John Perry, Xerox and Sam Waicberg, CareAR | ServiceNow Knowledge 23

This is Techstrong tv. Hello, and welcome back to ServiceNow Knowledge 2023. We're here with John Perry from Xerox and Sam Weisberg from Care ar, and we're talking about digital transformation.

Sam, welcome to the show. Great, Great to be here. I'm sorry, but care AR is not a household word the way Xerox is these days.

So maybe you wanna explain a little bit about what you guys are doing and the relationship you have with Xerox and ServiceNow? Absolutely. So we're all about helping, uh, uh, helping organizations transform their service experience.

And we do that by making expertise instantly accessible through our augmented reality and AI and AI powered service experience platform. And, uh, and, and what we're doing is really bringing together, uh, a combination of information and access to expertise together in a way that is, um, visual, digital and seamless, uh, on an on demand basis. So I could use that maybe to set up some sort of digital twin type experience where somebody's using AI to kind of train somebody or teach them how to do something.

Exactly. So like, you know, a couple, you know, really, uh, really, um, key use cases, if you will. One is, um, whether you're a customer or a technician in the field, and, uh, you want to have access to some, uh, information or self-guided instructions, if you will.

Um, with our, uh, with our application, you can access that information, uh, via QR code on a browser, and be walk through step by step on how to perform, you know, various tasks from anything from gimme an orientation of the product or tell me how to fix, you know, certain things like N Xerox case could be, could be replacing a cartridge or, or fixing a paper jam. Another really, um, key use case is around remote, um, AR assistance, and that allows somebody to, um, effectively troubleshoot, uh, somebody someplace else. An example is a customer may have a, may have a, um, a a problem needs some troubleshooting experience.

They connect into a call center, or you could have a technician who's trying to, uh, who's on site trying to complete a task, who needs access to, uh, like a level three expert. And in those, in those cases, we help change the conversation from a typical, uh, uh, call, which is around, tell me what you see, right? To show me what you see.

And that's a combination of video with ar overlay on top of the video and allow somebody someplace else to walk somebody through performing a set of tasks, uh, with, with, um, with, uh, with guidance, uh, with a lot of the attributes as if they were there, right there on, uh, on site. John, how did Xerox and ServiceNow get involved with these guests? Well, so we were on a digital trans transformation path ourselves in our service delivery space.

And we were implementing Carry r our implementing, uh, sorry, uh, ServiceNow FSM in our field service. And about that same time we found out about Carry R and made an acquisition to bring them into the fold thinking that we could. It would be a nice combination.

So not only digitized workflow for technicians to follow, be informed of calls and complete, but also when they're on site, can they get, uh, digital, uh, uh, assistance through, um, ar or, or AR experience, both either from the contact center or in the field. Digital transformation is one of those terms that seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Um, what does it mean to Xerox?

What is the mission statement? So I think, uh, in a couple, couple different ways. One is we, we want the data to do the work.

So what can we, we, we have people that do that are do things. For instance, in MySpace, in in service delivery. Our contact center agents really like, and are good at talking to customers, understand their issue and getting them the help they need.

Our technicians are good at fixing products. They get on site, they can, they, they like solving those problems and taking care of customers and customers like that too. What we want to do with digital experiences, take away the administrative activities, uh, within the, within the task.

So how do I debrief? How do I inform of a call? How do I know I'm getting, we're, we're out of bounds on a certain metric.

Let the tool take care of that. So the, the, it takes something off the plate of the agent or the service delivery personnel to do the work they have to do. How did you land on the ServiceNow platform?

What brought you guys there? And you had a lot of choices, I'm sure, to build something. We, We absolutely did.

Um, I've got a history with ServiceNow. In prior life, I was, you know, very familiar with ServiceNow. Um, we got involved with, uh, with ServiceNow early days of field service and customer service, uh, you know, management.

And, um, you know, based on ServiceNow is Heritage. We were really confident that, um, uh, at some point, uh, they were gonna be leaders in this space. We built the product from the ground up to be integrated with ServiceNow.

And, um, you know, we really, uh, had, uh, some, some fantastic collaboration with the ServiceNow product teams in field service and customer service. And it really helped, uh, to really accelerate everything we were doing with the product. And that's a big reason why we, uh, why we, why we focused on ServiceNow.

We've been talking about AI here all week. What's your impressions of where ServiceNow is headed and what does it mean for you? Well, you know, we think we're a fantastic compliment to extending, uh, the ServiceNow workflow.

Uh, great examples around, you know, field service, customer service. We think it's a, it's a fantastic fit, um, uh, that drives, uh, quantifiable outcomes. And that's, you know, that's what we've been showcasing with with Xerox, um, this week.

Um, you know, being able to, uh, deflect, dispatches, deflect calls, deflect cost out of the, out of the equation, which a lot of these organizations, um, are looking for with the promise of digital transformation. Ultimately it delivers a positive, um, better customer experience. And we think that, uh, you know, ultimately, uh, ar AI is, uh, is gonna be something that, uh, will just be part of the ServiceNow workflow at some point.

John, digital disruption is been rife in this industry, almost every industry we go through, and now we're throwing in a little bit of ai and everybody's having the conversation about who moved my cheese. Right. What's your impression of how all this is gonna play out?

I mean, are people going to have much different jobs or better jobs or, you know, is the world gonna be a different place? And if so, how? Well, I think, you know, I'm, I'm, if I knew the future perfectly, I would be doing something else right now.

But having said all that, uh, I think, um, I think the digital experience is going to change how people do work, but there's always going to be a need. In our case, we have electrical, mechanical devices in the field that have to be fixed. They, they wear, it takes part to be replaced.

