SoundVision's Service App

On this episode of “SoundVision Tech Talks,” Mark, Mike, and Andrew sit down to discuss our new Service App.

We discuss how we're making support faster, more accessible, and more convenient through the launch of our new SoundVision Service App.

We explore what customers want most from their technology support experience, how SoundVision's dedicated service department operates, and the value behind service memberships. Mike explains the differences between membership and non-membership support, response expectations, and why proactive service is becoming increasingly important in today's connected homes.

The conversation then turns to the new SoundVision Service App, a Progressive Web App designed to put support at your fingertips. We walk through how to download the app, its key features, and the intent behind its creation. From one-touch access to phone and email support to FAQs, troubleshooting resources, and AI-assisted guidance trained around the products we install and support, the app is designed to help clients find answers faster while making it easy to connect with our team when needed.

We also discuss the growing role of remote service, including how cloud-based tools allow our team to diagnose, troubleshoot, and often resolve issues without an on-site visit. Whether you're curious about service memberships, interested in the future of smart home support, or want to learn how to get the most from the new SoundVision Service App, this episode offers an inside look at how we're continuing to simplify life through technology.

Explore our Service App:

https://service.svavnc.com/

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. 1 | Info@svavnc.com | soundvisionlkn.com

Transcript

Welcome And Cozumel Pronunciation

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So joining me in the podcast studio today, alongside myself and Mark, we have all the way from Cozumel, Michael Dowd. Good morning. Welcome, Mike.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Wendy. Mike, please, please correct Andrew's pronunciation of where you live. Cozumel. Oh. I did the same thing, Andrew. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

It's not you. It's okay. It's uh in Spanish, the O is typically a long O. Okay. Co. Kozumel.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Notum. Like cozy male. Like cozy, yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Cozy male.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

All right. Well, we've got Mike in here. Mike, it is very exciting because you're actually here in person in the human form.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

In studio.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

In studio. And we're going to talk about uh our newest um service offering, which is we've created an app for our customers to use if they so choose. It's just another way to get service. Uh, and we're gonna talk about the app. Yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yes. All right. It's brand. Okay. So um I'm uh uh admittedly not whole used to uh podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

So oh well, I I thought didn't you in college didn't weren't you on the radio?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I was on the radio. I'm glad you brought that up. Michelle told me that today you were a radio host.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

So you know dead air. Like I'm I'm assuming someone told you about that. So we're we up we apply to the same thing here.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yes, uh, don't want any pauses or uhs or popping of Ps and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Um none of which are in the app.

What Customers Want From Service

SPEAKER_02 1:42

So yeah, so so we essentially we identify ourselves as a service company. We sell really cool stuff, but ultimately the two things that we always hear from our customers, correct me if I'm wrong, is we want it to be easy and we want it to work. If we have problems, we want to be able to get service.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

And so over the years, we've you know, we created a service department with actual people that just work in service and manages and and Mike manages that department. Mike, tell us about that department.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Uh consists of um it's a four-person team. Um we uh I'm the service manager. Uh we include our um our operations manager, Michelle, as uh a fourth member of the team and two technicians. Uh uh we could call Paul the senior technician, but it just means he has more time here. Yep. And Alan, our uh other service technician, uh full-time in the field.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

And what's what's uh important is that they only do service, they do not work on our traditional projects, which we have a whole team doing that, but they are just focused on service.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yes, yes. So full-time ser two full-time service technicians.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Uh I'm basically we could call me the office or the and Mike was you know, Mike worked here for many years and then um through courses of life uh moved to Cozumel. And one of the positive takeaways we had from COVID was we tried to replace Mike and it was just not the same. And uh and Mike is incredibly invaluable. And we thought, wow, can our service manager really live in Cozumel? And how long have you been doing it from there?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Three years.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I would have even said longer, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Maybe uh it's probably more like three and a half. Uh I exited in 21 and was um helping out, maybe assisting special projects and covering the phones when uh uh somebody in the office was out. Uh came back 22. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 22 and went back to work full time.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

So so that that's one thing.

How Service Memberships Speed Help

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Another initiative that we had is service memberships, which we've mentioned more than once on this on this podcast. But the the service memberships ideas, you know, probably the easiest way to think about it is if you you know if you pay to board a plane uh you know for zone one or zone two or whatever. By the way, I am never like it's um the best case is always zone five.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

I know. And I heard something about this, and I think it has to do with like all the miles that you've racked up. So like all the people that are traveling like consistently, they're gonna get those first couple.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

I gotcha. Okay. All right. So so I'm a five to seven dude.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

But yeah, there are one's gonna be first class.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah, that is one always first class, or is it first class and then one?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

That's a good question. There might be a corporate range of one or two, because they'll uh they'll announce our zone one and two customers.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

