The service management industry has an expertise problem. Specifically, the industry faces rising rates of retiring technicians. While this problem isn’t unique to service, it’s pronounced—currently turnover is at 31%—in a market where hard-earned skills are fundamental to success. 

The causes for the skills gap are myriad across technical fields. In Michigan alone, the department of labor has identified 80,000 technical jobs open due to lack of available applicants. Compounding this challenge is the increasing complexity and variation of products that require maintenance and repair services. 

Each year, Aberdeen Group conducts a survey focused on understanding the impact of these pressures on the service management industry. The big takeaway in their 2018 report? Augmented Reality (AR) is quickly becoming the service management industry’s secret weapon in the battle to preserve, enhance and replenish their pool of expertise.  

The survey report provides quantifiable evidence that the best-performing service management companies are making a proportionally larger investment in Augmented Reality than their peers. Consider AR-powered procedural guidance, which uses AR goggles to project and lock a virtual overlay of step-by-step instructions onto serviceable assets for richly interactive assistance. Best-in-class service management companies are adopting those solutions at twice the rate of others.  

AR Procedural Guidance, enabled by Microsoft HoloLens and PTC’s Vuforia Studio. 

Market leaders are also favoring AR-enabled remote assisted guidance, which connects pairs of remote users via smartphone and tablet apps, enabling them to view and annotate each other’s environments for richer collaboration and knowledge sharing. The best-in-class service management leaders are nearly one-third more likely than their peers to have already deployed these types of solutions. 

See how AR Remote Assisted Guidance works. 

Of course, early adoption of new technologies isn’t worth much without getting a return on investment. Here, Aberdeen found a strong correlation between recent investments in AR and improved outcomes, including compliance, resolution times and customer satisfaction. While AR is still in its early stages, the service management industry has recognized that there are valuable AR applications with promising value.  

To get your copy of the Aberdeen report and discover additional insights, such as the complementary role of industrial IoT and AR for service, and factors that contribute to rapid, low-cost deployment of AR, register using the link below.