Uh, and we're gonna make that simpler and simpler to do, but there's still gonna be a human element to allow us to, that will require us to take care of customers, either verbally or visually or on site. Uh, so that will note, that won't change. What I like about what we can, we can find is that our devices are digital citizens.

They're telling us things remotely all the time. Can we take better, in better advantage of that information to predict what's going to happen, what, when failures are gonna happen, or, uh, what part might be needed? Can, can we understand that?

And on the reverse side, know what to do about it once it happens? And I think the interesting thing's going to be, uh, figuring out how to take, take care of customers when I know something's gonna fail. So imagine with ai, the predictive elements get so precise that I know next Tuesday with high confidence that something's going to fail.

Would I still go, what would I do about that? Would I, would I go early? Would I wait for it to fail?

How would I fit that into a schedule where I already have known issues I have to resolve? I think those kinds of questions around how we're going to order work in a, in a world of high certainty, of, of predictability, uh, is gonna be interesting. And if, if the predictability is not very high, how often do I go?

How do I deal with that? I think that's gonna be the challenge we're gonna wrestle through from how do we deploy people to, to take care of customers in a, in an AI world. I think it's gonna be very interesting to see, Is that all gonna be scheduled or will somebody from XX just show up in my office one day and starting replace?

Yeah, Th that, those are the open questions, aren't they? I mean, that's gonna be fun to figure out. So, so do I, you're working at something and I call you and say, I want you to stop because if you walk, welcome to your printer, we can resolve something that's going to fail next week.

Is that a good customer experience? I'm not sure. So I have to figure out how we deal with that.

And I think that's a very interesting question, and I think, and I think it's a question that's a fun one to answer, and we're gonna have to work through that. Mm-hmm. When you think about, um, maintenance is just one kind of thing that we're gonna be using some platform like yours for, are there other use cases that you're looking at that people aren't thinking through and you're going, wow, you know, guys, we could do this, this, and this.

So, you know, what's, what's the art of the possible, Right? Well, uh, it, it's, it's really open-ended, but maintenance is absolutely a key one, but things around how to perform certain tasks, right, that aren't maintenance related, um, but it's, uh, it's, um, you know, uh, repair, replace certain things. And, um, uh, you know, what's key about that, and I think just kind of piggyback on what you said is, you know, AI is great and that's gonna be the, that's the promise, and that's the future, right?

When you look into large organizations that have, you know, service, uh, forces, right? Um, you know, you've got, uh, um, you know, you've got energies in that are going on, which, which, you know, which is, is around, you know, people resigning, right? Um, people leaving organizations with years of tribal knowledge.

You've got new people coming in who don't have that level of expertise. And so a big challenge, right? Just to just perform some of these, um, you know, maintenance, repair, replace and ongoing activities is really around how do you get those new people to get up to speed faster and perform, you know, services at a, at a consistent and, and, uh, uh, basis as, uh, you know, as a more experienced person does, right?

And so we actually think what, what we're actually doing, if we do our job right, is we're gonna actually be augmenting the intelligence of people, right? And, and leveraging things like ar leveraging things like AI to provide information, uh, on demand, provide access to expertise on demand in a way to solve problems better, are faster, um, uh, with, uh, with, uh, that are more efficient and cost. And, and, And maybe to build on that, I think, you know, with, with, in the new work environment, I mean, what is the office?

The office is not always a place everybody goes and congregates. It's a place that that is work from home work remotely. And the anytime we need to bring expertise to accomplish anything, whether it's, whether it's fixing something or just getting work done, we're able to, with tools like carry R to bring expertise from far away and collaborate in new ways.

Uh, and, and especially in things that I, I don't necessarily need to make a person an expert with, but something I need to help them get through. So, for instance, in our case, one thing that's very interesting with using Carry R is that I no longer need to teach the client the vocabulary about what's in a printer. I can just point to things, anchor the, the, um, anchor the, um, the, uh, arrow or anchor a circle on the, on the activity and say, that's the thing I want you to touch right now.

And it, and it speeds up the opportunity for, for the customer. It makes it easier for the customer to business. And the other piece is if we can actually look at it and say, you know what?

I'm not gonna try to troubleshoot with this yet anymore. I need to send somebody to help you as we can make those decisions faster. And it doesn't have to be about repair, it could be about accomplishing any project task you have in the workspace.

And I think that's what opportunity we have. You've been around the block a few times and for more years than I care to count myself. We've been talking about this divide between IT and the business.

Is that all kind of finally gonna be put to bed into rest as a conversation as we kind of move forward with digital transformation? Uh, I certainly hope so. You know, as, as you know, as you know, being in it myself, I used to be in the business, now I'm in it, and it's almost like I gave up my badge sometimes and I'm working for a new company.

But the point is, I think we can, it needs to be in, it is a fundamental business operation, just like finance, just like accounting, just like, uh, manufacturing, just like, um, any, uh, any other business function you have, we are a business function and we need to be in the game figuring out how to take the path forward. When we think about projects, we do what we're gonna accomplish next, what's the big, the ne big opportunity for productivity? We are in the conversation to help customer help our, our customers, our fellow employees get there.

They bring the expertise around the process so we can bring the expertise around the technology to make it better. That's where the divide has to stop. And we have to say, we can help you get there.

Tell us what your pain is and we can help you solve it. When we get to that point, I think it'll go away. All right, folks.

Digital transformation. It's one of those things. You know it when you see it, but if you're not seeing it, you're probably in trouble.

Gentlemen, thanks for being on the show. Thanks. Thank you.

Yes. Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. And we'll be back in a minute.