And there's business class too. Yeah, there's a lot of classes in and that's the whole point. There's a lot of classes. So, you know, what we uh maybe maybe a better uh example would be the fast pass at Disney. Yes. If you pay for the fast pass at Disney when you go, that is equivalent to paying for a service membership. Uh there are certain we we call it an SLA, fancy acronym, service level agreement. And that that uh agreement is gives us response time parameters and how fast you're gonna get service. And it's not that you won't get it if you don't pay for it, but people that that find that that's important to them, we want to give them uh the ability to yes, it's a it's a rap, it's a more rapid response, a one-hour response time, uh typically.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

And um we like to say same or next day service. Basically, we're trying to move you to the front of the line.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

And Mike is the one that is that one hour response time during the day, uh almost every day. And then he's also the one that is making sure that we live up to those service level agreements. But ultimately the service memberships were there to offer uh advanced or accelerated service to customers that wanted that.

Why We Built The Service App

SPEAKER_02 6:18

So now the next innovation or the next implementation uh was to create an app. And we've been talking about it for years. And before AI, uh it was very expensive, very time consuming. Now with AI, we were able to build a true app that all of our customers can use, and it offers a number of uh a number of things. It's just another way to get service, but some of the things uh that it offers, Mike, are and use the do that one last.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

So it gives you the options to contact us, it just says call support, but it you know, there's other ways to reach us through uh uh email or call us.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

And it actually has all that there. So if you don't have our number programmed into your phone, you can click it and it will call the number. You can click it and it will email the right email address.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yes. We also have web support if you happen to be on our website.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Or if you click it, it will go to the website right to the service link and you start filling it out if you want to give more detail.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yes. Uh there's a help and faq section, which uh brings up three different uh sections that we cover a lot, which is network assistance, video assistance, security systems. Yeah, so the security systems.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yep. So the thought behind there was we went back and we looked at what are the most common things that people call about. And so this is a sort of a fast track. If you've

FAQ Shortcuts Plus AI Chat Help

SPEAKER_02 7:52

got one of those, this has all the steps for taking care of one of those three things already built in, and you don't have to look, you can go there fairly quickly.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Or it might remind you if you haven't done that in a while. Yeah, yeah, sure the the the sort of a best practice of uh steps to reset your network. You know, because some people just go, well, I just unplugged this and and pray. Um I ran into that this morning actually with my uh my host. He uh was having trouble with his Wi-Fi in his office. Oh yeah. And he said, Well, I went and plugged this and it usually works. And I was like, well, let's do it the proper way. And did that fix him up? Yes, it did. Good. Uh but yeah, there's uh video trouble shooting steps and uh alarm, which are pretty much our three biggest items. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

That's right. Um so before we get to the last one, the another the the other concept behind the app is we recognize that people um learn differently, people uh go to different things depending on what they're comfortable with. Some people would never want to like talk to an AI agent or text or chat. Some people would like to you know do the steps themselves, some people want a phone call.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Uh, and then some people would uh engage a service assistant, which is what we have developed here. That's correct. It's uh it's an AI assisted um troubleshooting. That's that's correct.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

So yeah, so there's there's literally, and it's a it's a big blue uh button, uh teal button. When you uh get in there, it's the biggest one. And if you click it, uh it literally is an AI uh chat bot, which again, some people aren't comfortable with, some people would rather uh work with, and and that will allow you to have an interactive conversation just like you are on Chat GPT or Claude or or Gemini or whatever you use, if if you use them, uh, to troubleshoot and it will walk you through best practices and steps and all that kind of stuff. So if either you don't go to the FAQ and you select one of those things, or if it's a problem that we don't have on the FAQ, uh that'll allow you to do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, it's something somebody can explore. I mean, there's a lot of folks out there that they're hearing about AI, but they're not engaging in it. Or maybe they're you know they hear about chat or clawed, they don't know what it means.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

And if you don't like literally, I don't want to turn this into an AI thing. This is about the service app, but you know, literally you don't need to know anything about AI. You just there's just a it's just a chat window. Yeah. Uh, and and so you click in there and ask a question, and it gives you it gives you answers. But it what's cool about this is it is literally um developed based on the equipment, the stuff that that we at Sound Vision and Sound Decisions in Wilmington uh uh sell. So you you know you you can't go in there and ask like when's my flight, you know, what's the my flight status? Like it's not gonna answer that. Um and it actually doesn't even answer stuff about equipment that we don't sell, like it'll tell you it doesn't support XYZ brand if if we don't sell it, right? But it will go very deep into the stuff that we do sell in the in the hopes that it can help. Again, the you know, the idea is not to offload customers to an app. That is not at all the idea. The idea is to give another avenue for people that want it that way, want to consume things or more comfortable that way, so that they they can do that. But if you want a phone call, like that's cool, we'll we'll we'll actually

Response Times Remote Support Costs

SPEAKER_02 11:40

call you with a human being on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah. Our uh, like I said, our membership response time is uh within an hour, uh 9 a.m. to nine p.m. during the week.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Assuming you're on a service membership plan. And and just so we're clear, because we're talking about it now, let's say someone isn't on a service membership plan. What is the general response time? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

