How to Improve Time to Resolution (TTR) for Manufacturing Customer Service

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. So, let’s begin with one:

For engineers in the manufacturing industry, the picture above is a fairly accurate representation of the sheer volume of systems, data, and information they use on a day-to-day basis.

With so much information spread across so many different locations, file types, and languages, finding an answer to a question or a solution to a problem can turn into an hours long hunt. But for customer support engineers, they simply don’t have that time.

TTR and the Problem of Exploding Data

TTR (Time to Resolution) is a key metric for customer support centers. The more quickly a problem can be resolved, the happier the customer, and the more loyal they feel. In order to reduce TTR, customer support engineers need as much information as possible, as quickly as possible. We call this a 360 view of the technical event.

If a customer calls with an issue regarding a specific part, the customer service agent will need to find everything they can about not just the part and the incident (is this a documented problem we’ve resolved before?), but also the client, their contract details, and previous interactions. They might also need to locate an expert on the part, or someone who has addressed a similar problem recently.

Here’s an example of just a few of the questions a customer support engineer would need to answer with speed and accuracy:

• What are the recommendations for this incident?
• What are the lessons learned about this particular part or system?
• Where is the latest version of this client’s contract?
• Who has already repaired this part or those of the same family?
• Who are the experts on this part?

To get all of this information, an agent might need to log in to multiple systems (a CRM database, incident logs, reporting systems, etc.…) and sift through an ever-growing collection of data. All while the client waits on the other end of the line.

Intelligent Search to the Rescue

The solution for manufacturing customer support engineers is to give them a single point of access for all of their information needs. This comes in the form of an intelligent search platform – one that can ingest, enrich, and organize content and data from any source, in any format and language. And one that can understand and extract concepts specific to manufacturing to deliver the relevancy and make the connections that support engineers require.