Service visits are costly. Here’s how ADT reduced them by 40%.
See how virtual service is helping make customers’ lives easier and more efficient.
Growing your business while reducing costs may seem like a tall order. But with the right tools and strategies, you can see results as eye-catching as ADT’s — a 62% decrease in maintenance and development costs, plus 1 million truck rolls avoided in a year.
ADT has been a pioneer in the security industry since 1874, beginning with a telegraph-based call box connected to a few dozen homes. Today, it’s traded call boxes for smart home security systems that detect, score, and report common household threats like fire, carbon monoxide, flood and intrusion automatically.
Customer preferences have changed too. They expect fast service, especially for small issues, like “My window sensor isn’t working properly.” ADT responded with an innovative way to help customers troubleshoot issues or install new products quickly and on their own: the Virtual Assistance Program.
Virtual assistance helped ADT to:
- Shift approximately 40% of service volume to virtual channels
- Resolve 80% of virtual service appointments without dispatching a truck
“Within the first year of the program, we avoided 1 million truck rolls,” Don Young, ADT Chief Operating Officer, said. “The customers love being satisfied instantly with that virtual experience, and they love being empowered to solve problems themselves.”
Behind the scenes, Young and his teams use Salesforce to help power these experiences. Here’s a closer look at the strategy the company has used for its accomplishments so far.
"The biggest thing that ADT is focused on is empowering our customers to protect and connect what matters most through safe, smart and sustainable solutions."
SVP & CIO
1. Save time and deliver customer satisfaction by shifting 40% of service volume to virtual channels.
Whenever customers called about a problem with their smart home security system, service agents would have to schedule a four-hour window for a technician to visit their home. If the problem required part replacements, it could take multiple days — and truck rolls — for their system to resume normal function.
Today, there are simpler solutions. Powered by Service Cloud Visual Remote Assistant (VRA), ADT Virtual Assistance lets customers troubleshoot issues or install new products in as little as 30 minutes with live video guidance. Here’s how it works:
- A customer receives a new doorbell camera from ADT
- Through the ADT app on their smartphone, the customer schedules a 30-minute virtual installation appointment
- When it’s time for the appointment, a security advisor walks the customer through installation steps using two-way video
- The security advisor lets the customer know of relevant product offers and upgrades before closing the case
If the customer request requires a field service technician, ADT uses the information gathered from the virtual appointment to ensure the technician has the right knowledge and equipment to solve the problem in a single visit. So far, 40% of all service appointments have become virtual — that’s around 4,000 per day. Approximately 80% of those cases are resolved without dispatching a truck.
40%
of service appointments are virtual
80%
of virtual service appointments resolved without dispatching a truck
“We found that first-time resolution became higher because we had the right part at the right time,” said Sam Jaddi, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. “The initial virtual appointment allowed us to know exactly where the challenge was.”
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2. Reduce costs and emissions by eliminating thousands of truck rolls.
Another advantage of moving 40% of service appointments virtual is reducing the number of trucks on the road. Before ADT Virtual Assistance, the company would dispatch as many as 10,000 trucks per day, upping the total cost of fleet maintenance, labor, and related expenses.
But with virtual service solutions in place, ADT has been able to dramatically reduce truck rolls and associated costs. In fact, the company was able to reduce daily service visits by 40%, resulting in fewer truck rolls.
EVP & COO
3. Improve the employee experience with automation and self-service.
While customers troubleshoot and install products on their own, service teams have more time to dedicate to complex cases — now made easier with new service tools and a 360-degree view of each customer.
Previously, service agents had to toggle between several different applications to resolve a case. Now, these systems are seamlessly connected with an API-led integration layer. This lets agents pull up a unified profile of every customer they interact with, no matter which system or product they call about.
For example, a customer who recently called about a smart thermostat install may call again about installing a new smoke detector. Since both products appear on the customer’s profile, the service agent can address the customer’s concerns without asking a list of clarifying questions. Additionally, the agent can follow up on the thermostat’s performance or recommend a product upgrade.
ADT also uses chatbots and self-service resources to help customers find answers without involving an agent, giving agents more time to focus on complex cases. If customers require additional assistance with self-service options, their question automatically goes to an agent equipped to answer it.
Keeping a pulse on service team performance is simpler, too. Using Tableau, leadership can view agent performance data and other metrics in colorful dashboards that display chatbot deflection rates, lead times, and call resolution efficiency.
4. Grow your subscriber base by customizing your sales pitch.
Sellers want to spend their time connecting with leads, not on administrative tasks. Using automated workflows in Sales Cloud, they can automatically qualify leads, configure quotes, and schedule appointments from any device, like their mobile phone.
Thanks to data connected with Mulesoft, sellers can customize offers based on regional information, such as crime spikes or natural disasters. For instance, a seller may receive an alert that a resident of California’s Riverside County is at high risk for wildfire activity. With this information, the seller can then offer residents a discounted smart smoke alarm system to complete their security package.
Customer risk analysis happens even faster in direct channel sales. By integrating its Salesforce instances with partner apps like Invoca, ADT analyzes important customer variables, such as demographic and financial data, in real time. Plus, colorful dashboards let sales leaders scenario plan and realign resources with confidence.
5. Reduce costs and empower employees with connected systems.
To help its teams continue to deliver exceptional customer experiences, ADT has key strategic partnerships to help keep its systems running at peak performance.
ADT implemented MuleSoft to institutionalize common services from all systems using API-led integration. This allows customer-facing teams, like sales and service, as well as internal business customers to access a single source of customer information wherever they are. So far, ADT has built over 150 APIs that handle roughly 20 million transactions a month.
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