Remote Service

On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark and Andrew sit down to discuss the remote services offered at SoundVision.

Uncover the revolutionary impact of our remote service support. We discuss how OvrC software is revolutionizing the way we handle customer support, creating a win-win scenario of convenience and efficiency without stepping inside your home. Join us as we navigate the benefits of this approach, from inclusive costs to enhancing the health and performance of your devices.

It's not just about convenience—it's about security too. Trust is a crucial factor when choosing a service provider. While we don’t access your surveillance stream, we monitor your security systems performance. We ensure that your systems remain running properly to keep your space safe and secure. Listen as we unveil the use of home technology management to ensure your peace of mind and satisfaction.

In this episode, we shine light on the balance between remote innovations and consumer privacy. Learn how our meticulous labeling system proves invaluable with OvrC’s ability to manage your system, showcasing our commitment to providing excellent service and convenience.

On this episode, we discuss:

• The range of remote services SoundVision offers.
• Insights into our dedicated service department.
• How we provide remote support without visiting your location.
• Specific remote services we provide, from network management, to Apple TV support, to security and surveillance.
• Our monitoring capabilities, allowing us to receive update notifications and alerts when issues arise.
• Being notified of power outages and service provider issues.
• Equipped with state-of-the-art technology like Wattbox and Luma surveillance, ensuring seamless installations and action-taking monitoring.

Tune in to discover how SoundVision utilizes remote services to ensure customer satisfaction. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or simply seeking peace of mind, this episode promises to enlighten and inspire.

To learn more about OvrC Management:

https://ovrc.com/

Listen to our podcast on Lighting Strikes and Surge Protection:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1gSWIeaysC1KlW4FUVJnAF?si=3654fbdc1e284c41

Listen to our podcast on our Service Membership Plans:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5NlNcn2IkVPEmOK1btu85m?si=30c2c06a0e654cf3

To learn more about SoundVision:

https://www.svavnc.com/

Check out our Instagram to see our recent projects:

https://www.instagram.com/soundvisionllc/

To listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:

https://open.spotify.com/show/7fIkJuLZ7lZ8xbafz62muQ

Contact Us Today:  (704) 696-2792 Ext. 2 | Support@svavnc.com | soundvisionlkn.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, it's Andrew. Welcome to Simplifying Life Through Technology. We have Mark here with me in the podcast you do today to discuss remote service. Soundvision uses a software called Oversea to be able to troubleshoot and solve issues without even entering your home. Oversea is a revolutionary support platform for professionals that allows us to remotely manage, configure and troubleshoot your devices. Oversea empowers us to keep your systems running smoothly. Be sure to listen to hear how our service department approaches remote service. Hey, mark, how are you doing today? Andrew, what you got going on today?

Speaker 2: 0:48

From here I'm going back to the school that I coached soccer at, christ the King, and one of the young men has gotten an offer to play in college, oh wow. And so they have a thing called signing day, right, and so I'm going into say a couple words about him.

Speaker 1: 1:04

That's so exciting. Yeah, pretty cool. That's a really great honor too.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Yeah, good for him. Shout out to Nick.

Speaker 1: 1:09

O'Brien. Congratulations, nick. All right, so why don't we get into it? Can you tell our listeners about the remote services we offer?

Speaker 2: 1:17

We really at Soundvision define ourselves as a service company, meaning everything we do is focused on service, because we recognize that the technologies that we put in from a network to a home theater, to lighting design, to anything that we do, requires maintenance, requires service. Everybody knows that has any of these technologies in their home.

Speaker 2: 1:41

Things do happen, and so we recognize that the most important thing that we can do is serve our customers after we've had the sale and we've installed stuff in their homes or places of business, so the whole service department, which is unique in that we have dedicated folks that just do service. So, unlike a lot of other dealers in the area where they share technicians, that they have to go on a service call they may have to leave one job to go to another Very, very common, and we did it for years.

Speaker 1: 2:10

That can bring challenges to managing your projects properly.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Absolutely Part of our recognizing ourselves and really thinking about ourselves as a service company was to get dedicated people in the service department so that they just do service. That being said, there's a number of different types of services, and we've talked about service memberships. We'll probably touch on that again in a little bit.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Learn more about our service memberships on our other podcast.

