Digital service consultant for maintenance technicians

The use of chatbots with artificial intelligence has become an important and valuable component of many companies. Whether in customer support or in recurring business processes – for many companies, AI chatbots have become indispensable. With its holistic portfolio of technologies for the intelligent automation of processes, KPMG has also acquired comprehensive knowledge in this area and is thus supporting companies in taking a decisive step towards a digital process landscape. For example, we also supported a company in the industrial manufacture of heating technology products as well as industrial and cooling systems. During machine maintenance at the client's site, service technicians encountered a large number of machine-specific maintenance issues and malfunctions. If the technician did not immediately recognize the problem, they often had to wait for a few minutes in the company's internal service line until an employee could give them a proposed solution via the operating instructions in the corresponding service manual. In such cases, long waiting times and high process throughput times occurred time and again. Our solution is an AI-controlled chatbot that supports the identification of problems with digital real-time advice for specific addressees. 

The digitalized process looks like this: 

In the digitized process, the technician can directly contact the chatbot via a mobile device with a short greeting and then enter a personalized user ID and a pin. This then enables user-specific case management. By identifying the specific type of heater and a precise indication of the product type, the bot can now differentiate between different fault codes. Each code leads to an individual error message, which suggests a solution to the technician in real time. If the suggestion does not directly result in the issue being resolved, the technician can still be connected to a service employee at the service center.

The digitalized process has several advantages:

1. Less waiting time. With digital real-time consultation, longer waiting times can be avoided. 

2. Lower process/personnel costs. Through more efficient problem identification you save a lot of time during maintenance. Increased efficiency reduces process times and thus also saves personnel costs. 

3. User-specific. Through the personalized login to the chatbot, the bot can automatically document and store the result in the company's own system. 

4. 24/7 availability. The chatbot is available around the clock so the technician can always rely on a quick answer.