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Business Insider: Rayna Hollander – Apr 15, 2020
Verizon is one of the Many Fortune 500 Enterprises Embracing Augmented Reality in the “New Normal”
Is Enterprise Augmented Reality becoming the “New Normal” for businesses? According to Business Insider, it might happen even though companies have been resisting it for years — because of the onset of the pandemic. Business Insider discusses how one enterprise, Verizon, has used AR to transform a critical aspect of their operations at a time when they desperately needed to keep customers happy.
It’s been an uphill struggle for enterprises to truly adopt augmented reality as a way to serve customers and drive growth — that is, until the advent of the recent pandemic. When the novel coronavirus upended society, the stakes never became higher for businesses who wanted to keep their customer satisfaction levels up while still protecting their employees and honoring social distancing and shelter-in-place initiatives. The solution? Rethink in-person visits and embrace the power of Augmented Reality.
Verizon is a key example. Obviously, it became no longer possible to send technicians to customers’ homes to solve their phone, Internet, and video problems. But with the power of augmented reality, Verizon experts could suddenly identify and resolve customer issues using the power of chat, online tools, and Internet consultations — without even stepping inside the customer’s house! In essence, the technical know-how of the Verizon technical staff could be communicated via AR without any reduction in customer satisfaction levels. Indeed, this change in business strategy became imperative since such in-visits were prohibited at both the state and the local level, and Verizon leadership itself shut down in-person appointments in order to ensure the protection and safety of its workers. All of these factors caused Verizon to dramatically speed up the adoption of innovative augmented reality technology.
Corona Changes the Game for Enterprise Augmented Reality
Nor is Verizon alone: The co-founder and CEO of Scope AR, Scott Montgomerie, remarked that in the past, large companies were simply unwilling to take the risk of incorporating new, untried technology and altering the status quo that had existed for decades. But now? There’s simply no alternative, and the sea change caused by the pandemic will likely mean that augmented reality is here to stay. Once this “forced adoption” of AR occurs, enterprises such as Verizon will finally recognize the incredible benefits of time savings, reduced travel expenses, and high customer satisfaction. As a result, the “new normal” will include a rapid adoption of augmented reality technology — and it won’t go away anytime soon.