Speaker 2: 2:35

And the most common would be to go to again a place of business or someone's home to fix something. Yeah, but in today's day and age, a lot of that stuff can be taken care of remotely, Meaning we can actually service clients systems without ever going to their location, without ever leaving our location, which of course, is more efficient. We do charge for the remote service in a lot of cases. Some are included with some of our service memberships. But what's really important to understand is that now, from the customer's perspective one, they don't have to be there, they don't have to wait on anybody forget an appointment, don't have to do that.

Speaker 2: 3:17

This happens pretty real time. I mean it may take 15, 20 minutes, but pretty real time. So you're not inconvenienced. And actually the cost, although we charge for it, is substantially less than if we sent someone out there, which makes sense because we're not having to run a van, we don't have the upkeep of all that, it's less time that we have to pay our team for remote service. So it's really kind of a win-win for everybody, absolutely, and so we're trying to go to more of that model, so remote service, being able to support someone without ever setting foot in their location, yeah, and convenience is just a huge factor in that.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Conveniences, yes. So why don't we get into a little more about the features of remote service, like how do we do this?

Speaker 2: 4:02

Sure. So there's a couple of things with a network. Specifically One of the things that, when you hear the term like commercial grade network or enterprise grade network, one of the things that that means is to be able to access that network remotely and fix problems, update things, see histories, look at speed checks. We can do that stuff because the networks that we install have that functionality. So really common. If we need to reboot a router Perfect example is one of the internet service providers doesn't update in the middle of the night Very, very common and sometimes that just throws things out of whack, yeah, and so your network doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 4:49

I mean, it happens in my house probably about two to three times a year, and so that affects our network, which affects your, the customer's network, and being able to do whatever they do. So we can actually, through our remote capabilities, we can log into that network and we can reboot things or see what's going on. That's on a network level, but then we also have a lot of other equipment. So we use a product called Oversea here and it's a third party product. It's a product that one of our main vendors has created, and what Oversea is is kind of like what it sounds like it oversees.

Speaker 2: 5:25

Yeah, quite literally Quite literally all the stuff in your home, all the stuff that's connected to our system On a high level. It gives us the exact same capabilities that I just talked about with the network. The most common thing is rebooting things. So another super common one is, if you have a Roku or an Apple TV, Very, very common for those things to have updates and sometimes that stuff gets thrown out of whack. So if we need to reboot that cable box, a satellite receiver, just all kinds of things, we can do that remotely through the Oversea platform and it also in a lot of cases allows us to see the health of those items. It allows us to do updates on those items remotely, but it's just that kind of again, pardon the pun, but to oversee the whole system.

Speaker 1: 6:14

It's incredible. I mean, like you were saying, we actually can manage the strength of your network, manage your security systems. We get updates on your equipment. Is that correct, oh?

Speaker 2: 6:23

yeah, great point. So a lot of this stuff we're talking about if we manually go in and do something, which we can. But the other part of this is that the system actually reports back to us. So in a lot of cases it will tell us that there is a problem or there is an issue before you know it and before we even know it. It just pops up, it shows like a heat map and it'll actually say which locations, which homes, which places of businesses have things going on.

Speaker 2: 6:56

Here's a really good example we have a neighborhood in Davidson here where we've done a lot of homes and occasionally the internet service provider will have an outage, and so what we see on our end is there'll be 10, 12 homes that'll go offline at the same time. Now we've come to realize at that point that it's probably not our equipment, Right, it's probably an internet service outage, but we can actually see that it's an internet service outage. So then we can take the next step and we can alert the customers that hey, you've got an internet service problem and there's an outage and we're monitoring it and when it comes back up, everything should come back up for you and we'll let you know that too, so we can actually send out notifications based on things that we see happening again, probably before you even know it which is extremely helpful in finding a solutions to your problems as quickly as possible, and it also just keeps you in the loop.

