Your service co-pilot, driving lower-touch, higher-satisfaction service experiences: Aquant

Providing great service is hard. It requires a skilled workforce, ever-changing technology, a ton of institutional knowledge, and the ability to measure effectiveness. These requirements also make good service expensive. But poor service is even costlier. It leads to sub-par customer experiences, higher service costs, and increased workforce turnover. In 2016 Shahar Chen and Assaf Melochna founded Aquant to solve these longstanding service challenges. They gathered a team of data experts and service veterans to create Service Intelligence Software. Aquant’s platform is the next evolution in field service management software.

The AI-powered platform improves service outcomes while also decreasing the cost of service. Service Intelligence provides the right information at the right time, so service leaders, techs, and customer service reps can make accurate decisions with greater confidence.

Time’s up. Why You Need to Shift Left Now 

The ability to accurately solve service issues quickly while using fewer resources is critical if organizations are to stay competitive. Only those who are able to navigate a rapidly-evolving service landscape, which includes changes to customer demands, workforce shortages, and economic factors, will survive. 

Customer expectations are rising significantly. Not only do customers demand a more immediate response, they expect the opportunity to self-serve and fix simple issues themselves without having to escalate an issue. According to the Salesforce State of Service report, 48% of customers have switched brands for better customer service, and 94% say good customer service makes them more likely to make another purchase. Organizations that understand this and take the initiative to respond accordingly will lead the market. 

The talent shortage and widening skills gap is further exacerbating service issues. More-tenured technicians are retiring faster than their replacements can enter the workforce—so the challenge is to upskill less-experienced workers quickly. On average, bottom performers cost organizations 67% more than top performers. In addition, the variance between top- and bottom-ranking companies has increased. The bottom line? Companies need to pay attention to the skills gap more than ever. If everyone had the knowledge and skills to perform like the top 20% of the workforce, service costs would be reduced by 21%. Teams that look at the bigger picture and approach service cases more strategically can address these issues.

The engagement crisis is just as bad. Data from the Service Council’s Voice of the Field Service Engineer survey reveals that 65% of Gen Z, 67% of Gen Y, and 54% of Gen X are either not sure they’re going to be or won’t be field engineers for the duration of their career, 40% of which are leaving the role within the next three years. Simply put, most teams won’t have enough resources to resolve a case via dispatch, therefore phone resolutions or self-service may be an organization’s only option. 

Lastly, economic uncertainty and rising costs are affecting every part of service. Successful teams know that these external factors are out of their control but they’re adjusting their operations and investing in the right technology to combat these issues. The very best organizations are taking it one step further by addressing the pressures to prioritize ESG initiatives. They understand that customers care about corporate social responsibility. Not only are they shifting left to avoid a costly dispatch, but they’re shifting left to reduce carbon emissions resulting from a truck roll. 

Why workforce management is important

Given the needs of today’s organizations, companies are making the decision to move beyond traditional workforce management tools. They need smart software, like Service Intelligence, that can help them accomplish all of the above and more. Service intelligence platforms like Aquant use technology that organizes and analyzes traditional service data and institutional knowledge from its highest-performing employees. 

Powered by their own data, service intelligence platforms can provide workforce reporting, asset reporting, customer success reporting, and troubleshooting and triage tools. This offers entire organizations – from executives to technicians – access to custom reports, analyses, and insights that can change the way they deliver service. 

Service intelligence platforms are an excellent form of workforce management solutions. Platforms like Aquant allow organizations to:

• Identify technician training needs. Service intelligence platforms account for all details around a technician’s performance, including customer information, assets, number of visits, success rates, and more. This provides real context into the technician’s performance, especially when it comes to identifying strengths and areas for improvement. Managers can then assign techs more projects that highlight their skills, as well as provide resources for improving their performance in other areas. 
• Upskill technicians with the help of troubleshooting tools. Effectively sharing knowledge among teams is the key to service success. Service intelligence platforms can upskill employees by keeping historical service data, tribal knowledge, equipment manuals, and more in one place – and making it accessible to anyone who needs to find it. This functionality can teach junior technicians quickly and boost technician performance across the board. 
• Support every team within an organization, from engineering to product to field technicians. For an organization to run smoothly, all departments need to work in tandem. And when it comes to information about your assets, any data that you can provide your team is invaluable. For example, your Service team needs insights to run the business, Engineering depends on product feedback, Marketing utilizes insights to inform messaging and campaigns, and Sales benefits from intel on customer satisfaction. Gleaning the right type of insights from your data ensures that all teams have the information they need to do their job well and ultimately create an optimal customer experience.
• Give teams insights (and context!) into customer needs and their journeys. Objectivity is everything. Taking a look at the raw data can provide predictive reporting that informs preventative maintenance – and, by proxy, a stellar customer experience. Say goodbye to unnecessary escalations and hello to memorable customer service.  

The end result? A clear shift from traditional, break-fix service – right into predictive service that’s informed by real analytics. 

Shahar Chen, CEO & CO-FOUNDER

“Our prescriptive analytics and intelligent troubleshooting tools enable a ‘shift left’ approach to reduce strain on your resources at each touch point across the service cycle to improve your bottom line.”