Bo Dietrick
You don’t have to go far these days to read about the ever-increasing pace of development with artificial intelligence, GPT, chatbots, and the like. It seems every day some new advancement in this field is front page news! Many companies look to these advancements in technology to create new efficiencies or improvements to customer service.
Like the businesses you read about who are seeking to harness this digital power, Robert Dietrick Company seeks to stay on the cutting edge of customer experience. One of our core values is INNOVATION, and we represent some of the most innovative products available in the industrial solutions market. We take it upon ourselves to be innovative in our very nature. However, the intersection of where RDC and AI meet might be surprising and more unique than you would think initially.
RDC is currently engaged in two projects to improve the customer experience, thanks to digital technologies. One intentionally involves artificial intelligence, and one intentionally does NOT.
AI TO SPEED UP SERVICE
Our customers look to us to keep their facilities running – from loading docks to internal doors to safety barrier systems. These tangible products require a human touch to install, service, repair, and maintain. AI cannot do this work, and we don’t see a time soon when that would even be a viable option. But artificial intelligence can help drive efficiencies and give our trained and certified Field Technicians faster access to the information they need to care for a customer.
Currently, RDC is experimenting with and building a “smart” product manual repository of all information related to equipment we may encounter in the field. Our goal is to streamline the access to information that our technicians need when problem-solving in the field. Our philosophy is that the faster we can apply an accurate “fix” to a problem, the better the experience for that customer and the more customers we can help.
We believe this is not just an industry of loading docks and specialty industrial doors, but of speed, accuracy, and problem-solving. New problems and new opportunities will not look the way they did in the past. There truly is an opportunity for an industrial services business to support the human aspect of customer solutions with AI.
ONLINE CHAT WITH A HUMAN
Many of the businesses you hear about adopting AI are applying it to their online communication resources for customers. In a way, smarter AI can get faster and better answers for customer inquiries and free team members for other work. So, in a time of desire to chat with online customer service, RDC is pleased to launch our live web chat. You can find this new feature on our website at www.rd-co.com.
We take a different stance than many other businesses, though. During business hours, we guarantee you will always communicate directly with a person. We do not utilize chatbots. Rather, a team is ready and available for live customer interaction when you type into our messaging portal. At RDC, we believe people are at the core of what we do. This means for our customers and our people, alike. We aim to lean on technology to make more direct interactions between people, but never to put technology between people.
Outside of business hours, our online chat will tell you we are offline, and you can leave a message. We will always get back to you as quickly as possible. And you can be assured a human will be the one reaching out. We hope you will lean on this new communication option to stay in touch with us! This is a great resource to connect with your local representative, schedule a service call, ask a question about billing, or get an update on existing work.
PROGRESS IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT CHANGE
George Bernard Shaw said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” At RDC, we believe in progress. And our current definition of how we will use and NOT use new technology, like AI, is proof we can change our minds. We are a customer business and are driven to continue to redefine what it means to be the best customer service in our industry.