Speaker 2: 7:57

We are constantly monitoring that and having a dedicated service team allows us to do that. So our service manager, mike O'Dowd, literally live on one of his screens, is watching this kind of like you see on TV. You know, if somebody's watching like a stock screen or security monitoring stuff like that, he's literally watching this in real time. So one of his tenants, one of his things every single morning is to go through and look for events that has happened. So we actually have him check every single morning to see if anything has happened. That not only includes the stuff that we talked about, but if you have a monitored security system with us, it also includes that.

Speaker 2: 8:44

So, just as a quick aside, our security monitoring station, security Central, who we partner with. They send out daily reports. It's like 430 in the morning and they send out some daily reports every single day about the activity from the previous day. So if you set your alarm off or if you had a real alarm event, of course they'll know about it immediately, but we'll know about it no less than 24 hours later, and so Mike actually sifts through those every morning too, and if there's an actual real alarm event, then he's going to reach out to you and just make sure that everything's okay. Make sure that you know if you need some help from the system standpoint, we can follow up there too.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Yeah, and Mike, when he sees those issues he then works with the rest of our service department to either have someone work remotely on your network or sometimes issues are a little more complex and require in-home support. He can actually go ahead and schedule someone to come out to help with that.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Yes, that's exactly right, and I didn't mention it before because I talked about the remote service and I said we do charge for that. What's great is that if we do charge for that, we just take a credit card out of the credit card over the phone. But if that remote service does not solve the issue and we do have to come out to your home, we credit you the amount that we charged you for the remote service towards the service visit at your home. So there's literally no risk to you at all and there are no extra fees. Best case is it's taken care of immediately. What you just said is true. Sometimes we can't do that. Sometimes we have to go out to the home or the place of business and be on site to fix things.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:22

You were going to ask about some equipment that we have, and the most common piece of equipment is called a watt box. It is a watt box yes, Good segue. So a watt box. It's almost like a power strip, I guess. In a real high level terms it's a really nice one, but it's like a power strip. However, in a lot of cases it has surge protection built into it, meaning it does protect from minor surges.

Speaker 1: 10:47

It's not going to protect from a lightning strike which you can learn more about in our surge protection podcast.

Speaker 2: 10:52

But it does protect from minor surges that are very common in the homes. It's also on the network. So now we can see that watt box remotely because it's on the network and as you plug things into the watt box, the power strip, as you plug things into outlet number one, we can see that device. Part of our installation, part of our processes are to label all the outlets. So we don't see outlet one, we'll see Apple TV, or we'll see Dish Network Satellite Receiver, we'll see. You know whatever it is that's plugged in there, we name it and we have a naming convention and we do that so that our team can actually see what that is. That's really important because if you have an Apple TV that needs to be reset, we need to know if it's an outlet one or outlet six, yeah, where it is, where we can go to fix it. And that's really important again because, depending on what things are plugged in, where some things you don't want to reset, some things you do, so we really go to that Mth degree.

Speaker 2: 11:56

The reason I brought that up, going back to some of the stuff that we have to go out for, a couple of years ago Wattboxes had an issue where they had a bank of outlets that went out. It was a defective part of it, the manufacturer took care of it, it was fine. All of a sudden, like six things are out, oh God, and so we're trying to reset them, but it won't work. So we then literally had to go out and replace the Wattbox to get it back online. So there's an example of something that we tried to do remotely and it didn't work because of a defect in the product, and so we went out physically and then replaced the product and everything's okay.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Cause things like that do happen. It is technology, absolutely, but in time we're in a mess where it's time for a new offense. I'm gonna catch up to that visualization, nevermind. So that is Dim Tao. If you want to test it out, monitor your network surveillance and security. Is there anything else important for people to know that we can monitor through remote service?

Speaker 2: 13:14

Well, I wanna touch on something you just brought up, because I don't wanna let it go by, and that's surveillance. It is true that the surveillance, the NVR, the video recorder, can be monitored and can be reset and rebooted if there's a problem. However, once we are finished with a system and we hand that system over to the customer, their passwords will supersede ours, so ours won't work anymore. So we can't actually see your cameras, unless you give us the right to do that. All we can see is the actual device itself and its health on the network. We can't access the recordings, we can't see any of the cameras, we can't manipulate them, nothing. So in the setup phase we do, we have our temporary stuff set in there. Again, part of our process is when we hand it off to the end user. We give them their passwords, they set that up and now all we can see is the health of the device.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Yeah, and I think that's really important because privacy people you're monitoring my security cameras. You don't want someone looking in. I think that's really important for people to understand that we are not looking into their footage.

