Your broadband company has received another help request. The agent has escalated it because no matter how hard they search, they can’t find the information they need to assist the customer with setup. The customer has grown increasingly frustrated as they can’t get their broadband internet up and working.
You have no choice but to send a team to their house to set it up for them, and they’re just one of many in the queue. You might be wondering how to reduce the need to deploy teams, or truck rolls, in the first place. After all, sending someone out to every customer’s home for initial setup isn’t scalable. Plus, it makes it challenging to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded broadband market.
There’s a better way. This post will go over the demand for broadband, what truck rolls are, why it’s crucial to reduce them and how to effectively reduce truck rolls for your business.
Ready to streamline your customer support?
The demand for broadband services
In 2022, internet usage increased by 66% from 2019. The pandemic and the rise of working from home created an unprecedented demand for broadband internet. This is primarily due to the demands of online learning and the need for digital meeting platforms like Webex and Zoom.
And the demand for broadband is only expected to increase. According to Kagan, the number of broadband-only households is expected to surge to 40.8 million by 2023.
All of this is good news for your business. However, if your customers are unable to find the information they need to set up broadband services independently at home, this can create a need for truck rolls. With so many people onboarding to broadband services, truck rolls aren’t sustainable for business growth. But what are truck rolls? And how do they impact your business?
What are truck rolls?
In the broadband industry, truck rolls refer to any time you have to send a team member to a customer’s home for the initial installation process. However, sending a team out for every initial setup isn’t sustainable for internet service providers serving millions of customers, especially as demand for broadband continues to grow. Therefore, it’s critical to reduce the need for truck rolls in the first place.
Why it’s important to reduce truck rolls
The initial setup and activation process is a critical point of your customer’s journey. Truck rolls can seriously hinder the customer experience. Below are a few reasons why it’s important for your business to reduce truck rolls.
Lower business costs
Sending a team to every customer’s house to assist with setup can create a huge business expense. Technician wages, travel time and wait times for contact centers can all add up quickly, especially when you have to deploy teams to multiple residences. Reducing truck rolls creates significant cost savings for broadband businesses.
Reduce security risks
Without taking the proper precautions to reduce truck rolls, contact center agents may lack access to the right tools to help customers. This may force them to resort to searching online forums for answers to customer inquiries.
The use of online forums or search engines can create cyber security risks. Providing agents with a secure, reliable resource to obtain necessary information can help them better assist customers without unnecessary security risks. It also ensures agents have access to reliable information.
Improve the customer experience
You want to make your customer’s setup process as seamless as possible. A study by New Northridge Group shows that more than 72% of customers are willing to switch to your competitor after just one bad experience. That’s why it’s vital to reduce the need for truck rolls in the first place. Reducing truck rolls also eliminates headaches for your business and your customers by saving time and energy.
Increase subscriptions
Reducing truck rolls makes it easier to drive subscriptions to your service offerings. Easy-to-follow self-serve tools help customers maximize the value of their home internet and value-added services. Robust support tools make it easy for internet service providers to deliver exceptional customer support for even the most complex service offerings.
How to reduce truck rolls
Truck rolls can be costly for businesses, both in terms of money and customer retention. So how can your company reduce the need for expensive truck rolls? Below are a few tips to help customers succeed with their initial setup without deploying a team to their homes.
Use effective service adoption tools
One important first step you can take to combat the need for truck rolls is ensuring you set up customers for success with remote solutions and setup options. To do this, make sure you provide effective service adoption tools from the beginning.
The right service adoption tools make onboarding quick and easy for your customers by providing the guidance they need to be successful. Guided onboarding through digital channels reduces the need for in-person assistance and decreases barriers to entry. In turn, your business can cut costs while increasing customer loyalty.
Provide self-serve options
Did you know that 89% of customers expect companies to provide self-serve customer service options? Self-serve options are becoming a must-have for companies to meet customer demands and increase retention. Especially companies looking to engage with Gen Zers or millennials, who tend to prefer self service.
Self serve support can include providing interactive tutorials or other resources customers can review directly on your website, apps and more. Self service benefits both customers and companies alike. Self-serve options cut contact center wait times by giving customers the tools they need to address their concerns effectively and independently.
Self-serve solutions also reduce costs while increasing net promoter score (NPS) and customer satisfaction. Plus, by migrating support options online, your business can reduce unnecessary expenses while increasing efficiencies.
Provide virtual devices and apps for support teams
Another critical step your company can take to reduce truck rolls is to empower your contact center agents with the tools they need to provide exceptional tech support. Virtualization, or the use of virtual devices and apps, will set your team up for success.
Virtual devices and apps have the same functionality as hand-held devices. But unlike physical products, your contact center agents can switch between multiple versions of the same device or software. This allows your agents to provide more effective, tailored support to customers.
Also, virtualization provides agents with access to up-to-date, reliable information instead of forcing them to scour the internet for answers to common customer questions. This helps improve agent performance, increases engagement and reduces agent onboarding time. In fact, after using Ozmo for Agents, one mobile operator received a 75% engagement rate from their contact center agents.
Businesses can also reduce expenses since they don’t have to maintain or replace libraries of physical devices. With the right omnichannel platform, agents can deliver step-by-step tutorials directly to end customers via email, text and more directly through an agent portal.
Reduce truck rolls for your business
Reducing truck rolls benefits both your business and customers. By reducing truck rolls, your company can cut expenses and reduce unnecessary cyber security risks. It also creates a better customer experience, which increases NPS and customer loyalty.
To reduce truck rolls, it’s critical to ensure your agents have access to secure, up-to-date resources to assist customers with tech support issues better. Virtualization and omnichannel support supply agents with accurate information to assist in customer inquiries.
Self-serve options can also empower customers with the tools they need to resolve issues on their own. Investing in the right tools to reduce truck rolls eliminates headaches and is a win-win for customers and your business.
Ready to reduce truck rolls and increase customer loyalty for your business? Ozmo is a leader in helping home internet providers maximize the potential of their home internet service. Ozmo is trusted by brands such as TELUS, Verizon and more. Learn more about how Ozmo can help your business today!
