside Volvo itself.
Simplicity by design
“Sometimes when you try to do things in the easiest way, you gain innovation out of it,” mentioned Sanna Lindström, Volvo Car Sweden’s head of digital transformation.
But making one thing easy out of one thing complicated required humble understanding. It didn’t imply countless committee conferences, however did require the corporate to maneuver past conventional, hierarchical administration practices and interact with the true wants of the individuals on the entrance finish of buyer contact.
Some would possibly mirror that the evolution of Volvo’s Apple Watch Service app started when the corporate launched the customer-facing Volvo Cars app, which lets drivers open doorways, set local weather, and begin the automobile.
To perceive the importance of the transformation, think about how the corporate labored on the challenge. It’s an strategy that ought to kind a part of the blueprint for any firm looking for to digitise its personal enterprise.
The making of the Volvo Service app
Volvo’s digital crew is comparatively small. I spoke with Lindström, Digitalisation Director Markus Lundström, and Erik Bylund, head of tech and structure to find how they approached the challenge.
The very first thing to know is that the crew labored in a sort of scrum trend. While they’d some concepts regarding what they thought they’d construct, in addition they acknowledged the necessity to take their lead from the individuals who do the job.
While the intention was to spice up buyer relationships by serving to technicians spend extra time with the client than with the PC, the corporate understood that these on the entrance finish knew higher than anybody what was required. “It was important to address the problems they actually have, not the problems we thought they had,” they mentioned.
Volvo’s groups perceive that relevance and context are important to profitable digital practices.
To construct an answer technicians would use, the groups watched what individuals truly did in the course of the day, quite than catering to the duties they thought or imagined technicians needs to be doing.
This is the proper strategy. Everyone who has dabbled on the sting of digital transformation acknowledges that new digital processes that add complexity should not solely counter-productive — they don’t get used. “We chose to focus on the necessary,” Volvo defined.
‘To concentrate on the precise wants’
The crew discovered that engineers needed and wanted contextual data. They didn’t want the interruption of leaving the job at hand to entry a PC, carry printouts, discover buyer contact particulars, or the rest.
In truth, the outdated means of working actually bought in the way in which. The analysis confirmed that to do their job properly, technicians wanted to be cellular for 40% of the day, shifting within the workshop, talking with prospects, or visiting stockrooms for components. Scuttling again to the PC for data interrupted workflow.
Another temptation the crew prevented was over-specification. It’s simple to think about how helpful an app may be if it has all doable data, however even the act of going by an excessive amount of data will get in the way in which.
That’s one thing Volvo discovered. It noticed that engineers didn’t wish to be encumbered with an excessive amount of data — their working lives have been busy sufficient already — they merely needed entry to what they wanted once they required it.
They wanted to know the automobile, the issue, and the client. They have to know the place by way of job completion the challenge is, which prospects want a follow-up name and which car that they labored on belonged to a buyer. If they need extra knowledge, they will get it, however the necessities turn out to be extra helpful extra of the time.
As they got here to know these wants, the crew noticed how an Apple Watch would supply a helpful adjunct to an iPhone app, significantly to individuals utilizing their fingers to work. They noticed that the watch might present technicians with important contextual data when wanted.
In an period outlined by mobility, why ought to engineers traipse over to a PC for the knowledge they want? Why use paper when you should use a show? Volvo selected Apple’s options for his or her superior safety and secure app growth environments.
The transfer to enhance 15 legacy methods with one accessible entrance finish additionally displays the worth of excellent administration of digital change. No firm can count on good outcomes if its methods are clunky, gradual, or exhausting to make use of.
In a digital age the place we reside just like the Jetsons at residence and (in some instances) the Flintstones at work, workflows that depend on a number of incompatible companies and purposes add friction, generate errors, and rarely ship the outcomes you want.
The UI must match goal. Volvo’s crew discovered tips on how to make its app seamlessly combine with a number of back-end IT methods. “Employees shouldn’t have to tolerate latency. The Volvo Service app integrates seamlessly with our backend systems, to give our technicians the data they need in real-time,” Bylund says.
The challenge delivered a number of advantages
The challenge is already producing optimistic outcomes. The firm instructed me that 80% of technicians who use the app have elevated their whole buyer satisfaction scores. Volvo additionally cites a 30% improve in post-service comply with up calls and emails to prospects, because of the tech pushing complicated processes out of the way in which.
Digitalization Director Markus Lundström mentioned: “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 firm additionally reported a 40% lower in paper printouts. Volvo is additionally seeing the technicians use their new equipment to get different duties achieved. “Some of our teams use the Walkie-Talkie feature to communicate with each other across the facility,” they mentioned.
But the principle outcome was Volvo’s major objective: “The Volvo Service App is creating huge interest across Volvo Cars globally. With Apple Watch our Personal Service Technicians can create stronger, closer relationships with customers.”
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