Speaker 2: 14:30

That's exactly right, and this is another reason that it is so important on who you choose as a partner in our space Having dedicated service people, having a network engineer where the passwords are truly encrypted. We truly understand cybersecurity. We're not using your phone number, we're not using ABC123, we're using, I believe, freddie's up to either 16 or 18 characters, and they are something else long and cymbal.

Speaker 2: 15:06

But also recognizing that there is a lot of trust that needs to go into that decision on what partner to use. You mentioned surveillance security network. I mean it goes way beyond where we're just hanging some TVs and putting some speakers in.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 15:26

We are really a partner with our customers and we take that responsibility very seriously. In this podcast, we're talking about getting somebody back up if their network goes down or something, and how fast can we do it and different ways we can do it. It's really important, as you pointed out just a second ago, that the security of their information, the security of their whether it's cameras or door locks or whatever it is is paramount, and we are very clear on that, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:01

So so again, our remote services are really here to aid, convenience, efficiency and just a hassle for your experience, for our customers.

Speaker 2: 16:08

It is something that is a newer technology. It's a change in again in our space and probably in all of the trade spaces. Plumbers, heating and air electricians and us are kind of the four typical ones the history has been you have a problem, you call someone, rolls a van, they show up at your house today, a week, whatever it is yeah, when they want to show up, yes, and they may solve the problem or whatever. But the idea is that someone comes there Right Now, in today's day and age, while that is still prevalent, it's not the only way to do things. One other thing to note is we have a lot of customers that have multiple homes in multiple locations Good point. So let's say, you have a beach home or a mountain home or I don't know a home just in another city, and that's always been a challenge because, hey, yeah, we can do the system. But then when you have a problem and your home is two hours from our office on a Saturday afternoon, how do we go out and fix that? How does that work? How does that work? So in the preponderance of cases, we can do things remotely. Again, not everything, but we can do things remotely. Last thing I'll say, and then we can end it is.

Speaker 2: 17:23

I talked about dedicated service. We also have dedicated on call. So, depending on the level of service memberships that you choose or that you find value in, we can have a free membership that would not entitle you to after hours or, say, weekend support, but if you find value in that and you feel like that's important, that's what those plans are for. If you have a service membership, then all the things that I just talked about happen in extended hours, so it'll go through nine o'clock at night during the week and it will include Saturdays and Sundays in some of the membership options. Additionally, in some of the membership options, the remote service is completely free. We also have various ways of accessing us, meaning, yes, you can call, that's fine, and we have a Google voice that will translate your message and then it'll actually send it out to our own call person. You can also go directly to the website right in the top right corner. It'll say service, service request.

Speaker 2: 18:26

And that is immediate. It'll come right to us. That's another thing. You can also send an email to support at svavenccom.

Speaker 2: 18:35

Andrew put that in the show notes. That comes to us immediately and, depending on the system that you have, for example, if you are a control for customer and you're using the four site license on control for which allows you to access your system from anywhere. If you do that, you also have support right in the app and you can click that and it will immediately come to us as well. So there's a lot of different ways to get support, depending on how you choose or what's easiest for you.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Yeah, and again. We have people on this at all times.

Speaker 2: 19:09

We are here to help and we want to help.

Speaker 1: 19:11

That's right. If you want to learn any more information about remote services, go ahead and see Andrew in the booth.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Andrew is very what is it? Demonstrative.

Speaker 1: 19:22

Animated the hands everywhere. I talk with my hands. Go ahead and reach out to us, give us a call, send us an email and we're happy to help. Well, mark, I hope you have a great time at your signing today. That's very exciting.

Speaker 2: 19:36

Thanks.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Andrew, and we will see you next time. Thanks for joining us for Simplifying Life Through Technology. To learn more about Sound Vision, visit our website at soundvisionlakenormancom. Follow us on X at Sound Vision LKN. Find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube at Sound Vision LLC.