How can regional internet service providers prevent unnecessary truck rolls?

Truck rolls can pose a challenge for regional internet providers looking to reduce costs and maintain competitive tech support. So, what can regional ISPs do to prevent truck rolls without sacrificing quality customer service? Below, we cover what truck rolls are, the downsides of truck rolls for rural and regional internet providers, and steps you can take to reduce them without compromising service quality.

What is a truck roll in telecommunications?

Truck rolls refer to any time your broadband business has to dispatch a team of technicians to a customer’s physical location, such as their private residence or place of business. This usually happens when your contact center team and the customer can't resolve the issue over the phone. However, in many cases, telecommunications truck rolls are preventable.

What are the downsides of truck rolls for regional internet service providers?

The biggest downside of truck rolls for regional internet providers is that they’re expensive and can make it hard to scale support sustainably. Research shows that truck rolls can cost as much as $600. If you have to dispatch teams to multiple customers’ homes or places of business, that could easily cost your company thousands per day.

This makes it difficult to scale your tech support. After all, there are only so many sites your technicians can visit in a day. You may also have to deploy a team of technicians to the same site multiple times. One in four truck rolls require an additional visit to resolve an issue. This means you could potentially spend up to $1200 per customer due to additional service needs, which can quickly eat into your budget and profits.

What are the main causes of truck rolls for regional ISPs?

Truck rolls are one of the most common challenges for rural internet providers. Some common causes of truck rolls include:

• Limited tools for contact center agent troubleshooting

• A weak agent onboarding program

• A poor customer onboarding experience

• Fragmented tools that don’t share customer data

All of this can force your broadband business to dispatch a technical team to a customer’s address, which not only raises business expenses but can also slow issue resolution and create a poor customer service experience.

What tools can help regional internet service providers prevent unnecessary truck rolls?

Now that you know that many truck rolls are preventable, you might be wondering what steps your company can take to reduce them. A few ways you can reduce truck rolls include:

• Remote visual support 

• Virtualization tools

• Customer self-service options

We dive into each in more detail below.

Remote visual support

There’s no doubt that live video support is the future of customer service, especially for regional ISPs. Live video support can reduce unnecessary truck rolls by streamlining communication between the customer and agent and by enabling better remote troubleshooting.

Typically, when a customer had a problem with their internet, they were forced to call into a company’s call center and then describe the issue to the agent over the phone. This creates many opportunities for miscommunication that can delay issue resolution and add unnecessary friction to the customer experience.

Instead, with live video support, customers can show the agent in real time the issue that they’re having, which can eliminate the back-and-forth between agent and customer and allow the agent to more quickly and accurately diagnose the issue without your company having to deploy a team to the customer’s physical location.

In turn, agents can streamline the troubleshooting process for customers by showing them what to press and where. Some video support solutions even let agents draw on the screen. This can be a more effective way to guide customers versus over the phone, which can increase first-call resolution rates and, in turn, improve customer satisfaction. Remote troubleshooting tools like visual support are critical for regional internet providers that want to reduce costly truck rolls without compromising the customer experience.

Virtualization tools

Virtualization, also known as virtualized tech support, can reduce truck rolls by enabling remote or hybrid contact center teams to effectively troubleshoot without having to visit a customer’s business or residential address. This can be critical for regional service providers that need to scale tech support since it allows for more efficient remote troubleshooting and reduces the likelihood of needing to deploy teams to a physical site. 

Virtualized tech support allows agents to access digital simulations of a customer’s device. However, unlike physical devices, the agent can easily switch between multiple versions of the device, as each customers’ may be different. For example, some may have the newest software update while others don’t. This library of devices typically updates dynamically, so agents can always trust that they have the most accurate and up-to-date information. 

As a result, agents can more quickly diagnose a customer’s issue and provide personalized customer service with a step-by-step walkthrough tailored to that customer’s unique device. Digital devices also mean your agents can troubleshoot either from the office or home, versus having a team drive over to a customer’s address to diagnose an issue, and then start troubleshooting. These digital tools are critical for regional service providers looking to reduce preventable truck rolls and improve key contact center metrics. 

Customer self-service options

Customer self-service is a nonnegotiable for regional internet providers looking to reduce truck rolls and scale support without hiring more staff. When done right, customer self-service can create a better customer experience by giving customers access to instant answers so they can get back to their streaming, gaming or other activities faster, and without having to wait for a team to arrive to fix a service issue.

Nearly nine out of 10 customers expect your business to provide self-service options. This means that if you don’t provide self-service options, you risk creating a poor customer experience, which can potentially hurt your customer retention rate. Customers increasingly want to resolve issues independently, so leveraging customer self-service tools like conversational AI chatbots can be a great way to deliver the self-service experience customers expect and reduce the need for truck rolls.  

This can also help rural internet providers or regional carriers to scale support. Often, these smaller businesses have limited staff and lack the budget to hire more agents.  With self-service, regional service providers can scale support to meet the needs of a growing customer base without going over budget.

Unlike older models, the new generation of chatbots deliver quality customer support with natural language processing versus stiff, pre-scripted responses. This allows the chatbot to better understand the nuance of a customer’s request and provide more accurate answers. They can then provide step-by-step guidance, even sending customers interactive tutorials, without you having to send out a team to address the customer’s request on-site.

Reduce unnecessary truck rolls for your regional ISP

Regional ISPs often face more staff and budget constraints than nationwide providers, which means preventing unnecessary truck rolls is paramount to business success. By leveraging tools like virtualization, remote visual support and customer self-service, you can provide effective remote troubleshooting and guidance while reducing the need for truck rolls. 

Are you looking for more information on reducing truck rolls? Remote video support can help reduce truck rolls, improve critical business KPIs and potentially reduce overhead costs while providing a positive tech support experience. Download our free guide to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are truck rolls?

Truck rolls refer to any time you have to deploy a team of technicians to a customer’s physical location, sometimes more than once.

Why do truck rolls hurt regional ISPs?

Regional ISPS and rural internet providers often have limited staff and budgets compared to larger businesses. Truck rolls can cost as much as $600 per deployment, which can quickly eat into a small business’s budget. 

How can our business reduce truck rolls?

It’s estimated that one in four truck rolls is preventable, so it’s important to take steps to reduce truck rolls as much as possible. Leveraging tools like remote video support, virtualization and customer self-service can reduce the need for physical deployments to a customer’s address and make it easier to scale your support.

How can I use remote visual support to reduce truck rolls?

One of the game-changing use cases for remote visual support is the ability to provide effective diagnosis and troubleshooting remotely. Video support helps agents see exactly what the customer sees, allowing for faster diagnosis and service resolution, without customers having to wait for a technician to arrive at their location. This can help you balance convenience with cost-cutting efforts without sacrificing service quality.