Skip to main content

are BOTs your buddies?


For years my work has been focused on elevating the conditions for the last mile of the field workers. The most recent chapter, which started a couple of years ago, has been around taking advantage of the consumerization of asset-based digital fingerprints. Many refer to this as IoT or the Internet of things. While the concept of IoT is not new the amount of information which we are collecting, essentially based on the affordability of the event producer, is tremendous. However, we now have to make actionable this information in a meaningful and relevant way which compels a different outcome at the point of service. This interaction with the field worker is the area which has piqued my interest regarding the use of conversational bots.



When you start to conduct research you discover that these bots (computer-based logical routines and conversational threads) are operating all around you. Sometimes people confuse these bots with sophisticated search algorithms, this is not the area that had any interest to me. Instead, the bot, in my mind, can be used to take advantage of and make meaningful the correlation between a multitude of transactional systems (work order, accounting, CRM, etc.).  Transactional systems can reside either within or outside of your computing environments. One of the greatest advantages, which struck me immediately, was the ability to simply carry on a conversation with a field worker. In the background predicting and guiding the field worker through bots based responses. Why should a field worker be concerned with what system they have to enter this… or go to find that?  As I begin to explore the technology this humanistic conversation based approach, it dawned on me that our possibilities were endless. Not only can we apply these bots, and their underlying algorithms and machine learning routines to field workers, but also apply it to sales, project crews, etc.  Anyplace that we needed to correlate and leverage transactional systems in our daily working routines.  So are the bots coming?  Yes, I believe in the next few years we will see bots everywhere performing small functions and helping us consume multiple perspectives so we as humans can make better decisions.  Are you ready?



-----

Next post:  technical service crew mix

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

entusiastic about preventative maintenance

Why do I really care if my field technicians are enthusiastic or not? When you look at a person's work output, as directly related to workforce sciences, you come up with three primary ingredients required to achieve your desired results.   These ingredients are; attitudes, attributes, and capabilities and when mixed properly with enabling tools can yield unbelievable outputs. So what does any of this have to do with routine maintenance? If your maintenance routines actually become way too routine then pretty soon performance will be replaced with complacency. In order to keep any piece of equipment running as trouble-free as possible the maintenance performed, and the thoroughness of the inspection and tasks at hand, have a direct impact on the asset's life expectancy.   There are some strategies that help service organizations keep the enthusiasm at all-time highs. Switch techs from time to time :   One of the best ways to ensure maintenance is being performed...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's the little details

As overwhelmed Oscar sits in his office, surrounded by piles of overdue work order tickets to review and material orders to procure, his heart yearns to give the customer anything they want, yet the tools at his disposal make it difficult. On this relatively ordinary day Oscar receives a phone call from a marquee customer. This new customer has multiple locations and has asked for just three pieces of information every time a person visits their sites to perform service or maintenance. Oscar gathers his thoughts as he prepares to discuss this seemingly small challenge with reluctant Ruth, the dispatcher who has been with the organization for decades, Ruth can be a bit of a curmudgeon. Oscar does appreciate the inconvenience of gathering unexpected information both for the field worker as well as the back office.   A seemingly great example of ending up between a rock and a hard place. In a world of perfect harmony where all customers, work orders, and requests are exactly...
Post a Comment
Read more

is AI making your labor a commodity?

The year is 2028 and the leadership team was gathering for our annual "forward - back" meeting; a key component of our culture reinforcing the commitment to trust and transparency. Technocrat Tom starts off by reflecting on the impact of our decision to transition to conditions-based service delivery, leveraging IoT and intelligent systems. Tom reflects back over the last decade and shares his thoughts: The fact is our customers have always trusted us, we have taken great efforts in building relationships and always doing the right thing.   Over the last decade, learning models leveraging the data which we facilitated by installing IoT devices, are shifting the "system smarts" from the service provider to the intelligence-based solutions (ironic).   We had to change the customer perception of us from being only the tuba player to the band leader, essentially anything they need to run their facility.   Here is how we transformed: Trusted service ...
Post a Comment
Read more