Using Artificial Intelligence to assist field agents on site.
For any business with field service agents, sending specialists out to clients is a substantial expense. Yet, for physical tasks such as machine maintenance, call-outs and engineering, AI may seem like a redundant tool. Learn how our team leveraged a Native Video solution to drastically reduce admin burdens and site visits for one of our clients.
Built on the Salesforce platform, Native Video offers an abundance of solutions for efficient data capture and productive field service. We employed these to tackle three key challenges for a world-leading engineering firm.
Challenge 1: Reduce the admin burden for field engineers
When one of our clients tasked us with the challenge of simplifying and standardising their technician reporting, we employed Alfred, Native Video’s new transcription assistant, to transform their process.
Alfred’s speciality is turning field agents’ spoken report into text, which can then be automatically transferred to a record in Salesforce. This means that, in lieu of manually making notes on the job and then having to summarise and amend, the tool captures the detail effortlessly in the moment, and then instantly creates an executive summary with an AI component which formats it all then and there. As field service exists in countless specialist industries, field-specific vocabulary can even be taught to Alfred for optimal accuracy and machine learning. Our team integrated Alfred with our client’s existing Sales Cloud instance, creating a visit report template to effortlessly capture vital details from each call-out or check-up.
“Imagine, you’re walking around, doing your job, taking notes, you get back, you could be missing detail. It might even take you an hour to edit and document your activity once the visit is over. Whereas [with Alfred] this is done in seconds.” – Tim Lock, Salesforce Consultant at Performa IT
If the average typing speed is 40 words per minute, and a person may be able to speak at a rate of around 150 words per minute, then this is already around a 25% increase in efficiency, without even taking additional editing time into account!
Challenge 2: Eliminate the need for unnecessary call-outs
Native Video allows customers to send in videos of the fault/problem for remote diagnosis and assistance. By opting for an app integration with declarative set up and some modified flows, you could be saving your company thousands on an annual basis.
“Costs for sending out field agents can quickly soar into the hundreds, especially for international businesses. Seeing a problem with a video and sound, think of the saving made as opposed to sending someone out to location.” – Tim Lock, Salesforce Consultant at Performa IT
Challenge 3: Upgrade the recruitment process to qualify candidates effortlessly
With the use of Native Video’s TalentVideo, growing firms can streamline their recruitment process by generating links for video interviews where candidates are provided with pre-written questions to submit straight into Salesforce. We used this tool to enhance the existing hiring process, allowing collaborative reviews on applications and enhancing the applicant experience. These examples are simply the tip of the iceberg for leveraging AI functionality to support your field service agents. If your company is looking to reduce costs associated with field service, or perhaps scale your recruitment efforts, give us a call on 0117 230 2390 or email us at hello@performa-it.co.uk.
British manufacturer of Rigid Inflatable Boats and high-spec Super-yacht Tenders
Based in Dartmouth, UK
Serving the UK leisure market and international high net worth clients
Value added by Performa IT
Engaged in 2017
Basic Salesforce implementation
On-going Salesforce app development, integration, maintenance and support
Implementation of Salesforce Service Cloud
Agile development approach
Ribeye’s Background with Salesforce
In 2017 Ribeye chose Salesforce to help them make the leap into the world of automated CRM to manage their sales processes.
At the time Salesforce itself recommended Performa IT as an implementation partner, to help Ribeye get up and running with the platform.
With a shared passion for all things RIB, Performa IT clearly demonstrated a keen understanding and enthusiasm for Ribeye’s business and have been ‘on-board’ ever since as the manufacturer’s trusted Salesforce partner and adviser.
Here Ribeye’s After Sales and Customer Experience Manager Martyn Ruskin describes how Performa IT have helped the company expand their application of Salesforce in the organisation.
Ribeye’s Challenge: meeting the expectations of high-end customers
Having achieved a smoother sales process with the CRM implementation, Ribeye had begun to present an increasingly transparent and professional approach with their customer base.
Martyn highlights: “Salesforce helped drive more informed and personal conversations with individual customers which definitely increased our professionalism.”
Explaining Ribeye’s latest challenge Martyn says: “The business has grown from a small team of boat builders to a small manufacturer aiming at a top end market.
“Managing 9 or 10 people, making small leisure boats for a small audience, is one thing – but when we started to reach out to the super-yacht market and attend events like the Monaco Boat Show, we knew our existing manufacturing process and management was going to trip us up.
