Joulz energizes Field Service with Copilot
- 14/11/2023
To stay ahead in the world of field service innovations, our customer Joulz showed tremendous enthusiasm to participate together with us in the product preview of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service. We help test and provide feedback on Copilot's capabilities, where next-generation AI is used to support frontline service professionals in simplifying tasks and reducing time to resolution.
Sybren Mooij
Business Director CE, 9altitudes
"First Time Right (FTR) is really core in these industries, and customers need field service to be a seamless part of their logistics and resource planning. People in the field need to have the appropriate skills, the right spare parts with them for the planned job, and the ability to easily interact with warehouses and purchasing systems,” said Tim Verpoorten, Go-To-Market & Business Development Director at 9altitudes. “By building this connection with ERP into our IP solutions and using best practices established by our field service experts, we can accelerate deployment and deliver faster return on investment for our customers."
From SAP to Copilot: Joulz's Digital Transformation with Dynamics 365 Field Service
Joulz had already worked with 9altitudes to implement Dynamics 365 Field Service as part of a comprehensive digital transformation that replaced its SAP financial system and multiple third-party solutions with a single, integrated solution for ERP, CRM, and project management in the Microsoft Cloud. With a wide range of energy services and more than 20,000 business customers, Joulz saw a big opportunity for incorporating AI into field service to help its technicians provide even more efficient service and improved customer experience around solar panel installation, electricity storage, charging solutions, in-house metering, and more.
“Working with Joulz, we were able to test how Copilot could create work orders directly from emails and schedule them immediately, without any manual intervention required, as well as translate Dutch to English when necessary, “ said Sybren Mooij, Business Director CE at 9altitudes. “It was very easy to demonstrate how these features would help Joulz increase operational excellence, while also improving the overall customer experience.”
With testing successfully completed, Joulz is ready to roll out Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service as soon as it
becomes generally available. “Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service will support a faster way of working for our
organization by simplifying our transactional work order management process. The ease with which an email can be translated into a work order and planned will increase the speed of our customer responses and improve our
customer journey,” said Sven van Veldhuizen, CIO/CDO at Joulz. “We are also excited to improve the experience for
our customer-facing colleagues with the Microsoft 365 integrations. Microsoft Teams is our main internal
communication method, and the integration of Dynamics 365 Field Service into Teams will greatly simplify the
communication about a specific work order, account, or other customer case and improve the case lead time.”
Wider relevance of Copilot for service, distribution, and manufacturing
In working with Joulz to put Copilot in action, 9altitudes quickly saw the potential of this technology to deliver benefits to customers across all of its key industries—particularly when it comes to addressing the shrinking pool of skilled service professionals. As organizations struggle to do more with less while meeting universally increasing expectations around customer service, AI solutions like Copilot present a viable solution. As Verpoorten explained, “The inability to find new talent hampers the growth potential for organizations. But when we inject Copilot into the scenario, we can do a lot more with the same amount of people by helping them work smarter.”
AI tools like Copilot are also helping to revitalize the job market in manufacturing and distribution—industries that have traditionally struggled to attract young people. “Technologies like Copilot are allowing people to see manufacturing jobs as innovative again,” continued Verpoorten. “Add to that field service solutions like Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist with HoloLens and it really lowers the barrier for companies to recruit new talent into the workplace.”
Copilot innovation builds on strong growth trajectory.
With eyes set on becoming the number one digital transformation partner in Europe for its core industries,
9altitudes sees AI and Copilot as a critical component in achieving this goal. “We want to be a front runner on
Copilot implementation and development,” said Diederick Hallynck, Go-To-Market Director, Products &
Technology at 9altitudes. “It’s already on the short list of capabilities to integrate as we evolve our IP solutions.”
Streamline Field Service Operations with new Copilot capabilities
Service professionals on the frontline rely on having nearly-instant access to a range of customer and technical information at the moment it’s needed. However, data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals not being able to easily find the information they need ranks in the top 5 most disruptive issues faced by frontline workers in their current day-to-day role. This can have a serious impact on KPIs, such as first-time fix rates and customer satisfaction and retention.
