Three IIoT Use Cases That Improve Your NPS

Today’s industrial service teams are experiencing a dramatic shift in how their businesses interact with customers. Not too long ago, servicers could gain their customers’ loyalty by simply reacting to equipment issues as they occurred. But due to the rapid pace of technological innovation, customer expectations for support have evolved, resulting in more stringent service level agreements. At the same time, industrial service technicians encounter more complex and highly varied equipment, which put metrics like firsttime- fix-rates(FTFR) and mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) in jeopardy.

As you’re striving to exceed customers’ expectations and increase customer-centric metrics, such as retention rates and Net Promoter Scores (NPS), it is imperative to think about your service offerings, processes, and people in new ways. One proven approach to increase your customer satisfaction metrics is to build beneficial relationships by better understanding and anticipating customers’ needs.

Gaining this type of knowledge is made possible with the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT-enabled service unlocks in-depth, actionable insights into usage so your team can improve interactions with customers and better their service experiences.

As a key enabling technology, IIoT can alleviate the challenges associated with providing fast, efficient customer support. Explore how service leaders have incorporated strategies that directly address the major influencing factors of NPS—and see how IIoT can be your ultimate tool for driving improvements to customer satisfaction.

Beverage companies aim to satisfy millions of end-consumers across the world every day, providing high-quality drinks with every pour.

To achieve this and ensure a consistent brand experience, beverage companies purchase dispensing equipment, such as taps and coolers, from manufacturers and supply them to bars, breweries, and restaurants. But between the time a drink is ordered and served, many unseen factors can negatively affect consumer satisfaction. Without seeing vital information at the point of sale, companies struggle to control the product quality and ensure equipment uptime. Equipment issues can cause taps and revenue to run dry.

CELLI GROUP

Celli Group, an Italian manufacturer and service provider for beverage dispensing equipment, understood that this lack of visibility into the performance of taps, coolers, and dispensers was a major issue for their enterprise customers. It was imperative to develop new value-added service offerings tailored to their customers’ needs. At the same time, it was an opportunity for Celli Group to transform its business model to become more servicecentric.

Leveraging the PTC ThingWorx IIoT Solutions platform, Celli Group developed IntelliDraught, a connected beverage distribution system that turns manufactured or already-installed equipment into smart devices. By adding sensors to their fountains, taps, coolers, and other equipment, IntelliDraught can collect real-time data insights that their enterprise customers can use to ensure equipment readiness.

IntelliDraught offers visibility into equipment performance by monitoring operating conditions and automatically alerting the Celli Service Division to potential problems. With live access to real-time data, the technicians can remotely inspect and program sanitation checks, control refrigeration and temperature, and monitor power consumption levels. These predictive and preventative maintenance capabilities enable Celli Group customers to avoid downtime that wastes inventory and incurs costs.

Celli Group's Real-World Results from IIoT-Based Service 13% reduction in equipment failures

For researchers and laboratories across the world, the significance of microscopes to their work can never be overstated.

As an essential instrument to furthering modern scientific discoveries, performance expectations are high, especially considering their price range of $500,000 to $1.5 million. Given their cost, core-imaging facilities share the expenses by populating a single-facility with microscopes and renting out equipment access for use by other departments and labs. In the event that unplanned downtime occurs, research projects can be delayed, in-progress tests can be rendered null and void, and the facility cannot collect its fees until the equipment is repaired. Failing at first-time fixes is the fastest way to deteriorate customers’ trust and compromise contract renewals.

ZEISS

The gravity of their service timeliness was not lost on Zeiss, a leading commercial microscope company known for its expert, white-glove service. Zeiss dispatched service engineers across the world to address customer downtime issues. The slightest delay in repair response time could put the next scientific breakthrough at risk. But even with a focus on fast dispatch, without critical device information, service engineers were not always able to solve issues in a single visit, leading to prolonged downtime that costs the customer more of their time and money.

For Zeiss to achieve its customer satisfaction objectives, their service needed to embark on a digital transformation. With the use of ThingWorx, Zeiss established its remote condition monitoring program to gain visibility into real-time machine performance and translate data into actionable insights.

Remote machine diagnostics provide Zeiss’s 800 service engineers across the world with the information needed to assess the root cause of issues and quickly and correctly fix them the first time, no matter their location. Armed with actionable insights on equipment in the field, service engineers come prepared with the pertinent knowledge, relevant tools, and right parts to successfully complete the repair in the first dispatch. By solving issues properly in a single visit, customers feel more confident in Zeiss’s expertise and satisfied with their support, which the company can parlay into renewals and referrals.

Zeiss's Real-World Results from IIoT-Based Service: 7% improvement to first-time fix rates within 13 months

In recent years, Bell and Howell, one of the largest and most sophisticated service organizations in the world, found themselves at a critical growth-stress point.

The company had experienced tremendous growth, thanks to the strength of its comprehensive automation solutions for the financial, industrial, and public sectors. Bell and Howell also offered robust service capabilities, providing around-the-clock customer service and tech support for over 30,000 assets manufactured by more than 30 OEMs. Yet, business leaders knew that in order to unlock the next level of growth, they needed to deliver even more customer value. To accomplish this, the company needed to overcome significant service inefficiencies.

BELL AND HOWELL

When customers experienced an issue and contacted Bell and Howell for support, the call center initiated a service ticket, assigning it to the next technician available for dispatch. This multi-step, manual process for servicing machines lead to longer response times, which hindered the company’s ability to provide value-add services to their customers.

Keenly aware that the advancement of their strategic objectives required an IIoT solution, Bell and Howard leveraged ThingWorx to create BH Connect, the company’s premier connected service offering. As a comprehensive suite of service capabilities, including remote condition monitoring, diagnostics, and repair, BH Connect allowed the company to directly address lengthy service response times, a major area of customer concern.

Through the use of remote machine diagnostics, the company gained visibility into real-time performance, historical data, and contextual information. With this critical information on equipment in the field, technicians can provide remote assistance to customers by diagnosing their issue accurately, identifying the cause, and providing a quick resolution. The ability to complete equipment repairs remotely and avoid travel to customer sites has shortened average response times from 2.5 hours to just 90 minutes. For customers, faster service translates to maximum equipment uptime and minimal interruptions—two vital components of their overall satisfaction with Bell and Howell’s support.

Bell and Howell's Real-World Results from IIoT-Based Service: 60% reduction in mean time to repair

Customer satisfaction is a critical priority for industrial companies in pursuit of growth and differentiation in the face of ever-changing markets and increased competition. Even modest improvements to service efficiency can have a massive impact, making the difference between NPS or low levels of retention. Under immense pressure, service organizations must be prepared to meet the demand for smarter offerings that deliver exactly what customers want—service that anticipates their needs, supports their ongoing objectives, and eliminates obstacles to success.

With no guarantee that their existing systems and technologies can contribute to greater performance and quality improvements, many service organizations reach a critical juncture—maintain the status-quo or transform. IIoT-enabled service provides the capabilities to meet and exceed these expectations by cutting customer downtime, accelerating service repair times, and improving technicians’ ability to fix issues correctly the first time.

Learn how IIoT can help your service organization improve NPS and customer satisfaction metrics.

Explore the Survey Analysis: The Top Five Ways the IIoT Enables Enterprise-Wide Innovation to see how key competitive drivers intersect with IIoT benefits to increase enterprise-wide innovation, profits, and customer success.