Throughout the United States, Ford dealerships now have the ability to use remote viewing technology that equips them to receive real-time assistance from staff at the Ford Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to help with making customer repairs.
“The remote technology is designed to assist the technicians as they’re working on vehicles with the goal of increasing efficiency and decreasing down time for customers,” said David Green, Ford general service equipment programm specialist. “This technology modernizes and simplifies our operations, benefiting everyone involved.”
The new hands-free electronic headset, playfully titled See What I See (SWIS), enables both visual and audio communication between technicians and the Ford assistance center.
The headset incorporates remote assistance software that helps the technical assistance staff to see what the dealership tech is seeing as repairs are made in real time. SWIS’s augmented reality capability allows TAC staff to display modified or enhanced images on the headset for the dealer technicians to view.
Green further stated that “We had one case where a technician reported the vehicle would not recognize the low tyre pressure sensors. When the tech contacted the Hotline using SWIS, they quickly found out they were using the wrong tool when the tech held it up in front of the camera. Once the right tool was used, everything was programmed just the way it should.”
At the TAC’s main facility, a team of approximately 150 technicians gets about 5,000 calls from dealership technicians around the country every week who need guidance or answers regarding a wide range of challenges. About 200 of those calls cannot be diagnosed by phone, but field agents can be sent out to check out any problems in person.
“SWIS definitely helps get our customers back on the road more quickly. We’ve had some wiring situations that we were able to fix in a few hours versus a few days using See What I See and that’s really valuable,” said Susan Padro, service manager at Mullinax Ford in Apopka, Florida.
Ford has activated 1,200 of the headsets so far with more than 350 SWIS calls to TAC in the last 90 days. All US-based dealers should have SWIS by next November.
Most recently, SWIS works great for diagnostic assistance, but designers are also figuring out ways to enhance the headsets to be more applicable for a variety of other use cases, such as with H-VAC problems. Other use cases could become applicable too, like with gaining prior approval before replacing a windscreen by just sending pictures of the defect digitally.
Fleets are already figuring out the best way to use the headset to assist a technician on site with certain electric vehicle repairs rather than having to send an engineer, which allows for faster repairs and cheaper travel costs. Mobile service teams are also looking at using SWIS to remote in from someone’s driveway where they are performing a service like tire changes.
Stay current with all of Ford’s innovative tech features at Haldeman Ford in East Windsor! Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns or to schedule an appointment!