24 hours uh during the work week, during the um business days. 24 hours till uh call we will try to call you back within 24 hours.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Okay. And then what kind of response would they expect for uh you know to actually get service at their home or place of business?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

We I would say two days, three days. It really depends on our load. Okay. On our uh service schedule load. I mean, if somebody called me today, it would be true, it'd be tough to get them taken care of this week.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Okay, so it's it's sounds like it's kind of a a best uh our best effort. Yeah, yeah. Uh and and so that might be fine. And but if it's not fine, uh if you if you need uh accelerated response, we've we've got that too. So okay, well that's cool. Andrew, you oh, I thought you were putting up a hand. Were you putting up a hand? No hand, no hand was put up. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Well, I just want to reiterate with the app as well that if you do need more assistance than what it is offering you, it will lead you directly again to those lines to contact Mike. That yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

So it's literally designed. That's a great point. Uh it's literally designed that as you go through the troubleshooting steps, if you kind of get caught, it will suggest that you email, call and contact um one thing, so so it's intelligent in that way. One thing that we didn't touch on that I do want to touch on is remote support as well. So we have remote support, and what is different about remote support than a service app or then calling or whatever? Well, I mean, it's not different than calling, but what's different? What makes remote support different than rolling a truck?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Based on what we have integrated or installed in your house uh or business, uh we have uh cloud-based services that can uh potentially reboot items in your house. Uh give us the status of things like your network, your surveillance system, uh, your alarm system. And with remote support, we can uh usually use this cloud service to see the status of things and uh potentially have uh be on the phone with uh the client instructing them on things that either we can reboot or maybe they can reboot. You know, we might be able to say, hey, we see this one device is offline, and maybe that's why the Wi-Fi is not working in that area. And uh we can uh sometimes we can reboot that device, sometimes we can we can literally do it remotely.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Right, right. And so for we we do uh there is a small charge for that. Well, again, some service membership plans that we have include that uh and no additional charge. Uh, but there is a small charge for doing that, and and the service team will take like a credit card over the phone. Yeah, but the the win-win aspect of it is huge because if we can do that, now there's no truck roll, there's no schedule, like it happens effectively instantly, let's say within you know a few minutes of conversation. You don't have to be inconvenienced at home, you don't have to stay home from work or or like anything. Um, it's just fixed. And if we can't do it, then Mike, am I saying it right? We just apply that charge to the the truck roll and we go out.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, we have a remote service charge. And uh if we can't fix it over the phone, then yeah, we just take that that charge and apply it. I'm talking with my hands and I bang the uh the mic stand here. Generating as inner Italian. Uh yes, but uh we would apply that charge to the uh to the uh service call and a uh basic service call is uh uh $125 plus tax for half hour of service call.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

So it's there's there's like no real cost to the customer. I mean they're they're paying for that, but if it doesn't, if it doesn't work, then we just apply it to we were gonna have to come out anyways.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

So so very cool. And uh again, just to summarize, like the the app that we're talking about, it's it's very powerful, it's it's polished, it I mean, it looks good kind of thing, and it and it works, but it is not a replacement for human service. No, and that's really important. It's just another tool and another avenue for people that would rather I don't know if it's consume or just interact that way.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Well, a lot of people, I mean, I'm the same way. I would I would like to try to fix it myself first. I just that's just me. It's if I have a problem with something, I'm gonna try to figure it out first.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Uh we have clients that would prefer just to have us come out. I mean, I could count many clients with to say, hey, this isn't working, and I just need I just want somebody to come out and take care of it.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

So uh we so we literally we just want to make uh people aware that we have it and that it is a tool. And um, but if you want to hear Mike's melodic voice on the other end of the line, that's always available too. Andrew, anything

Installing The App And Feedback

SPEAKER_02 17:34

else?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yes, one quick thing I want to mention about the app is that this app you cannot find through the app store. This is a PWA, a progressive web application app, that once you get the link from us, it is easy to save it to your home screen so it'll act as a normal app. But again, you're not getting it from the app store, you're getting it from a web link. And what you do with that web link is open it in your browser, you tap the share icon, which is a little square with the arrow pointing up, scroll down and tap add to home screen, tap add, and it'll appear right on your home screen to use as any other app.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

And it's got a Sound Vision logo on it. So when you yeah, when you that I'm so glad you brought that up, Andrew. Uh, it literally once you do that, it is an app. Like on your phone or your tablet or whatever. You cannot tell that it's any different than any other app on there. It's just a way that it's actually downloaded.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

So thank you for that, Andrew. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Anything else you guys got?

unknown 18:38

No.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Well, we encourage our listeners to go try this out. Just give it a to go try out the app, and we'd love to hear your feedback. All right, guys, thanks for joining me. Until next time.