How ChatGPT Improves Field Service Operations

ChatGPT has been a hot topic for the past year, and the buzz isn’t unfounded. There are huge opportunities for generative AI engines, such as GPT-4 that powers ChatGPT, to transform how things are done in a variety of industries and field service is no different.

How can Chat GPT improve field service operations and even solve some of the industry’s toughest challenges? Our experts shared five ways:

1. Making knowledge easily accessible onsite

The most successful adaptation of GPT is in the form of chat itself—it can make a big difference in the ease of accessing information while on the job site. Say a technician is working on a complex piece of equipment and has a specific question about what they need to do.

Normally, they would have to pull up the manufacturer’s product manual and spend time searching through it to find the answer they are looking for. With AI like ChatGPT, the service technician can simply type their question, and let the AI search sources across the web and deliver the best answer in a matter of seconds.

What’s special about generative AI, such as ChatGPT, versus other interactive AI, such as Siri or Alexa?

It’s a highly engaging experience. It feels like you’re talking with a very knowledgeable person, or colleague, and it remembers the context of what it has learned in previous conversations.

How is ChatGPT valuable to frontline workers?

It allows technicians to ask questions necessary to get the job done and with the interactive chat experience, they build off of the responses to solve unprecedented issues or challenges.

2. Automating admin work

The AI that powers ChatGPT is incredibly good at consuming unstructured data and generating content. This has a huge scope for field service. For example, the language comprehension in GPT AI means technicians can take down a few notes and the AI can use that content to generate a report.

This means field engineers can automate the mundane work of writing and summarizing what they’ve just done when they complete a job.

Is it easy to incorporate ChatGPT into current technician workflows?

For service technicians, any practical tool that saves them time means they’ll use it. Depending on how well GPT delivers on its promise, such content generation capabilities could eventually be used for customer-facing documents, reports, and content as well as educational, upselling, and personalized cross-selling content.

3. Enabling customer self-service and support

Customer self-service is becoming a game-changer for how organizations structure their service strategy and service operations. For example, if equipment can be repaired or maintained remotely with the help of remote support engineers, it will save on truck rolls, overhead costs and CO2 footprint.

How does AI help enable customer self-service and support?

In is its ability to generate content as well as triage service requests. Customers can be guided through a self-service process to fix this issue when a service request is received, rather than scheduling an onsite visit.

Customer self service is something companies have been trying to roll out, but are not always successful. AI could be that missing piece that effectively guides the customer through the process with better information and interactive responses for next steps.

4. Making institutional knowledge accessible

Much of the field service workforce is nearing retirement which means that we are losing their expertise, their knowledge and their ability to complete work. In this regard, ChatGPT can be transformational.

It offers a solution by helping organizations capture and organize the unstructured knowledge and experience of the seasoned workforce and make it accessible in a format that is easy to follow for the next generation of workers. You can build your own database for internal usage and training.

As opposed to viewing paper manuals, calling a colleague, and completing countless forms to close out a service job, an engineer can access relevant and contextual information via a query, with work instructions overlayed visually via augmented reality and work summarized and documented via generative AI.

How can ChatGPT capture and provide historical organizational information?

Rather than accessing information from public domains, you can build your own internal database for information sharing, training, and other purposes using interactive AI tools such as ChatGPT. If properly equipped with all the right data, can become a subject matter expert, providing that much-needed knowledge guidance either onsite or remotely.

5. Recruiting the next generation of field workers

Field service has a major workforce recruitment and retention problem. As the workforce nears retirement, there is a growing void that is not being filled by new entrants. The newer generations of workers aren’t too interested in the type of work being done in field service as it stands now.

However, the potential entrants are digitally native. They’ve grown up on the tools of today and are constantly tinkering with the likes of ChatGPT.

Organizations must be able to provide these technologically-savant workers with the tools, information, and working models that they are already familiar with to make the profession of field service more relevant.

How to encourage a career in field service for the next generation?

As an organization, you should provide them with a way to engage with the experience and knowledge of former generations to become more proficient in the craft, open up new opportunities for learning and growth, and create working opportunities that could be remote-first or data-focused. This can change the profile of what a career in field service looks like, making it more attractive and for the new generations.

It may seem futuristic, but this is the type of vision for field service that organizations need to adapt and create a marketable product for the next-generation of the field workforce.

Field service management with ChatGPT AI

Field service management companies are already at the exploratory stage, looking at how GPT can be worked into field service management products through active R&D, incorporating it into what’s working now, and making it even better.

It’s moved from labs to consumers and it’s just a matter of time before it becomes embedded into frontline tools.

By feeding AI tools with rich, accurate asset data and a system of record on how a piece of equipment has been serviced and maintained, companies can better manage the productivity and efficiency of both their operations as well as their service technicians.

So, the question is, are you ready to take advantage of generative AI to deliver better outcomes and attract the next generation? Ask our experts about how ChatGPT can work with field service management solutions to improve your operations.