“We were moving into a manufacturing world where high-end customers look at the business from every angle – and want to know if we’re as high-end as they are.
“Our ‘cottage industry’ approach to design and manufacture was unsustainable at this level.”
Ribeye’s requirement:
Ribeye’s overarching business objective is to be the Number One Super-Yacht and leisure Tender manufacturer in the world. This includes the best British-built boats, the best quality and the best customer experience.
“For customers to feel like they’ve spent their money in the right place we needed to establish the right systems that would help us portray the precision, quality and reliability we wish to be recognised for,” Martyn says.
“We wanted to build on our Salesforce CRM success and were looking to use the platform to encompass more of the design, manufacturing and scheduling process, as well as ramp up quality control and improve the customer experience.”
Why Performa IT?
Reflecting on why Performa IT continue to be Ribeye’s trusted technical partner well after the basic Salesforce implementation, Martyn says: “We have a really good relationship with Performa IT. They are a similar size to our organisation, and they understand small business issues and the big picture that we want to get to.
“Unlike other service providers Performa IT are very open and transparent in the way they quote for work and are flexible with commercial options to make it as cost-effective as possible for us.
“It’s refreshing to work with a long-term solution-focussed partner with the capability to bring the business’s vision to life.”
Performa IT implementation approach
“Performa IT’s approach tends to follow the same template regardless of the project,” comments Martyn.
“We’ll meet for a day to go through business requirements and how we want Salesforce to work for us in whatever aspect.
“Performa IT are always happy to take on ideas and never poo-poo anything. Although if we asked for a system that makes the moon spin anti-clockwise they would have something to say about it! But that level of challenge and push-back is important too.
“After the requirements meeting Performa IT will then produce a flow diagram and a project plan and we’ll review it and revise it together. There can be a lot of iterations but nothing is too much trouble.
“From inception to making it live and applying whatever necessary tweaks can be a period of weeks or months. We have a direct line into the development team so communication throughout is excellent.
“In the case of our After Sales solution we were playing with it in the sandbox after a fortnight, and then were up and running with it in production after a month! This is pretty quick considering the processes didn’t exist at Ribeye beforehand.”
Solutions
TaskRay
TaskRay is a project management module that integrates with the Salesforce platform. Describing its introduction to the business Martyn says: “Performa IT were brilliant in supporting the selection process for our project management capability.
“They attended the sales presentations and were able to ask the technical questions necessary. We shortlisted two Salesforce extension modules before finally choosing TaskRay.
“Performa IT then helped us to integrate it, and it’s turned out to be a real asset in the manufacturing process.
“With all the different elements from inception through to custom parts, fit-out and pre-delivery inspections managed from this hub TaskRay helps us improve how we work on every build.”
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud is the core platform supporting the After Sales system.
Describing this solution Martyn says: “After Sales helps us manage customer warranties and manufacturing quality cases.
“Performa IT built a platform where we can log any incidents and manage the case through from first report to resolution, using status flags, media and written commentary from the build-team.
“During the build phase the system gathers all quality issues which can then be rectified.
“Our South Africa-based build partner has a licence to view a subset of our system so they can also take action as soon as required.
“If there’s a warranty problem, such as a customer informing us of a faulty product, this is logged in the system also and appears on the dashboard ready to be acted upon.”
Quality Control app integration
To capture extra detail in the quality control process Performa IT developed an app that the build team can use to log information.
“This is automatically uploaded into the After Sales platform so it can be tracked and resolved,” says Martyn.
“Having access to detailed information means that we can generate the kind of reports that add massive value to our decision-making, and often challenge our preconceptions and assumptions about our product performance.”
Benefits of Performa IT’s implementations
Mindset shift around quality
“The emphasis on quality control and the visibility of quality check data means that we cannot hide from problems,” comments Martyn.
“The whole team is involved and has accountability for addressing quality issues. This shift in mindset results in quicker fixes and better quality going out of the door.”
The true cost of warranties
“Often, a part under warranty costs a few pence, but the actual replacement of it can run to many pounds once a service visit and associated expenses are factored in,” Martyn explains.
“It is vital that we can properly cost out warranties to monitor our prices and After Sales expenditure. The information we capture in the After Sales system gives us the cold hard facts.”
Increased visibility
“The reports we have specified in Salesforce enable us to truly gauge what our biggest production problems are,” says Martyn.
“For example we may have assumed that a certain boat model is our most reliable, but then we discover through the system that it actually has 77 production issues as opposed to just 32 in a different model.
“The reports enable us to drill down by areas of the boat and by equipment, man-power, routine and system to pin-point the problem and take steps to sort it out.
“Our senior team can see what’s in front of them and have the right conversations with the necessary people.”
New Possibilities arising for Ribeye from Performa IT’s Salesforce expertise
Fulfilling customer requests and non-standard specifications
“Now that we’ve got the Sales and the After Sales pieces implemented, we can sort out the bit in the middle!” says Martyn.
“To avoid customer specifications and requests getting lost in the build process Performa IT’s next project is to automatically populate customer requests into the necessary places for the design and build stages. This ensures the requests go along the production line properly and get in front of the right technicians.”
Driving production
Explaining how Ribeye are going to push their production line harder Martyn says: “Performa IT are building a means to upload timesheets into Salesforce that will reflect the true cost of builds in hours.
“Salesforce is definitely becoming a more all-encompassing platform in our business – all focussed on customer satisfaction, build quality and the ability to improve our processes.”
Recommendation
“Performa IT are always available to pick up the phone and talk! It’s never too much trouble to help us and they never leave us waiting for too long,” Martyn says.
“I would definitely recommend Performa IT to get up and running with Salesforce – in fact, I recommended them to my father setting up his new business!”
Performa IT says
“It is a real privilege to be supporting a true, luxury British manufacturing brand that have a really good product and a really good business.
“Ribeye have made an excellent start with Salesforce in their CRM and Sales activities. The fact that they can use the same platform for their After Sales processes to drive up quality and customer satisfaction is extremely exciting.
“They are a few short steps away from total digital transformation Salesforce style!”
Tom Raffield is a high end luxury furniture manufacturing business based in Cornwall. Started by the cutting edge artist and designer maker Tom Raffield. Who works with wood using his self perfected methods of steam bending, to produce unique pieces of furniture & lighting.
Tom Raffield has perfected processes to create furniture and lighting by steam bending a variety of woods, chiefly temperate hardwoods including ash, oak and walnut. Tom Raffields products are sold both online, direct to consumers. And through a network of high end high street retailers such as John Lewis.
The Obstacle
The business required a scalable solution to serve both trade & retail customers to manage orders & drive sales. The solution specifically had to integrate with their manufacturing & inventory management platform “Unleashed”. Which they had been using for a number of years. The business had been utilising spreadsheets to manage its sales pipelines, however this was not a scaleable solution for the rapid business growth plans.
We faced the challenge of providing a solution to manage both the B2B Trade customers and their B2C direct to website customers. The solution would also need to be able to integrate with the existing Unleashed Inventory Management already in place.
The solution would have to integrate with the B2C Shopify Website so B2C customer information could be stored, including order information for later use in data segmentation and targeted marketing campaigns. In order to achieve this we were required to create a connection to their existing Campaign Monitor mass email Marketing platform.
Our Solution
A Sales Cloud implementation to match both B2C and B2B channels, web to Lead and Lead Management in Salesforce, implementing a Zapier integration between Shopify and Salesforce combined with the Standard Unleashed Salesforce integration app used to sync Products and Prices between Unleashed and Salesforce.
Performa IT built a managed package deployed to provide access to the CPQ in Unleashed when quoting in Salesforce, send orders to / generate orders in Unleashed and provide an up to the minute sync between Unleashed orders and Salesforce opportunities.
Campaign Monitor for Salesforce integration app deployed to connect both systems and keep contacts in sync.
Tom Raffields results
The business is now able to access a single view of all customers on a single platform. Without manual intervention, or import/export of data. Overall the speed of order processing dramatically improved due to time being saved manually managing the data. This resulted in better customer service and satisfaction (dealing with order post sales). Up to date data improved communications between warehouse, the dispatch team and the sales team. And the marketing campaigns became even more targeted with minimal manual intervention moving data between systems.
Now the data is in one place, this means that Tom Raffield sales staff have fewer systems to use and so can be trained up faster, make fewer errors and focus on customers not system navigation. In long term resulting in lower training costs. The business has since doubled in size!
